Foreword.

AuthorGray, Don
PositionEditorial

I take pleasure in welcoming you to Issue 31 of the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand. I also wish to welcome the members of our new International Advisory Board, who will bring their experience and expertise to supporting the future development of the journal. We look forward to further raising the standard of the journal, drawing on the Advisory Board for strategic direction and guidance.

We devote this issue to the third Social Policy, Research and Evaluation (SPRE) Conference, "Investing in Social Success", convened by the Ministry of Social Development in April of this year. Holly Sutherland's keynote address at the SPRE Conference forms the basis for her paper here on reducing child poverty. This has been an important topic for many past journal issues, and her focus on the sustainability of poverty reduction, drawing on the UK experience and the international literature, is particularly relevant to New Zealand's policy direction.

The third SPRE conference incorporated the innovation of "Connections Sessions" targeted at senior officials from across social sector government and non-government agencies to discuss the New Zealand policy agenda. The papers by Karen Baehler and Eileen Munro, included in this issue, are based on Connections presentations.

Karen Baehler's paper explores the challenges of social and political sustainability for New Zealand, drawing on Alexis de Tocqueville's analysis of the essential threats to egalitarian democracy. She finds the French aristocrat's observations of 19th century America to be a useful jumping-off point to look for essentially New Zealand solutions to these common problems.

Eileen Munro addresses the UK government's policy of "Every Child Matters" and specifically criticises the current processes for information-sharing among professionals for the purpose of monitoring and screening children for targeted services. She identifies the limitations of the system's programme logic, the shortcomings of the system itself and pitfalls of implementation.

At the SPRE conference, two contributions were singled out for special praise. Sophie Goldingay's report on her qualitative research with young women in New Zealand prisons received the TNS Award for Effective Research for presentations based on primary research. Her paper in this issue focuses on one of the themes that emerged from this study, the motherly and mentoring relationships that developed between some older women inmates and the young...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT