Lee Melissa: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Lee Melissa: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Sitting date: 23 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6036. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
5. 
MELISSA LEE (National) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development 
: What announcements has she made on ensuring those working with children recognise and report suspected child abuse as part of the Government’s White Paper for Vulnerable Children? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development) 
: 
 We are introducing a range of initiatives to better support professionals who work with children and help ensure they put the child’s needs first. We will introduce legislation that will require agencies working with children to have child protection policies in place—specifically ensuring that their staff knows how to recognise and report suspected child abuse. 
Melissa Lee 
: What support will there be to train those working with children to recognise the signs of child abuse? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: The situation as it is currently is quite astounding. Many professionals working with children are lucky if during their many years of training they come across even one lecture on identifying the signs of abuse. Our action plan makes it clear that we will have all front-line public sector staff who work with children get training to recognise and detect the signs of child abuse. This continues on this Government’s initiative which began in May 2010. We have now trained over 2500 frontline professionals thanks to child protection workshops predominantly run by Child Matters. 
Melissa Lee 
: What changes are required to ensure these initiatives are put in place? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Our expectation is that where a professional suspects there is a case of abuse this will be reported and we will be making this easier for them. But this is a new requirement and it will be supported by a change in legislation and by a code of practice that makes it clear that everyone working with children has a responsibility to report suspected abuse or neglect. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: What evidence does she have that the predictive risk tool contained in her white paper will do more good than harm when it is untested and has been panned by experts in the field? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I think it is fair to say that there have been two trains of thought on it. Some as the member says have been against it and some have been for it. That is why we have said it is a prototype. It needs far more testing. It needs a group of experts around it to make sure it is safe. It is not something we are rolling out tomorrow; it is something we will do over time. But if we have facts that say there is a group of children who are most at risk of being abused or neglected before they are abused or neglected I would quite frankly be negligent not to do something with them. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Does she agree with Dr Patrick Kelly a member of her own expert advisory group on abuse and neglect who said he was “blindsided” by her predictive risk model that it is essentially an experiment and “They have no idea whether that intervention will work or not.”? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I think it is what we do with the information that is most important. I heard someone sort of yell out you can put them in one place and that is fine. It is going to be up to what sort of support we put round it and what sorts of initiatives go with it. I hear what Dr Patrick Kelly has said. He is an expert in this field and someone whom I have a huge amount of respect for. I think it is the initiatives and the support we put behind them that will make the biggest difference. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Will she dump her risk prediction tool if she finds that abused children are not picked up by it? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I think that is about 20 steps ahead of where we are at now. What we have done is we have put out the paper. We have then got a lot of work to do around it. I mean the member should know that the professional who has put this predictive tool together has not done it by luck or by good means; they have actually done a whole lot of research behind it. We now need to get the right experts and the right academics to make sure that we make the best of it and then we will see where that ends up. But I am not going to predict what could happen in 3 or 4 years’ time with something that has yet to be fully developed.