Child aid cash a mixed blessing

By CARROLL DU CHATEAU

Child, Youth and Family Services - cash-starved, demoralised, undertrained and woefully underperforming - has been given probably the most significant rescue package in the Budget with $184.4 million extra to spend over the next four years.

And yet the CYFS chief executive, Jackie Brown, while delighted, says that even needing the money is an insult to our society.

"I am appalled at the need for a statutory agency like ours inside New Zealand," she said.

"Last September we were hit with the highest demand ever, and it was a year with a lot of publicity around child abuse.

"Sitting above CYFS is the important issue - changing adult behaviour."

The boost in spending comes after a cage-rattling ministerial investigation into CYFS by former Judge Mick Brown, released in March.

The review made eight major recommendations, highlighting lack of training, staff pressure, morale, and systems within the department and including a call to eliminate urgently a backlog of 4200 unallocated cases in which CYFS have been unable to follow up calls about suspected at-risk children.

Much of the extra money in the Budget has already been targeted, says Jackie Brown - $28.8 million over the next four years for new staff and to prevent existing staff leaving, and $56 million for what the department calls care services - the cost of caring for children who must be removed from their families in order to keep them safe.

A further $28.4 million over four years will help provide and develop services for children with high and complex needs, while an additional $37.6 million will go into general operating costs.

A total of $6.2 million has also been granted to to continue the five community programmmes for Maori Youth at Risk of Offending and $2.8 million to help to prevent youth suicide.

There are signals of a change in thinking around keeping children within whanau at all costs. This includes a further $25 million set aside to provide new, purpose-built residences for young people with special needs.

The Budget includes a $1.2 million injection specifically designed to pay workers and eliminate unallocated cases.

Merepeka Ruakawa-Tait, of Women's Refuge, is pleased at the emphasis on early intervention.

"The violence against women and children in our society is a national disgrace, budget or no budget.

"If we don't do something to make sure our services are effective, we face huge problems in the future."

Roger McClay, Commissioner for Children, is particularly pleased about the money set aside for training social workers and the provision for residential care.

"There's a grave shortage of beds for these children. We need to have places to keep young children safe," he said.

Mr McClay also welcomes the extra $400,000 funding for his office.

"That's $78,000 more each week. We'll be able to do more research and therefore comment on cases with more authority."

He said 87 children under 14 were murdered in the past 10 years.

"That is one a month on average. It's huge. I want to look at what's going wrong in New Zealand - and look at other systems that work overseas."

Professionals in the area, while pleased at the money, were at pains to point out that money does not provide all the answers.

Dr Ian Hassall, a former Commissioner for Children, now chairman of Children's Agenda, said: "You can pitchfork money into CYFS endlessly. What we need are good methods of determining outcome."

Former Judge Brown said: "I'm very pleased, though I'm not sure that all the answers go back to money. Attitude changes are important. As I said in the report, it's a complex problem."

www.nzherald.co.nz/budget

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