August 2007 - Deborah Morris-Travers

August was another busy month for Every Child Counts.

We continued the development of a model for a cross-party parliamentary caucus for children and consulted with MPs about how the caucus might work.

With a lot of publicity about child abuse cases, we issued a media statement and responded to a number of offers from help from new Every Child Counts supporters.

We marked the closing of local body and DHB candidacy with a media statement and with a list of questions we’re encouraging voters to ask of candidates.

We began consultations with external people about our proposed Speakers’ Bureau.

At its Project Team and Steering Group meetings on 9 August, Every Child Counts considered a formal policy on child participation in our project, as well as our public positions on some important political issues.

I attended a forum with parents at a school in Wellington to talk about the change to section 59 of the Crimes Act, which made the use of force for the purposes of correction illegal. My presentation was made jointly with a staff member from SKIP (Strategies with Kids, Information for Parents).

We started developing a list of potential new candidates for membership on the Every Child Counts Steering group and Project Team.

And we continued our preparations for our annual conference and awards ceremony on 5 September.

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