The Press
April 18 1989.
Mistakes 'small price' to protect children
A
possibility that some fathers might be unnecessarily accused of child abuse was
a small price to pay to have children and women protected, said the president
of the Canterbury Association for Mental Health, the Rev. John Elvidge, yesterday.
"While I agree there's a danger that some men, particularly fathers, are
going to be unnecessarily accused, there's a greater worry that men have been
getting away with sexual abuse for a long time, because they have been able to
use the system better."
Mr Elvidge was commenting on the controversy over the
handling of child sexual abuse cases stirred by the television programme,
"Frontline". Mr Elvidge said he had
"some knowledge of the facts" surrounding one of the cases which was
the focus of the programme. "There's a slanted view given because not all
the information was given, which, has resulted in the professionals being
slandered."
Mr Elvidge is also the director of the psychological
counselling services offered by the Campbell Centre, which sometimes refers child
clients with behavioural problems to Ward 24.
He was particularly concerned at the community backlash that could be felt by
those working in the area of child abuse and mental health. He said it was easy
to label as “unprofessional" people who because of the nature of their
jobs could not provide "quick results."
Last evening, TVNZ's "Holmes" had
interviews with the Minister of Social Welfare, Dr Cullen, and an interview
with a senior counsellor for the Equal Parents Rights Association, Mr Des King,
who said the association had been critical of Ward 24's, work for about eight
years.
Mr King told the "The Press" the association was a support group for
parents in cases where the father in a family had been shown to be falsely,
accused of child abuse. He said he had known many such cases and that was a
problem that seemed to be "peculiar to
A group of doctors concerned about sexual abuse care is worried about
television disclosures of the distress being experienced by families as a
result of badly handled investigations into child sexual abuse.
It is equally important that children should be protected from child sexual
abuse and that children and families are protected
from false accusations.
"Our organisation has been formed to improve medical care of all victims
of sexual abuse, and to ensure that all work in this area is of the highest
quality," Doctors ' for Sexual Abuse Care said in a statement.