Doocey Matt: Urgent Debates — Office of the Children’s Commissioner—State of Care 2015ReportText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDoocey Matt: Urgent Debates — Office of the Children’s Commissioner—State of Care 2015Report[Sitting date: 27 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6274. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the State of Care 2015: What we learnt from monitoring Child Youth and Family report. When I look at the numbers for such a small country the care and protection process summary in this report outlining the numbers there are reports of concern at 63000; further action at 43000; substantiated abuse findings at 16000—emotional abuse neglect and sexual and physical violence abuse at 16000. At any given time we have 5000 children and young people in care and 2000 go into care each year. It is amazing when we hear a statement that we do not know whether these vulnerable children are better off because of the State care they receive.I had the privilege of working in the mental health field before I took up this new role and I had the opportunity to work with many young people in care. Working with these very vulnerable people is very complex and challenging. There is a range of ways of working with these young people in a therapeutic context whether it be motivational interviewing or cognitive behavioural therapy. The one that I took most heart from in working with these young people was solution-based therapy. It was working with young people who had been through a lot in their life and saying: “Actually describe your perfect day—what would that look like?” That is not about diminishing the experiences and the harm they have been through but it is looking to the future about the way people want to live and want to move forward.I acknowledge the stance that the Minister has taken on this report and I urge everyone all New Zealanders to think about the future and where we want to go with this modernisation of Child Youth and Family. At the end of the day it is about standing up for the ideas we believe in debating the ideas. Yes we can debate the past and debate the politics of what has happened but it is the ideas that will drive Child Youth and Family forward to take the action to support young people now and young people in the future because the reality is that it is adults who have let these young people down. Then they go into care and it is the adults in care who again let these young people down. What we need to do is advocate for and focus on prevention and early intervention. Yes we need to focus on what happens in care but let us remember that we should be working to ensure that young people children do not go into care.I had the ability and the opportunity to talk to the Chief Social Worker who outlined some clear areas in the family environment that contribute to a young person or child going into care. It was the dangerous combination of mental health problems violence alcohol and drugs. I think we all have a responsibility in New Zealand to focus on those areas to prevent those young people going into care. I acknowledge the work that the Government is doing in setting up Children’s Teams to focus on these children at risk before they go into care. We know that children and young adults are at an important part of their life course—in the developmental stage.We also need to be progressive. We need to modernise. When I worked with young people in care in London I had the fortunate experience of being part of a programme about reclaiming social work. We need to free up social workers to not just care plan not just write bits of paper and not just do administrative functions. We need to embrace and we need to upskill our workforce to provide therapy to these vulnerable complex and challenging young people—therapy that will change behaviours and therapy that will move them on to go on to be productive people in New Zealand. Thank you very much.