Child, Youth and Family response to the release of the Mel Smith Report

The harm inflicted on this young girl shocked and horrified us all. I welcome the recommendations from Mel Smith's report which aim to prevent this from happening again.

The Chief Social Worker reviewed this case prior to the report being completed and made a number of recommendations.

I can give the public an assurance that all of Mel Smith’s recommendations which relate specifically to Child, Youth and Family are being enacted. 

There is no doubt we should have done a better job protecting this vulnerable young girl.There were periods after she was returned home when our monitoring was poor and there were several instances of unacceptable social work practice.

If the social worker responsible for this practice had not left Child, Youth and Family before the Chief Social Worker's review, she would have been subject to a disciplinary process.

While there were also periods of good social work practice in this case - including in the months leading up to the serious abuse - it's now clear that like a number of other professionals involved with this family our focus was not sufficiently child-centred.

We also failed to work as well as we should have with other agencies and professionals to ensure information was shared effectively.

It is important to remember however, that this was a complex case and a number of professionals were misled by an extremely manipulative mother who had convinced them she had her daughter's best interests at heart.

Mel Smith's review makes it clear that no single action or set of actions taken by any agency that could be deemed 'responsible' for what happened.

Instead he found that if a whole range of systems, practice and laws were more child-centred, this abuse may not have happened.

He also acknowledged that social workers have to make extremely difficult judgements every day of the week, that they are human and won't always get it right.

Child, Youth and Family is committed to working both internally and with others to improve New Zealand's child protection systems and that work is well underway, with considerable progress made over the past year.

The organisation has come a long way since its merger with the Ministry of Social Development in 2006. At that time it was battling deep-seated systemic issues with long queues and children left waiting for help.

Children are now being assessed and getting help as notifications come in.  There are effectively no longer any queues.

As Child, Youth and Family has gotten more in control of its business, it has been able to increasingly focus on the quality and consistency of social work practice.  Real gains have been made here but there is still more to be done.

I am pleased that Mel Smith has acknowledged this. His insights, coupled with those from the Chief Social Worker’s Practice Review, provide all the agencies involved with a very clear direction on where positive changes can occur.

We are firmly focused on better collaboration, information sharing and systems that ensure that the best interests of the child remain at the forefront, no matter how complex their family circumstances.

Today’s report has given all of us who work each and every day to protect children a very solid platform to make some major improvements.

Bernadine MacKenzie

Head of Child, Youth and Family