Estimates Debate — Vote Child, Youth and Family Services

Tēnā koe, Madam Chairperson. Tēnā tātou katoa. The protection of children is the greatest goal of society. The interests of the child, the youth, and the family existed long before there was a department of the same name, and will remain long after the department’s latest reform into another tier of the Ministry of Social Development. The protection of children outdates any Budget cycle, and must remain our greatest priority as a society. For ultimately it is the whānau, hapū, and iwi; it is āinga; and it is family that hold the key to the successful outcomes set out in the 2007-08 estimates.

The State has a critical role in investing in communities to help them to ensure the health and well-being of their own. Nowhere has this concept been more apparent than in the rhetoric of the last fortnight as we have seen all Aboriginal people in Aboriginal communities demonised for the child welfare crisis that they have themselves been speaking about for decades. Dr Chris Sarra, the 2003 Australian of the Year and Director of the Institute for Indigenous Leadership in Education and Development based at Cherbourg, has been one of those speaking out and reminding the world that, politically speaking, there are no votes in ameliorating concerns in Aboriginal communities—hence, it is a case of calling in the army—but there is every reason to do so in terms of what is right. He said: “I challenge the Prime Minister to approach an Aboriginal child on his next visit to a remote community and hold that child close so that he feels their heart beating close to his, then look into their brown eyes and say, ‘You and your family are my family … I can see you need help … and we are going to help your family and your community to fix things here and make it right for you.’ ”

I took the time to share that story today because I think it illustrates a principle so central to how we should approach Vote Child, Youth and Family Services; how we approach the issues associated with placements for children and young people; how we approach respite care; and how we approach social work, care, and protection. When I read the report of the Social Services Committee—with its concerns about the number of times children placed in Child, Youth and Family’s care are moved, repeatedly and frequently; the question of inappropriate or undesirable placements; and whether the differential response model will be effective in reducing the recurrence of abuse and neglect—I wonder what we are doing for our families and our communities to fix things here and make it right for them. The cost of creating more harm is, of course, substantial.

I remind the Committee of the context for comments we made last week urging that the political focus abroad and at home should not be a case of “Ask what we can do to you.”, but, rather, “Listen and learn and support what you can do for each other.” The context of the Little Children Are Sacred report was one of gross endemic child sexual abuse. It is a context that communities seldom have the courage and the commitment to name and to talk about aloud. We even have an estimated financial cost for such a crime. It costs the victim, the offender, and the Government, on average, $84,175 to respond to each case of child sexual abuse occurring here in Aotearoa. Included in this breakdown are the general practitioner visits; mental health care; loss of income for victim and offender; police, prison and court costs; accident compensation counselling; and the victim’s pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life.

Excluded from that figure, however, are the economic costs that spring from the ripple effects of child abuse and child sexual abuse. How do we account for the costs imposed on other people as a result of a lifetime scarred by sexual abuse? How do we measure the impact on alienated families, on families torn apart by such crimes, and on children forced to flea to escape the hurt of allegations that are not believed?

Child victims of sexual abuse are more likely to underachieve educationally. Between 31 and 51 percent of inpatients and outpatients of mental health services have been found to be sexual abuse survivors. Drug and alcohol abuse patterns are more prevalent amongst survivors, and there are higher rates of substance abuse. Primary health centres have found higher rates of health problems amongst women who have been sexually abused, and each of us will know from our constituents that the most common pathways to crime are based on survival of abuse and poverty.

So why is it invisible? Why do we shift children from pillar to post, transfer Child, Youth and Family to yet another department, and dream up another differential response model? The answer surely lies in the problem, and how and who responds to it. In the Otago women’s health study of 3,000 women it was found that the vast majority of the abusers were young men who were known to the victims, yet only 7.5 percent of all abuse was ever reported to the statutory agencies. If the notifications are not happening, and the abuse clearly is, what will we do to ensure our little children are, indeed, sacred? Although the bean counters may rejoice that this year’s appropriations for Vote Child, Youth and Family Services have plummeted by a mere $9 million, I have to ask whether saving money will save lives?

