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
We know that for children to develop to their full potential they need to have a sense of belonging - to a place and to their whānau. We are making sure young people spend as little time as possible in care. Where caregivers are able to take children permanently we will help them to gain legal guardianship so their family can develop without our involvement.

All children and young people deserve the opportunity to live with a family they can call their own. We are aiming to reduce the length of time children and young people spend in our care.

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.

Supporting single parent families
There is a small pocket of parents who don't have the normal support of their families. These young people may have become disconnected from their own parents and have been receiving an Independent Youth Benefit before becoming a parent. We will be helping these young parents access health services and education providers for themselves and their children, government agencies and other social services. These parents are also put in touch with parent support groups who can help them to develop parenting knowledge and skills.