Originally aired on Nine to Noon, Thursday 27 August 2015.
Five thousand children are in the care of the state but a new report by the Children’s Commissioner questions whether they are better off as a result of that intervention. In his first comprehensive review of Child Youth and Family, Russell Wills highlights a lack of monitoring, follow up and reporting, by the agency. Lucy Sandford-Reed is the Chief Executive of the Social Workers Association.
Copyright Radio NZ.
One reply on “Children’s Commissioner says CYF failing children in state care”
Two really interesting and ‘worth a listen’ interviews. It was heartening to hear the Commissioner talk about the CYF site that was working well, especially when he was talking about supervision and leadership commitment a clear focus on children- and we can’t ignore those as factors in supporting the best practice possible with the resources. And the time and resources for genuine longer term work with children and families are not there. We know that much longer term social work has been contracted out. And there is the risk of children becoming invisible , if inter-agency work is not well coordinated. And just doing perpetual stream of investigations/assessments creates a horrible treadmill of stressful work for CYF colleagues.
But we cannot go on sending so many kids in care into a further cycle of failing placements. There’s not much here we don’t already know, as many have pointed out and it’s hard to hear again and again about failure when those with their hands on the $$$ won’t discuss anything other than ‘radical overhaul’. Especially when they won’t rule out contracting to service companies like SERCO.