Our Impact

In New Zealand, childhood exposure to maltreatment and relational trauma is extremely common. Worldwide, approximately one-third of children experience physical abuse, and 25% of girls and 20% of boys experience sexual victimisation (United Nations 2006). Studies by the US Department of Health and Human Services (2011) and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (Pynoos 2001) confirmed without doubt the long-term negative consequences of maltreatment on children.

These children have an increased risk of severe mental and physical health problems, including post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), depression, suicide, substance abuse, heart disease, pulmonary disease and liver disease. Children exposed to multiple traumas are at greater risk of subsequent trauma exposure and cumulative impairment.

These studies revealed the following:

Four out of every five children are maltreated by a parent acting alone or with someone else.

Youngest children are more vulnerable, with those under the age of 1 with the highest rates of abuse.

65% of maltreated children develop PTSD.

90% of children acquire anxious and disorganised attachment patterns. 

53% are likely to be in trouble with the law before becoming an adult.

40% are likely to commit a violent crime.

50–80% of all child abuse cases involve drug and/or alcohol abuse by parents or caregivers

Stand Children’s Services are grounded in a foundation of basic theories, principles and what we learn from research. Our work is science (based on proven theories), but the work of making these theories come alive and using them to make a difference in the lives of vulnerable children and families is art. Our continued learning about attachment, trauma, child development, family systems and neurobiology supports us to provide an effective approach to child healing and parent training that links mind, body and relationships.

Children in families below the poverty line are 45 times more likely to experience neglect and 60 times more likely to die from maltreatment.

Mental health problems are highest for children placed in out-of-home care.

Children who enter out-ofhome care are more likely to exhibit aggressive and antisocial behaviour, use drugs and alcohol and enter the youth justice system.

Children in 80% of high-risk families (poverty, substance abuse, abuse and neglect, intimate partner violence, history of maltreatment in parent’s childhood, depression and other psychological disorders in parents) fail to develop secure attachment patterns.

As a nation, it is imperative that we increase our awareness and understanding of attachment as a critical factor in child and family psychosocial functioning and dysfunction. Armed with this understanding the children’s workforce will become purposeful in applying an effective framework for the prevention, assessment and treatment of the harm caused by relationship trauma.

2017 TDB Report

In 2017, Stand engaged TDB Advisory to empirically and statistically evaluate the impact and value of our services.

They investigated 3 questions

1. is the Service targeting the right children?
2. is the Service having a positive impact on the children?
3. what is that impact worth in terms of fiscal savings to the government over time?

They found that:

1. Behaviourally, (the) children referred to the Service: 

1. on average, exhibit borderline to abnormal total behavioural difficulties;
2. appear to have behavioural distributions that are riskier than the average child; and
3. on average, exhibit a behavioural profile comparable to the ‘high environmental risk’ cohort in the Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) study

2. With repect to the impact of the service

1. while not all children benefit, there is evidence of meaningful positive behavioural change, on average, across the behavioural difficulties metrics used by Stand
2. prior to the intervention (pre-intervention), parents and teachers rate between 50%-60% of the children using the service as having a behavioural profile consistent with the child having abnormal behavioural difficulties. After the intervention (post-intervention) and at a six-month follow-up assessment, this falls to approximately 40%
3. on average, of those who had an improved behavioural profile following Stand’s Service, the improvement was approximately one third from the base line; and
4. in the parent and teacher assessments of behaviour, on average, the children referred to the Service have a change in behaviour profile that shifts from being above the profile expected of the high environmental risk group, to below it (effectively moving the average child from a profile consistent with a high-risk environment to a profile consistent with a medium-risk environment). This may indicate a positive material shift in likely future life outcomes

3. With respect to the financial value of Stand to the government

"(TDB) estimate that if the Service has a positive impact on approximately one in six of the children referred to it, the government will “break-even” (ie, generate future fiscal savings that recover the current cost of funding). If it can exceed this standard, it will generate a positive financial return for the government."