Richard Wagstaff: Private interests won't help vulnerable kids

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Opinion

Lately we've heard a lot about the children we've failed as a country. Children in care are more likely to end up in jail than the rest of the population - effectively giving them a life sentence from childhood.

It's easy to think these children are somebody else's kids - kids that some other parent, family or community has failed. But these children are members of our community and we are responsible for their care.

The Government's due to tell us what they're going to do with CYF and what they plan for children in care. It seems like they're going to continue to follow the path the UK has been on for the last decade - the State will hand over to private corporations like Serco the right to remove children from their families to make sure they're loved and cared for. But is this a job that can be done by a corporation?

Perhaps there's been enough political fallout from the mishandling of Mt Eden prison to prevent CYF contracts going to Serco. The idea of Serco being responsible for a pipeline guiding children through their lives from cradle to grave - from CYF to prison - sounds like something from a dystopian novel rather than preferred government policy.

But there are no shortage of overseas for-profit companies the government could contract out to. There are companies like the UK-based Key Assets, who don't have the reputation of Serco but are still a for-profit company. And a company has no place making millions off our most vulnerable children.

Contracting out responsibility for the care and protection of children to overseas organisations that make their money from this vulnerability doesn't sit right in Aotearoa today, and it shouldn't. We need to resource and develop our own publicly provided services to do this critical work. It's only through structuring these services ourselves that we can ensure any financial surplus is reinvested exactly where it should be - in our communities and in our children.

We need to stop copying what other countries have already proven doesn't work and take responsibility for doing what needs to be done to help parents, whānau, families and communities to support our own kids. We have a wealth of relevant cultural and social expertise right here in front of us, our voices and the voices of practicing social workers need to be at the very core of any review of these services.

It is well evidenced that CYF is significantly under resourced to the point where care can suffer and certainly innovation cannot flourish. Compounding this, successive governments have starved local community and iwi providers of the resources needed to ensure they can sustain comprehensive community and whanau services to keep our children and their families safe, well and together.

It's time the government worked together with all of us here in Aotearoa. We need to take responsibility for solving our own problems instead of bringing in ideas and organisations based on overseas conditions and needs. The CYF review is our chance to stop handing our vulnerable children a life sentence. We can do better for our kids - let's make the right choices for them.

Richard Wagstaff is PSA (Public Service Association) national secretary.