Keeping kids safe

Children's early years are vital to their long-term development; they are also the time children are most at risk.

All families want to do their best by raising their children in a healthy, safe and nurturing environment, but some families are more vulnerable and need additional support. From experience we know that the earlier families get support, the better off their children are in the long term. Our focus will be on getting this help to all families who need support but with a particular emphasis on families with children aged under two years.

Never Ever Shake a Baby
The Government recently announced a set of initiatives to further protect vulnerable infants, including a new campaign reminding people to Never Ever Shake a Baby. The initiatives are designed to help protect our children aged under two years and feature advertising, new-parent education, community-worker support for abused children and for families, and protection of abuse victims. It focuses on new parents (especially young men) and it is expected to reach up to 5,000 new parents a year.

In 2009/2010, we will:

• put Child, Youth and Family social workers in six hospitals around the country
• develop multiagency plans to protect hospitalized children on their release
• run a multimedia awareness campaign.

Promoting child development
All children need to feel they belong, to a place and to a family. Wherever possible we need to support their family to care for them safely. If they can't live with their parents, we need to support their extended whānau to care for them.

We want to reduce the number of children in our care and to make sure those children in our care are able to find permanent homes as soon as possible. We know culture is a significant factor in successful placements for tamariki and rangitahi. We want to ensure Māori children and young people are placed in culturally appropriate care. We are working with iwi to make sure we have an appropriate group of caregivers available at any time.

Responding when we're needed
Differential Response means we can respond more creatively to families' needs when they come to the attention of Child, Youth and Family and we can work more closely with social service providers in the community. We work with organisations to support families who don't need our help but who would benefit from community-based social services.

Violence-free relationships
There is an increased awareness of family violence and of how to access services and support to help build violence-free family relationships. We are committed to making sure families in our region are safe.

The Whakaatu Whanaunga Trust Opotiki will be running a community campaign promoting non-violence to community leaders, local businesses and sporting organisations, and at community events.