Maori Interest In Play Centres Grows

Press, Volume C, Issue 29513, 13 May 1961, Page 9

Maori Interest In Play Centres Grows

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, May 12. The growth of interest m play centres by members of the Maori community had been one of the most challenging of recent developments. the president of the New Zealand Federation of Nursery Play Centre Associations (Mrs P. Hughson) said at the association’s annual conference today. The conference, the association’s fourteenth. was officially opened by the Prime Minister’s wife (Mrs K. J. Holyoake). Delegates at the conference represented the six branches of the Federation in New Zealand. Some exploratory work on the subject had been going on in the Wanganui area and in the far north. Wellington Teachers’ Training College students had taken equipment to the Wanganui area and watched the reactions of a group of Maori children, and their parents. They reported that the response had been good, said Mrs Hughson. Mr J. G. Luckock said that the Child Welfare Division, the Education Department and the country as a whole, appreciated the help given by the play centre association’s in the implementing of the child care regulations. The regulations controling tile setting up of child care centres where three er more children under the age of seven years were looked after away from their parents, with or without payment, was prohibited unless a licence was obtained or the centre was exempted. Play centres were among the organisations exempted, he said at the conference. One of the provisions for

an “a” class licence was that the person in charge of the children must have a supervisor’s certificate from the association. “The federation has given much help and have promised more help in time to come,” said Mr Luckock. Questioned about whether examiners for the supervisor’s certificates could visit trainees in the institutions in which they worked. Mr Luckock said h ewould be "terribly disappointed if they did not.” Last year, the total cost of running the play centres was just less than £30.000. The money is gained mainly from attendance charges and subscriptions which last year amounted to more than £15,650. Community efforts, donations and grants supply the rest of the money required. The Palmerston North representative told delegates that by the end of this year his branch expected to open another six centres. Representatives from Buller, Auckland and Christchurch also reported plans for the opening of new centres soon.