Youth justice crisis goes deeper, says National

The Government's reaction to a highly critical report on youth justice will do nothing to sort out the problems, National said today.

Child, Youth and Family (CYF) has completed a two year-long review into its youth justice role and is calling for 46 more frontline staff and co-ordinators to improve services.

It also called for a return to dedicated youth justice social workers with workers specialising in either care and protection or youth justice cases.

Child Youth and Family Minister Ruth Dyson said the changes would be implemented but would have to be funded by CYF finding savings through its merger with the Social Development Ministry.

CYF is currently being reviewed by Treasury because of concerns that a 50 per cent increase in funding to $457 million since a review in 2003 may have not led to better outcomes.

But National's associate welfare spokesman Anne Tolley said CYF lacked focus and tended to poach resources.

The report suggested CYF was capable of dealing with problems, but National did not agree.

National believed there should be a dedicated unit to deal with youth justice issues so resources did not get diluted into wider care and protection of children, Mrs Tolley said.

CYF manages about 5000 children in care, conducts about 35,000 statutory investigations and receives about 53,000 notifications a year.

It has been through troubled times, often criticised for the way it has handled at risk children and accused of wasting money.

The review said CYF did not have enough staff skilled in dealing with youth justice issues and it had now decided to return to having dedicated social workers in the area.

It said CYF hoped to have youth justice teams in place by the end of the year.

It also said there should be a reduction in the average number of cases dealt with by each social worker from the current 25 to 18.

Youth services had 244 staff but needed 290 to do its job properly with 28 more social workers and 18 youth justice co-ordinators required.

These would cost $3.9 million to operate and $0.5 million in capital funding to set up.

- NZPA