Child abuse cases 'not being reported'

Nationally more than 700,000 notifications of abuse were made to Child, Youth and Family in the past five financial years. Photo / Thinkstock

The number of notifications to Child, Youth and Family in Rotorua has decreased each year for the past four years - and a Rotorua social worker believes there are still too many cases going unreported.

Information released to the Rotorua Daily Post under the Official Information Act showed the number of notifications made to the agency decreased from 4893 in the 2011 financial year to 3806 last year.

"Notifications" are reports of any kind to the service. Not all are escalated to "care and protection notifications".

Such cases involving concern for the care and protection of children or young people was highest in 2011, at 1357 cases.

Last year 1224 cases involved care and protection concerns.

Instances where evidence of abuse was found also peaked in 2011, at 684 cases. Last year Child, Youth and Family found substantiated abuse in 603 cases.

Open Home Foundation Rotorua manager Natasha Cianci said the drop in notifications was intriguing.

"I'm a bit surprised to hear it has decreased so much because we're still getting the same work through," she said. Open Home Foundation is a child and family support service that provides respite care and fostering for children.

Ms Cianci believed the message that family violence was unacceptable had had some positive effect on the community.

"It's a lot more out in the open, but I still think there's a lot happening behind closed doors that's not talked about, especially here in Rotorua.

"That's purely from seeing and hearing of the cases that are passed on to [Child, Youth and Family] ... There's some pretty complex cases."

It was difficult to get some people to face up to family violence matters, she said. "You can promote all you like but there's things that will always stay hidden because the families don't want to talk about it.

"Until a family steps up and says we're going to talk about this and get to the bottom of it, it will probably just carry on."

Nationally more than 700,000 notifications of abuse were made to Child, Youth and Family in the past five financial years.

The service found evidence of abuse in more than 100,000 of the cases. An additional 180,000 cases highlighted concern for the care and protection of the child and required further action.

Last year the service received 146,657 referrals.

Further action was required in 54,065 of the cases - 19,623 of which included substantiated abuse.

Almost half of referrals were made by police following a family violence callout in which children or young people were involved.

Child, Youth and Family deputy chief executive Bernadine Mackenzie said CYF was focused on creating community environments where abuse and neglect of children and young people wasn't tolerated.

If you or someone you know is being abused contact:
•Police: 111
•Crimestoppers: anonymously: 0800 555 111
•Child, Youth and Family: 0508 326 459
•Family Violence Information Line: 0800 456 450
•Women's Refuge Helpline: 0800 REFUGE