As a society and as a Parliament we seem to be obsessed with punishing the manifestation of the impact of child sexual abuse. What if we were, instead, to have as a vision the challenge of closing down prisons, reducing the demand for psychiatric services, and taking dramatic action to address our dramatic suicide rates? Twenty years ago Jane von Dadelszen released a ground-breaking study that examined the histories of sexual abuse among girls in the care of the Department of Social Welfare. In the report, 136 15 and 16-year-old girls were interviewed. Over two-thirds had experienced sexual abuse. Half the abuse was perpetrated by family members. Just under one-tenth of the abusers fitted the profile of “stranger danger”. The average age of the girls when they were first abused was 10 years old, and the average age of the abuser was 28. There were no ethnic differences in the incidence of abuse, but Māori girls were more likely to show anger in response to the abuse, and Pākehā girls were more likely to report fear and confusion. It would be fascinating now to interview that same group of 136 35 and 36-year-old women and to understand the true lifetime cost of sexual abuse. The nature of sexual abuse has kept this hidden and has prevented victims from having a platform to bring it out into the open.

Aboriginal communities have demonstrated that some exceptional leadership capacity exists in their communities, and they have brought the prevalence and the impact of childhood sexual abuse in their communities out into the public arena. Are we brave enough in New Zealand to take a serious look at the social and economic harm, and at the devastation upon individuals and families, associated with sexual abuse?

I was pleased to see in the estimates report that Child, Youth and Family talked about its vision of supporting families, consulting with families, and, wherever possible, ensuring that children and young people remained within their own family. I absolutely endorse this approach. I also understand the concerns of the Social Services Committee that we must ensure that children’s welfare must not be compromised. But the solution to situations of risk or danger within families does not rest in punishing the child and extracting such children from all that they know, and in pulling them out from the shelter of their family home—quite the contrary. If the problem lies in the whānau, we should let the hapū or iwi be the solution. It is about using the right process for reconciliation to occur. The key is that we do not make one wrong right by creating a fresh wrong. The Government’s history and reputation in implementing a flawed Treaty settlement process is a classic example of this. The solution lies in working with families to restore their natural responsibilities and obligations to care for and protect their own. The costs of any other approach will lead this nation into ongoing moral and social bankruptcy. Tēnā koutou.

At the time that the Social Services Committee considered the estimates for Child, Youth and Family, the Audit Office was unable to supply us with a report. The committee took advantage of the kind offer of the Minister Ruth Dyson to return after an audit report was provided. Even at that second visit, internal budgets for the 2007-08 year were yet to be set. However, we did ascertain that extra money was being budgeted for foster care, and United Future supports that.

But, of course, such an allocation begs the question: what about grandparents raising grandchildren, and other kinship caregivers raising children, considering that it is often Child, Youth and Family that calls on grandparents to step up to the plate? Once it is clear that kin caregivers are going to be the permanent caregivers for a child, then the costs seriously kick in for those people. They have a new mortgage on the bigger house they have to buy, having previously downsized for their retirement. They have ongoing legal bills, counselling costs for the traumatised children in their care, plus all the other expenses that are covered by additional allowances for foster parents, but those allowances are not available for grandparents.

So we see grandparents failing to fill their own prescriptions, leaving employment to focus on the children, and ploughing through retirement savings at a great rate of knots. When will the Government face up to the fact that the failure to invest that little bit more in these families will not ultimately save it a cent? These children typify the category identified by countless research papers as at risk, but are responsive to early intervention.

One of the other concerns of Child, Youth and Family is the unacceptable number of times that children in the department’s care are moved around. Although the select committee was told that respite care accounted for some of the movement, the department admitted that it was unable to distinguish in its records and statistics between moves between carers, respite care, and time back with the child’s family. The select committee in its report suggested that differentiating between care options may help identify undesirable and temporary placements that need to be addressed.

