Turei Metiria: Reports — Inquiry into the Identification Rehabilitation and Care and Protection of Child Offenders 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Turei Metiria: Reports — Inquiry into the Identification Rehabilitation and Care and Protection of Child Offenders 
[Sitting date: 29 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4939. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I am pleased also to speak on this Inquiry into the identification rehabilitation and care and protection of child offenders and I want to acknowledge Chester Borrows for bringing the inquiry to the Social Services Committee in the last term of Parliament. Data shows that children growing up in violent families are more likely to engage in youth offending. The inquiry reiterates this fact this connection but then does not deal effectively with this part—addressing these issues of family violence and how we can connect the dots on these issues for our most at-risk kids. The social and economic risk factors for youth offending correspond very closely to those risk factors for domestic violence and child abuse so joining the dots between these things is critical. Given the findings an effective strategy to combat child abuse domestic violence and youth violence would be a collaborative community-based prevention an early intervention effort that aims to reduce the social and economic risk factors for families. 
There is a very strong argument for the development of national and local collaborative prevention efforts between these three areas and that approach is missing from the inquiry and its report. Child abuse and domestic violence often occur in the same family and they are linked in important ways to the serious consequences for the safety of all family members. First where one form of family violence exists there is a very strong likelihood that another also does. Second research shows that the impact of children witnessing parental domestic violence is strikingly similar to the consequences of being directly abused by a parent. Both experiences are significant contributors to youth violence. 
There has been some new research in New Zealand by psychologist Julia Ioane following 600 Maori European and Pacific Island violent youth offenders. That research shows a very strong connection between exposure to family violence and the likelihood that those young people will become offenders themselves. More than half of all violent youth offenders involved in the study regardless of their ethnicity were exposed to family violence at some point in their lives. There is compelling evidence that exposure to inter-partner violence is associated with a host of negative mental health and social consequences in children and adolescents and that these children display more negative effects and negative cognitions as well as more social and academic problems compared with those who do not. 
I agree that the thresholds for activating care need to be lowered as has been set out by previous speakers. What I am concerned about throughout these findings and recommendations is that there is no mention of how this support is going to link together youth-offending child abuse and domestic abuse services. When we look for opportunities for that early identification we could start simply with the 150000 notifications to Child Youth and Family that happen every year. They are often described by the Minister for Social Development as false positives—those who do not meet the threshold. They are not false positives. They are indications of concern and problems that need to be addressed. The problem is that those people do not meet the threshold for active intervention. They go into a waiting room and there they stay waiting for someone to help them. There has been a cry for help and there is no response. We do not have a system that connects all of those things together and provides support to those families at an early stage when they need it the most. 
Where is the protective place? Where is the place that a protective parent can go when they need help? Where are the services that will provide direct intervention for those families? This was identified in  
The Netherlands Study 
 which Every Child Counts put out last week. In the Netherlands there are places community hubs where families can go at that early stage of need to get their issues addressed before their kids become young offenders in the future. We need to stop working from a model where we need to identify those children and work to a model where we have a place for those families and those kids to come for help and that does not exist in the services we provide at the moment. 
The Family Courts have recently announced changes whereby in a rush to save costs they are increasing the risk of those who have been exposed to domestic violence to continue to be exposed to that violence by having a family resolution process together without addressing the issues of family violence and domestic violence. Often those who are subject to that violence are then exposed to further risk. Are we really so blind that we cannot connect the dots between all of these parts of the family violence issue? 
This Inquiry into the identification rehabilitation and care and protection of child offenders has been effective in some respects by raising these issues and addressing and providing some recommendations that are very good. But without a concerted effort to join the dots between youth offending domestic violence and family violence we simply will not provide support to those families and those kids who need us the most before they get into trouble. And surely that is where we should put our resources. Kia ora.