Ambitious plan to make our children safe

Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro is seeking all-party support for an ambitious, comprehensive "safety net" for children aimed at turning around New Zealand's high rate of child abuse - the sixth-highest in the developed world.

Dr Kiro will brief ministers today on a proposed integrated framework called Te Ara Tukutuku (Woven Pathways to Wellbeing) to track children's health, safety and education from birth to adulthood.

It is understood four ministers - with portfolios spanning education, law and order, and Maori affairs - and a representative of a fifth, will be in attendance today.

They include Education Minister Steve Maharey and Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope.

Another meeting takes place between Dr Kiro and a sixth Government minister tomorrow.

The plan aims to stop new babies falling through the cracks when a family's midwife or doctor is supposed to hand over to the Plunket Society or another "Well Child" provider - normally when the baby is between 4 and 6 weeks old.

The proposal might not have saved twins Chris and Cru Kahui, who were killed aged three months in Mangere last month. They were still being visited by outreach nurses from Middlemore Hospital because they were born six weeks prematurely.

But Dr Kiro said that the rules needed to change to catch other "outlaw families", or parents in poverty or with alcohol and drug problems or mental illness, who might fail to connect with the Well Child system.

The Government pays the country's 60 Well Child providers to check children through their preschool years, including immunisations at six weeks, three months, five months and 15 months.

Plunket is still the dominant provider, enrolling 90 per cent of new babies.

But maternity carers now have to offer parents the choice of other providers - mainly Maori and Pacific services - and parents may choose not to enrol with anyone.

Plunket's chief executive, Paul Baigent, said modern privacy laws meant that Plunket no longer knew about every new baby and had to wait for mothers to make contact.

"They have to call us. We can't call them," he said.

"The privacy requirements and the fact that they have to ask to see us makes it much more difficult for us to see them. Mothers are also thrown out of hospital much more quickly these days."

The Ministry of Health's chief adviser for child and youth health, Dr Pat Tuohy, said once a maternity carer had referred a baby to a particular Well Child provider, the provider was expected to contact the family.

"We don't wait for the parent to make the contact," he said.

"We may have to strengthen that, but at the end of the day it's up to the parent to want the service."

Dr Kiro said the system still left out parents who chose not to enrol with anyone.

Her proposals, which she is discussing with all political parties, also include:

* A "Roots of Empathy" programme for 8- to 10-year-olds in all primary schools, where mothers bring their babies into the classroom for the children to learn about how babies feel, why they cry and how to look after them.

* More funding for the Well Child system. The Government has promised to boost funding to increase the number of "core contacts" for preschoolers from 6.5 to eight, including a "school-ready" health check before children turn 5.

* Extending regular health checks through the school years.

* Extending on-site health and social services and improved education from nine South Auckland and Porirua schools in the "Aimhi" consortium (Achievement in Multicultural High Schools) to all year 9 students in the country.

* Social workers to help students having problems and their families in all schools, not just the poorest 10 per cent as at present.

* "Youth transition services" to help school-leavers get into jobs or further education.

* Community-run anti-violence education programmes.

* Passing Sue Bradford's bill to remove the legal defence allowing parents to use "reasonable force" to discipline their children.