Transformation of child services begins

Changes starting today will provide New Zealand’s most vulnerable children and young people with far greater help and support, Children’s Minister Tracey Martin says.

“For too long New Zealand has been grappling with how to better protect and help children who are at risk of harm,” Minister Martin says.

“Most recently, in 2015, the Expert Advisory Panel (EAP) on Modernising CYF advised the government that the country needed a new, child-centred agency that would lead the change to a completely different care, protection and youth justice system.

“Since 2017, Oranga Tamariki has made good progress in strengthening its core services and building the foundations for today’s shift. It has recruited 350 more caregivers for children and 270 more social workers, and tried new ways of working including community based remand homes and strategic partnerships with iwi.

“However, the step change that we need to transform the care system required a major funding boost, and the $1.1 billion investment in the Wellbeing Budget has provided that.”

From today, five major changes occur:

• New National Care Standards come into effect – the first time New Zealand’s state care system will have explicit care standards letting children in care and their caregivers know what to expect and what is required.
  
• Most 17-year-olds will be included in the youth justice system, instead of the adult system, with an increased focus on education, training and rehabilitation to provide the skills to stop their offending.
  
• A new service to support an estimated 3,000 young people to prepare for and transition successfully from care and youth justice services to adulthood begins.
  
• Explicit Treaty obligations take effect which sets out the Ministry’s responsibilities to improve outcomes for Māori children and young people, and their whānau.
  
• A new intensive intervention service that will work with families to keep children safe at home will be rolled out, and NGO and iwi providers of early intervention services receive a funding boost.

“Breaking the cycle of child harm requires intervention at the earliest possible point and better support for children in care so they can live the lives they deserve,” Mrs Martin says.

“We want fewer children in state care. Children need to be safe, but they want to be with their families and whanau and we have to support that to happen more.

“If children and young people are in care we want them to get any extra help they need, and as much as possible, to have the same sorts of lives as any other Kiwi kids.

“And we want them to leave care ready for the start of adult life, and knowing that there’s support if they want it.”

The Minister said that the changes within Oranga Tamariki addressed major historic gaps in the care and protection system.

“I have to reiterate, however, that no government agency can deliver better outcomes for children on its own and the government system isn’t New Zealand’s child care system.

“Looking after our children and families is a job for all of New Zealand. It is the most difficult parts of that work that usually fall on government agencies and NGO and Māori providers.”

The Minister said that the new Oranga Tamariki operating model beginning today and the Wellbeing Budget acknowledged the role of these community-based groups.

“In total we expect the new model and spending to involve around 900 new roles by the end of year four – that’s across areas like the new intervention and transition services, supported accommodation and community youth justice placements.
“We expect iwi, Māori organisations and NGOs to provide about half of those required roles.”

There is also money explicitly for partners, for example $26 million to meet cost pressures in early intervention services, and $29 million to better support iwi, Māori and NGO providers of care to meet the care standards.