Williams Poto: Vulnerable Children Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Poto: Vulnerable Children Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18595. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East):I am happy to take a call on what is a really significant bill the Vulnerable Children Bill. Just to recap I guess I do want to take us back to the beginning before we launch into the final clauses of this bill and back to the start of this work which started with the Green Paper for Vulnerable Children which then became the White Paper for Vulnerable Children. Significant numbers of members of the community actually spoke to that—something like between 8000 and 10000 submissions were made on this particular piece of work. So it is an important bill that we are debating and I want to just kind of make sure that we do not lose sight of how significant this bill could be in the lives of vulnerable children.I want to speak to the last part of this particular bill where we discuss such issues as transitioning young people from care and we look at the ages that this particular bill should be addressing. We have spoken during various parts of this bill about the significance of moving the age for the definition of “young person” from 17 to 18 years. It does actually demonstrate that there is an anomaly within this legislation. It does not occur in other legislation. The definition should definitely move from 17 to 18 years because that will bring it in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.It makes sense in practical terms too because Child Youth and Family and other agencies working with these young people currently need to make special provisions for their care. I just want to refer to my notes here. It also will allow for better help for young people moving from care to independence so that financial assistance can be available where it is considered necessary to enable the achievement of independence rather than in exceptional circumstances and so that assistance can be given when it is requested.Also it clarifies that assistance would be available for those aged between 15 and 19 years and for those who have been in residential care as well and that every young person exiting this care should have a support plan in place because we are talking about young people with some significant issues for whom being in care has been their life. They have not really experienced living independent lives or being able to access the resources in the community themselves. They are young people for whom the State has been their carer.I would like to think that we could be thinking about recommending that these young people continue in some form of support until they are at least aged 20. These young people have special and significant needs and they are transitioning from the care of the State into looking after themselves caring for themselves with the State or other support agencies having very little to do with their ongoing care.We have an expectation that they will be able to manage themselves well; that they will be able to cope on their own. Children who have had relatively stable upbringings find it a difficulty to cope. I do not know whether any of you have teenagers but I certainly have and I know that teenagers whom I have been involved with do not do so well when they are required to look after themselves. So when talking about young people with marginal upbringings who have not always had the best start in life in my view they need to have good stable and sometimes comprehensive support to ensure what we want for them which is good stable and solid lives and the ability to reach their potential.So where we may have let these young people down in the past we now have the opportunity to do something quite different and significant to ensure that they receive their potential. Our duty of care to them is not diminished because they are in care; it should be enhanced.