Keep at-risk children safe - with emphasis on under two-year-olds

Children are entitled to be safe. Systems are in place to care for and protect children in at-risk families. The early years in the life of a child are of critical importance to their overall development. A safe, happy, and healthy early life can improve a child's health, learning ability, and development.

Improved allocation of children in care cases

Child, Youth and Family experienced it's lowest ever rate of unallocated cases during the 2008/2009 fiscal year. This occurred despite notifications of children needing our assistance increasing by 20 per cent. There has been a greater emphasis on managing the unallocated cases to social workers, reducing the risk of children and young people not getting the interventions they need, when they need them.

During the year the number of unallocated cases peaked in December 2008 (690 cases) and dropped to a low at 31 May 2009 (204 cases). The position of these peaks and troughs has been the same for the last five years and can be attributed in part to seasonal holiday periods.

254 cases were unallocated to social workers at the end of June 2009, a reduction of 75 per cent since 2005 (1,040 unallocated cases).

Differential Response

Differential Response is a component of the care and protection process.
It provides an alternative strategy to help children and young people who are at risk in less serious cases.

Differential Response allows us to work with social services providers in the community to support those families who would be better helped by getting the right services to the child through community-based support rather than through statutory social work intervention.

Differential Response rollout in 2008/2009 was:

• assessed at all sites in February 2009

• rolled out nationally by June 2009

Training has been completed at all sites.

Creating permanency

Creating permanency is key to establishing a sense of belonging for children and young people and to promoting their wellbeing. Permanency is defined as a permanent living arrangement for a child or young person that provides them with a lifelong relationship with nurturing caregivers in a home that they can grow up in.

In 2008/2009 we continued to implement a national programme to support access to permanency for children and young people in care. We now have permanency goals in place for most children and young people in our care. We have developed a new database that records the care and permanency details of these children and young people. We have also introduced regional disability advisors to work with our social workers and disability organisations to help provide better support for children and young people with disabilities in our care. To promote permanency, caregivers caring permanently for a child or young person are supported through the reimbursement of legal costs and ongoing financial support. We have also worked to address benefit interface issues for parents resuming the care of their children.

Health and Education Assessment Framework

We have rolled out a trial Health and Education Assessment Framework in 10 Child, Youth and Family sites in Auckland. This assessment helps to ensure all children and young people who come into our care get tailored health and educational assistance, based on their needs.

Children's Health Camps

We funded the Children's Health Camps to work with children and their families, who are considered at risk of poor life outcomes, or who have complex health, social or behavioural needs. The camps aim to improve the resilience of children and their families, and improve their health, education and social outcomes. Children and their families are provided with access to information in a supportive environment which provides tools and strategies to help them cope.

Teenage Parent Service Co-ordinators

The Teenage Parent Service Co-ordinators provide teenage parents with better access to the support services they need for themselves and for their young children. Research shows that teenage parents and their children are more likely than older mothers to have multiple and complex needs, and they can be reluctant to approach the services they need.

Nine Teenage Parent Service Co-ordinators, working from existing youth services in communities with high rates of teenage births, have been employed to help teenage parents get access to health services, education providers, government agencies like Housing New Zealand and Work and Income, and other social services. They also put them in touch with parent support groups who can help them to develop parenting knowledge and skills. The co-ordinators give teen parents the tools to access the services they need and promote the long-term wellbeing of both children and themselves.

The initiative was initially funded for three years (July 2006 to June 2009). In May 2009, the Government approved $1.008 million for an additional year of funding. This will allow the current evaluation of the Teenage Parent Service Co-ordinators initiative to be completed.

Early Years Service Hubs

Early Years Service Hubs provide families with easy access to a range of integrated services that focus on children from pre-birth to school-entry age. They improve the accessibility of services for families who are at risk of missing out on the services available to them.

The hubs are a central point where families can access ante-natal care, Well Child health checks and immunisation programmes, and quality childcare and education for under five-year-olds. There are 13 hubs nationally.

Growing up in New Zealand (Longitudinal Study of Children and Families)

We are a major contributor to the Growing up in New Zealand study. Multiple government agencies are also sources of funding for the
25-year study. This research, led by the University of Auckland, captures many dimensions of child wellbeing. The study looks at things like the environment the children in the study are raised in through to adulthood, and the interaction between these environments and the different
aspects of the children's physical and social development. A sample of mothers early in their pregnancies has been selected, with the first wave
of post-natal data collection set to commence in mid-2009.

Publication of Children and Young People: Indicators of Wellbeing in New Zealand

Over the past five years, we've worked in consultation with social agencies within the health, care and support, education, economic security, safety, civil and political rights, justice, cultural identity, social connectedness and environment domains to produce the second Children and Young people: Indicators of Wellbeing in New Zealand report. The report provides an overview of the status of New Zealand children and young people. The data covers a range of social wellbeing dimensions that support our reporting obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Improved Child, Youth and Family performance measures

When the merger of Child, Youth and Family and the Ministry occurred in 2006, Child, Youth and Family had 15 underperforming measures. For some of these measures, the level of underperformance was alarming. Child, Youth and Family have made significant improvements in achieving output performance measures in the 2008/2009 year - way ahead of those in the previous three financial years.

This year Child, Youth and Family's performance has been strong. Achieving significant progress for many of their performance measures and in some areas exceeding the standard. An example is the measure 'Percentage of children and young people whose youth justice family group conference plans were completed and the objectives were assessed as being met'. Historically this measure has under-performed. Child, Youth and Family reviewed their systems and processes, and introduced a number of improvements to the way they record and measure the way they work. As a result, in the 2008/2009 year, the standard for this measure exceeded the target by 10 per cent.