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.

Child Youth and Family are supporting a teenager charged with a violent sex attack on a tourist visiting Waiheke Island.

A teenage mum has been charged with hurting her baby by holding his head under water.

Social workers failed to respond to 20 warnings that the children were being abused and neglected by their father, a convicted child rapist, and their mother.

When Alex MacKay was in a cell and heard his sister crying and pleading over the phone for him to stop and think before turning to crime again, he listened.

The mother who left her five children in a van in a SkyCity Casino carpark while she and her partner gambled hopes to become a social worker.

A mother who abandoned five children in a van in the SkyCity carpark wants to become a social worker, a court has been told.

The new child protection system will bring teachers, doctors and social services together to protect each of New Zealand's 20,000 to 30,000 most vulnerable children.

An eight-month-old who had been in the care of a CYF caregiver for a week died when she became tangled in the blankets she was sleeping in, a coroner has found.

Child protection officials believe New Zealand may be finally tackling its child abuse problem after the first drop in abuse cases for at least eight years.