A mum jailed today for almost three years for raising two kids in a clandestine P lab was blasted by a judge as being an "abysmal failure" as a mother.

CYF is investigating a video in which a boy, 6, is seen sculling from a Heineken bottle as part of a Neknominate dare.

Increasing numbers of children have been physically and emotionally abused in the past few years - starkly contradicting welfare officials' claims.

The United Nations children's fund Unicef says children should have a say when they are adopted and when their parents separate.

NZ's child abuse rates are higher than anyone ever realised, officials admit, after bureaucrats bungled the numbers for more than two years.

A CYF caregiver has been humiliated after the organisation wrongly suggested she was being investigated for abuse of a child in her care.

A man who burnt his 5-year-old son's face with a fan heater because the youngster accidentally scorched the carpet has been jailed for almost seven years.

A coroner has slammed police's attempts to locate a troubled teenager who ran away from foster care before being killed in a car crash.

The man accused of burning a 5-year-old child's face with a fan heater has again been remanded in custody.

A five-year-old Christchurch boy suffered severe third-degree facial burns after a man allegedly held a fan heater to his face.

When Robin Vinod turned 17, he couldn't sign a tenancy agreement or be responsible for bills - but that was when CYF left him to fend for himself.

A 13-year-old boy turned down an offer of sex from a woman more than twice his age but she followed him and enticed him into her bedroom, a court has been told.

Instinctively, we feel sympathy for the victim of blackmail, not the deliverer of the threat. Child, Youth and Family was counting on just that emotional response this week when it accused a woman of holding it to ransom over the return of her children.

A woman this week accused of blackmailing CYF became outraged when she learned a convicted killer was getting custody of their child back - while she was in the middle of a so far unsuccessful 7-year battle to regain the right to care for her own kids,

Child Youth and Family has launched legal action claiming a woman was trying to blackmail them after it accidentally sent her somebody else's private information.

A Whangarei grandmother has slammed Child, Youth and Family (CYF) for dumping her two young nephews at her doorstep without providing enough money to look after them.

Irrespective of recent resignations, the reasons for the creation of the inquiry that bears his name still exist. Sir Owen Glenn explains why this important work needs to continue.

Prime Minister John Key says pouring resources into a $25 million suicide action plan is "critically important" to tackling New Zealand's high youth suicide rate.

CYF is reviewing the cases of more than 200 children thought to have been subjected to continued abuse and neglect despite repeated warnings.

A 12-year-old girl who took her own life while in foster care was not given proper support after she claimed to have been sexually abused by a caregiver, a coroner said today.

Police have appealed against the discharge given to the mother who left her children in a SkyCity Casino carpark while she and her partner gambled for two hours.

Police have denied there is a problem with underage prostitution, writes Dave Crampton. Perhaps this is because nobody has laid a complaint with the police?

A 14-month-old baby found abandoned on a Christchurch street late at night is now in Child, Youth and Family care.

A communication breakdown between police and Child Youth and Family meant a teen was on the run for three months before crashing and dying in a stolen car.

Kiwi parents are "unwittingly killing'' up to 60 babies each year, and government agencies are failing to prevent the needless deaths, a coroner warns.