June 2007 - Deborah Morris-Travers

June brought another busy month my way, as preparations for the annual He Mana to ia Tamaiti/ Every Child Counts conference intensified. The conference will take place in Wellington in September, with an audience of about 100 people from the community and government sectors. The theme for the conference is: "Are we there yet/ Placing children at the centre of policy and planning." We will have six speakers, and also a cross-party panel of MPs, looking at how central and local government can ensure children's needs are met at the policy and service delivery levels.

In early June I participated in meetings about how best government and non-governmental organisations can ensure parents receive information about the change to Section 59 of the Crimes Act, which outlaws the use of force for the purposes of correcting a child.

I also attended a forum in Auckland, about child-friendly cities. The event was very interesting and caused me to think about ways in which urban planners and developers ought to factor children into what they are doing.

In mid-June Every Child Counts had a Project Team and Steering Group meeting, where I reported on my activities for the first half of the year. I also got approval to proceed with two important new initiatives: establishing a Speaker's Bureau of people who can speak about the issues impacting on child well-being; and consulting with Members of Parliament about a new cross-party caucus on children's issues. Both of these initiatives are proceeding well, with planning advancing quickly!

In support of the work to establish the Speaker's Bureau, I attended an excellent speech writing workshop at Write Group.

And so, June was spent focussing on preparations for conference, and getting new initiatives up and running that.

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