Parents Centre to close by end of 2024

The closure of New Zealand's largest parent support centre and education provider is being described as a real loss, incredibly saddening and a historic moment, after seven decades of advocating for women, new parents and young families.

The Parents Centre Aotearoa charitable trust, which offers childbirth and parenting classes in more than 60 locations, announced on Friday that it would close at the end of the year. It has been in operation since the 1950s.

In a post on Facebook, the trust said that, like many charities, it had been working "in a challenging operating environment and the board has made the difficult but necessary decision to begin winding down".

Financial sustainability and resourcing were always challenging for the non-profit sector, it added, but it cited "rising service delivery costs and reduced national funding availability... [in] the most challenging operating environment in many years" for intensifying those challenges.

New Zealand College of Midwives chief executive Alison Eddy said its demise was a "real loss" and the Parents Centre had played an important role by advocating for more natural births. It had helped change the maternity system in the late 1980s and 1990s from a medicalised model to a midwife-led one, which was now well-established.

"Parents Centre has been in existence for decades, in response to the needs that families have, when they have new babies or they're growing young children. It's been a really critical part of our community infrastructure, for many, many communities, so it's a real loss that this organisation has been unable to sustain itself."

Eddy said family support services, such as antenatal classes, were offered elsewhere - such as culturally relevant models like Hapū Wānanga ki Tainui - but not everyone was able to attend them.

"There are other places these courses occur but they won't be as accessible now. It's going to be even harder for families to find those options in their communities, because of this closure."

One parenting educator posting on Facebook said the news was "absolutely devastating beyond words" and "the end of an era". Women who had used the service as new mothers said it was "desperately sad" and "a huge, huge loss".

Eddy said fewer antenatal classes could add to midwives' workload, and the "funding squeeze" seen across the public sector was worrying.

"Will these services be replaced, will they be funded, will there be things that families can access that is useful information and important for them to have? We don't know the answer."

It was "a real concern" that non-governmental organisations, or NGOs, "who are often funded very meagrely by central agencies, are finding it increasingly hard to survive in this environment", she added.

It also meant "one less place" for new families to learn about issues like vaccination for diseases such as whooping cough. The closure was announced on the same day as public health officials announced a whooping cough epidemic.

'Massive loss' - Parents Centre tutor

Meanwhile, a childbirth and parenting educator warned the demise of the national network would fragment maternity care, and make it harder for new mums and dads to be sure they were getting quality advice.

Nelson Parents Centre antenatal tutor Amelia Crundwell said the maternity sector was unregulated, but non-qualified players could now pop up more easily.

"We have all these incredible, qualified childbirth educators but it's quite hard, and it will become harder, to decipher who is providing quality education and what else is out there."

Upwards of 60 people could lose their jobs, she added, and she was heartbroken for the hundreds of families who would be affected by the closure.

Crundwell said she attended antenatal and postnatal courses at her local Parents Centre when she was pregnant with both her children, and it inspired her to become an antenatal tutor.

"On top of that, I got a ton of skills and information and options that helped me navigate birth, pregnancy and the parenting phase. So that to me is a massive loss."

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