This highlights for me one of the most serious holes in this department’s service at present. Currently, there is no independent advocacy for children or their families. There are no independent mediation services and no independent complaints service. If people are reliant on the goodwill of their case manager to honour decisions made in a family group conference, reliant on their goodwill to determine how often they get to see their children and in what circumstances, then without independent advocacy the imbalance of power is extreme. Constituents whom I have dealt with are too scared to question or complain, fearing that a further downgrading of their contact arrangements will occur. They are rarely equipped with the calm and coherent verbal skills to negotiate or appeal decisions made, and if they do complain, often it is noted evidentially on a file where it can be used against them.

Nobody resents the statutory powers that Child, Youth and Family has, but even the police have a complaints authority. The Minister has told us again that the differential response model, having been piloted extremely successfully in New Plymouth and Royal Oak, will be rolled out across the country. In the opinion of United Future, that cannot happen soon enough. The previous speaker was concerned about a lack of consultation with not just community organisations but also iwi. I believe that such consultation would be strengthened with the differential response model as it would allow community groups and iwi to be involved in the decisions made around children.

To have a department that is drowning in ever-increasing notifications, most of which are medium to low-level neglect notifications, and at the same time to have competent social service providers and iwi providers who are well able to execute professional interventions where no statutory powers are required sitting around waiting for the Government to trust them enough to pass on the work to them, is completely criminal. It is criminal when we consider that a large percentage of the high-criticality notifications are second and third notification cases that deteriorated while waiting for proper social work to be done. Having said that, I point out that I do not blame Child, Youth and Family staff, but I do blame Child, Youth and Family policy for this problem.

The multimillion-dollar questions are these: why is there such a culture of mistrust in the profession of social work, and does the department contribute to this mistrust? For instance, do teachers, lawyers, and accountants mistrust the professional standards of those who do not work in the same building as them, but are of the same profession? No, they do not. I say to the Minister that there is a huge amount of scepticism right now in the non-governmental organisation sector as to whether the department really will roll out the differential response model. In some regions those organisations do not believe that there is the will and intention to repair the relationships that exist between themselves and Child, Youth and Family to the state whereby low-level risk work can be passed on to them in order to free Child, Youth and Family staff to do the high-risk work we want them to be doing.

There is a huge difference from region to region as to the quality of the relationship that exists between Child, Youth and Family and local non-governmental organisation providers. In some regions there is a culture of active antagonism. I have had reports from the chief executive officers of some non-governmental organisations who have said that they believe that, at a local level, their Child, Youth and Family branch will not cooperate with any ministerial directive for it to pass on work. The staff will pay lip service, they will sit in the meetings and nod their heads, but they have absolutely no intention of moving towards a place where they can pass on this low-level work to these highly competent providers. I think it is a crying shame that this issue is not being addressed very, very seriously.

If the Minister is serious about engaging in a much more relevant way with the non-governmental organisation sector to have it help provide the work that needs to happen, she needs to show equal sincerity in following up on branches that seem to be making slow progress in this regard, to find out what the real problem is. The feedback I am getting is that in some places there is huge resistance. I understand that in some sense social work is a young profession. We have created a Social Workers Registration Board and have given social workers 6 years to comply. The ministry itself is working at a reasonably good speed to make sure that all of its social workers are registered, and so is the non-governmental organisation sector.

What I cannot figure out—as somebody from the teaching profession who has enjoyed amazing collegial support and interaction all her teaching career—is why, in the profession of social work, it depends on the provider one is working for as to what one’s attitude is towards others. I find that really concerning, and I believe that the Minister and her department could do a lot towards rectifying the situation.

I believe that the differential response model is a step in the right direction. I believe that the evidence is extremely clear that, in the places where it has been piloted, it has worked extremely well. I am concerned that, even in the pilot schemes, Child, Youth and Family has been very selective and limited in terms of the non-governmental organisations it is prepared to work with. However, even putting that aside, I think there is the opportunity to reduce the department’s workload, which is ever-increasing. Notifications currently go up at a rate of around 15 percent a year. After incidents like that of Coral Burrows the rate jumps 30 percent as people respond with concern to the situations they see around them. We expect the current staffing ratios to cope with this work.

