Hipkins Chris: Urgent Debates — Office of the Children’s Commissioner—State of Care 2015ReportText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Urgent Debates — Office of the Children’s Commissioner—State of Care 2015Report[Sitting date: 27 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6272. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): Normally I would say that I welcome the opportunity to participate in a debate. I have to say that today I do not particularly welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate because I think that every one of the children whom we are talking about every one of the cases that we are talking about is a personal and individual tragedy. I want to begin with a quote from the Minister for Social Development herself who said: “If the state takes them into their care then they have the responsibility to make sure those kids live better lives and I don’t see the evidence and the Children’s Commissioner report doesn’t see the evidence that this is happening.” That is a damning indictment on the system. I do want to compliment the Minister on her candour and on being so abrupt and honest about the situation because as I said this is an absolute tragedy for all of those children and we all have a responsibility to do something about that. I want to also acknowledge the enormous weight of burden that we place on the people who work at Child Youth and Family. I have come into contact with them on multiple occasions as just about every member of Parliament will have and I can say that they deal with the most difficult complex heart-wrenching situations that you could possibly imagine. They often find themselves in situations where no matter which way they turn they are confronted with problems. I want to really acknowledge that and say that I think by and large they work so hard and they try to do such a good job and it is very very complex and very very difficult.I want to also acknowledge though that we need to look at alternatives in some cases. I think particularly of the debate that we had several years ago around special residential schools. Many of the kids who attended those schools had been in Child Youth and Family care or went into Child Youth and Family care at the end of it and I tell you what: I went into that with a view that those schools would not have a place in the future of the education system. I visited them and I came out with a completely opposite view. I spoke to many of those kids and you know the thing that struck me about it was that they got in there and they were allowed to be kids. They were allowed to play. They were allowed to learn. They had the freedom to actually grow up and to be kids and to be loved and it was the most supportive and nurturing environment that I could imagine for them. Many of them had never had that outside of that special residential school environment and now only two of those schools are left. I think that there is a place for that kind of intervention in the system and we need to rethink whether the closure of those types of facilities was the right thing to do. I actually think that they do provide an alternative to foster care for some of those very vulnerable children and they did have by and large a good track record in recent history. I know that there were historical issues but in recent history they had a very good track record and I think we need to re-examine whether in fact there is a greater role for those sorts of organisations and those sorts of facilities.The other point that I want to make is that Child Youth and Family deals in a space that is still incredibly disjointed and many of those kids and families find themselves coming under the jurisdiction of and being subject to probing by multiple Government agencies whether it is Child Youth and Family; the police; various health services including mental health; and it is simply that those families get lost. Often in cases of child abuse yes there will be a perpetrator but there will often be other victims including the children and it is such a horrific experience often for families to navigate their way through that system and we must do a better job of supporting those vulnerable children and families through the system so that we can get better outcomes. It is not just about Child Youth and Family; it is about actually getting all of the agencies involved in dealing with these vulnerable children to work more collaboratively together to get better outcomes. A number of times when I talk to a parent of a child who is involved with Child Youth and Family—and often they will not be the parent who has caused the child to be involved with Child Youth and Family—they will talk about speaking to Child Youth and Family and being told: “Well you’ll have to talk to the police about that.”; speaking to the police who say: “Well you’ve got to talk to Child Youth and Family about that.”; speaking to mental health services who say: “Well you’ve got to talk to someone else.” and they just get lost in the system. That is how kids fall through the cracks. We have to do a lot more about that.Finally I want to say that sometimes we think that this is about other people that these are other people’s children. I can say that no one is immune from this. No one knows when they are going to come into contact with someone who ends up being involved in these kinds of situations. We should all care about this. These are all going to be kids who are going to enter into our community. We should care about this. We have to get it right.