Changes to welfare abuse programme announced

Paula Bennett. Photo / Rotorua Daily Post

Early intervention programme Family Start has "drifted" and will be required to measure outcomes and focus more on preventing abuse and targeting families in the most need, Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says.

Family Start would undergo "significant changes" and independent reviews Ms Bennett commissioned found providers varied in effectiveness and practice standards.

Ms Bennett announced the review two years ago of the programmes which cost about $30 million a year.

The programmes deliver intensive home-based services to families with high needs to help support their children.

"We know early intervention works, we believe it's the right approach, but reviews show the programme's focus has drifted over time," Ms Bennett said.

"We need to make sure that it comes back to core principles - protecting children from abuse and neglect, making families better able to cope and increasing health and education outcomes for children."

Changes would include:

* New outcomes and ways of measuring them;
* increased focus on child abuse detection/prevention;
* ensuring families that most need help get it;
* a new team of specialist technical advisors to be set up.

The new programme standards and guidelines would be introduced in stages over two years to allow providers time to refocus their programme delivery.

"By explicitly requiring Family Start providers to focus on outcomes for children and preventing child abuse and strengthening social work practice and supervision, we expect to see some real results," Ms Bennett said.

"This programme has been running for 13 years with some success, but we believe it could be much more effective. Successive governments have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Family Start since 1998 and we need to be sure we're getting results."

Ms Bennett went to the Home Visiting conference in Washington DC last month where she met 400 of the top early interventions providers in the United States.

"They are achieving good results for families while maintaining a strong focus on protecting children from abuse and neglect. I came home convinced that we can achieve better outcomes here," Ms Bennett said.

- NZPA