Child-check critics say monitoring is 'overkill'

Cindy Kiro

A plan to track the wellbeing of New Zealand's one million children from birth to the end of their schooldays has outraged civil libertarians.

Council for Civil Liberties chairman Michael Bott said the latest version of Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro's plan for an "information hub" tracking every child would be "total overkill" to deal with a tiny minority of inadequate parents.

But Plunket Society president Kaye Crowther welcomed the plan, intended to make sure no children "fall through the cracks".

The "integrated framework for children and their families" has been signalled by Dr Kiro in speeches this year.

The final version, to be unveiled at a Barnardos conference in Wellington today, says all children will be assessed at four points - after birth, just before starting school, starting adolescence (age 11 or 12) and leaving school.

The checks would cover the child's physical, emotional, psychological, social and educational development.

A primary professional at each stage, such as Plunket at the first two checks and a school social worker for the later checks, would work with the child's family to develop an individual plan for each child and ensure the child got access to any services it needed.

Basic details would be entered into a computerised database.

"I propose an information hub that would have absolutely basic information about children on it, such as their name, date of birth, current address, and what agencies have been involved with them," Dr Kiro said.

The database would not contain the details held by each agency, but would give the latest date of contact and the key worker at each agency.

A teacher worried about a student, for example, would be able to look up the database, see that the family had been visited by police, and contact the key worker at the police station.

The police officer might not be able to give the teacher details for privacy reasons, but the teacher's call would be useful.

"The police will have a phone call from the teacher who can say, 'I detect something might be going on'," Dr Kiro said.

"Then it's up to the key worker to make sure someone follows up."

Similar checks at low-income high schools in the "AimHi" group had found, for example, that 63 per cent of year 9 students had hearing problems.

"Most families will require very little support or assistance," she said. "That is a good thing. If their child needs glasses, they can get glasses.

"If their child has a deep passion to play rugby and they never knew about it, now they will know, and the school can suggest people they could contact."

Dr Kiro said the plan would cost money but she had not done costings.

"I'm not the Treasury," she said. "But it's going to cost money because I'm talking about a sizeable investment in Well Child services, AimHi services, social workers in schools, a comprehensive framework."

Research showed that every dollar spent on a child saved society $11 in later life.

Mrs Crowther said Plunket lost track of many children after their first few months.

"This is a way of making sure all children have their immunisations, are ready for school and are followed through those school years," she said.

Auckland privacy lawyer Tim McBride said the plan should not be dismissed out of hand, as laws existed to control access to information gathered on children.

He suggested a comprehensive assessment of the plan's effects on conflicting rights, including privacy.

But Mr Bott said the "big brother" plan would undermine families.

"It makes every single parent in New Zealand a suspect," he said.

"Parents with problems with their children may be frightened or deterred from seeking help from state agencies because it will become a permanent record and stay with them for the rest of their days."

Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff is overseas and could not be contacted.