The new Vulnerable Children's Ministry wants to recruit 1000 more foster parents in a dramatic bid to improve the quality of state care for children.

Young people in state care will soon have a right to stay in or return to care until they turn 21.

COMMENT: Recent cases indicate violence between and against children is widely accepted.

Teens were unlawfully detained for weeks on end in the seclusion wing of a youth justice facility run by Child Youth and Family, according to its own senior staff.

With gangs deeply ingrained in Hawke's Bay, a new government initiative to steer youth away from them could provide lasting benefit

A teenager has appeared in court in relation to a brutal carjacking in Panmure last week which left a 65-year-old woman in hospital.

A Dunedin youth advocate has hit out at Child, Youth and Family after young offenders have had to spend time in police cells.

A mother-of-four children was "in the grips of an extended drinking binge" when her four young children were found walking along a busy Hamilton street on their own.

A mother of two special needs children says sending your child to school feels more like babysitting than an education.

Mother of 3-year-old killed by caregivers breaks down in court as pair are jailed for highest manslaughter sentence handed out in New Zealand.

Rallies across the country for toddler who was beaten, tortured and killed, as Tania Shailer and David Haerewa jailed for 17 years each.

The man and woman who pleaded guilty to killing Taupo 3-year-old Moko Sayviah Rangitoheriri have been sentenced to 17 years each at the High Court in Rotorua.

Chris Kahui has become a grandfather - on the 10th anniversary of the death of his baby twin sons who were murdered in 2006.

Vulnerable youths were at risk in a youth justice residence, while other facilities have an institutional feel and "prison-like" secure care, says a report.

Nia Glassie and Moko Rangitoheriri were both beaten to death at the age of 3.

COMMENT: Our government departments are setting up new data-sharing systems that New Zealanders ought to discuss, writes David Rutherford.

COMMENT: New Zealand has no shortage of tea-stained reports about the failures of Child Youth and Family and its hard-working, well-meaning staff.

The new "Super-CYF" department unveiled yesterday will take responsibility for about one in five Kiwi children at some point in their childhoods.

Tackling anti-competitive behaviour is one of new dame's many missions.

Dame Paula Rebstock has called on the New Zealand community to take vulnerable young children "into their hearts and homes" as she seeks to apply an investment approach at one of the country's most controversial agencies.

From the flag debate to the outrage surrounding the TPPA, this year the government was at the centre of the country's three biggest PR challenges.

When Daryl Brougham was 11, his social worker said: "Daryl, the way you're going, you're going to end up in jail."

Child Youth and Family could not find anywhere for teen to go after her arrest.

Rather than placing children in foster care the state should be helping to strengthen their family unit.

The disabled boy social workers said was being used by his alcoholic mother and her boyfriend has lost access to a vehicle specially modified to meet his needs.

It is a grim glimpse of the front line of social work - an 1100-page dossier of abuse and misery cataloguing the life of Benjamin*.

Severely disabled child used by his alcoholic mother and her boyfriend to access up to $80,000 in benefits.

It is extraordinary that a West Auckland teenager was held in police station cells for four days because CYFs could not find a bed for her, Labour says.

Social Development Minister Anne Tolley says it's "very difficult" to stop negligent parents having more children but the country needed to have the discussion.