An 11-year-old who was behind the wheel of a car being driven erratically and at speeds up to 120km/h has been spoken to by police.

Giving young people a chance and encouraging them to do the best they can in life is what Auckland couple Rob and Zee Luisi are all about.

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

A teen has been left in limbo without education for 305 school days as new figures spark concerns that at-risk pupils are falling through the cracks.

A former Hawke's Bay CYF caregiver who admitted to kicking, hitting and hurling insults at children placed in his care has been sentenced to 10 months' home detention.

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.

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,

X Factor boy band Moorhouse, judge Stan Walker and Whenua Patuwai took their smooth sounds to at-risk youth held in a boys home in a bid to turn lives around.

An 11-year-old boy fathered a child to a friend's 36-year-old mother in a case that has prompted the Justice Minister to ask why women can't be charged with rape.

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?