I also have a concern that Child, Youth and Family seems to still be very output orientated. It says that, yes, its unallocated case rates are down, but what I am hearing is that, yes, its unallocated case rates are down but the quality of the actual social work being done is very, very limited. The social workers have made the phone call, they have knocked on the door, and they can tick the box—the case is no longer an unallocated case—but is there quality social work going on, is there quality intervention, are family and community groups that already have active roles with these families being included in the decisions that are being made? That is another matter, and I have serious doubts.

I encourage this ministry to use Vote Child, Youth and Family Services to start to progress those very vital community relationships. If we want every community in New Zealand to have a true safety net around every child who lives in that community, the last thing we can afford to do is to have holes in that safety net created by the fact that agencies that should be working together cannot even get on the phone to talk to each other and work collaboratively around case management. I do not think it matters which agency is the lead agency.

I compliment the Government on its Vulnerable Families project. I love what I have seen and heard about the project, and I believe that it is the way forward. But I also think there is room, in that regard, for non-governmental organisations to be included in that project.

I want to raise a number of issues with the Child, Youth and Family estimate, too, and I echo my colleague, Judy Turner. I felt that the Government and the Ministry of Social Development perverted the process of this estimate around Child, Youth and Family. First of all, the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF) appeared before the Social Services Committee before we had an audit report. So we were unable to have any prior briefing from the Audit Office on the performance of Child, Youth and Family—and, in fact, the office later raised some quite significant issues. The Associate Minister did come back a second time to the select committee, but even the answers to the questions that we had asked of the Associate Minister and her officials were not available to us by the time the Associate Minister appeared before the select committee on the second occasion.

That really is a perversion of the process. That is not how it is supposed to work. Even to date, we have not received the internal budgets from Child, Youth and Family, so we have no idea—even as we are discussing the estimates here today—what its internal budgets are. Now, that hardly gives us confidence that this ministry, which handles the most vulnerable people in our community, is doing an adequate job or that it is a good manager, because it cannot even manage this very simple process, which is supposed to be transparent.

The other issue that I raised with the Associate Minister was Child, Youth and Family’s permanency policy. There are lots of fine words in the statement of intent, and the ministry itself and the Associate Minister say that they understand how important it is to a child’s life that he or she has stability and a secure environment, and that they understand the damage that can be done to a child by being constantly moved from pillar to post. Yet the figures that the Associate Minister released to me for last year show that over 1,000 children in Child, Youth and Family care last year were moved more than three times. In the life of a child who is in a vulnerable state, that can have catastrophic effects on the future of that child.

The Associate Minister said to me that social workers are doing their best and I believe they are. Most of those front-line social workers are doing the very best that they can within a system that is not supporting them. But the figures show quite clearly that a 6-year-old Manawatū boy was moved 11 times last year, a 5-year-old girl from Hastings—my colleague Craig Foss’ electorate—was moved nine times in one year, and a 2-year-old girl in Whenuapai was moved seven times. What does that do to the life of that child? The worst case that Child, Youth and Family has is a boy, now 14 years old, who, while he has been in Child, Youth and Family care, has been moved 43 times. How can that child ever hope for a normal, happy, fulfilled life when he has had no opportunity to have a secure home environment? This is destroying lives.

I heard Tariana Turia talking before about making the children pay for the fault of their family, and punishing the children twice—once because their family is dysfunctional, and the second time because the State has stepped in and is supposedly making things better for them. Well, the State is not making things better if it has not got that permanency sorted out. It is actually destroying the lives of these children, and condemning them to a life that will probably be related to drug and alcohol dependency and that could well be a life of crime.

The Associate Minister fobbed me off a bit, because she said that these figures include respite care and that respite care does children no harm. I disagree. Any movement of a child from one environment to another causes problems for children; any parent knows that. Even a child that has a warm, loving, secure home environment will suffer when moved into a strange environment. It can be very upsetting for some children. These children do not come from that environment in the first place, and the Associate Minister could show no research that has been done to show that respite care does no harm.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Labour