Tolley Anne: Urgent Debates — Office of the Children’s Commissioner—State of Care 2015ReportText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTolley Anne: Urgent Debates — Office of the Children’s Commissioner—State of Care 2015Report[Sitting date: 27 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6260. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): As the Minister for Social Development I welcome the release of this report and I thank the Children’s Commissioner and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. I know that a great deal of work has been put into it. I have said publicly that it makes for pretty grim reading and I stand by that but it is not news to me. In fact over the last almost 12 months since I have been the Minister I have had reports from the Children’s Commissioner as he has been out and about doing the job that we task him to do—inspecting residences and family homes. I have met with him and we have talked about a number of the issues that he has raised in the report we are debating today. One of the reasons I welcome his report is that the report itself highlights the concerns that led to my decision earlier this year to appoint an expert panel to lead a complete revamp of the Child Youth and Family Service and I have said that earlier in the House.We have had 14 reviews of Child Youth and Family over the years. Some changes have been made a large amount of money has been put in and extra social workers have been added but at the core of it the experience of young people in care has not changed significantly. I say that because although we do not have the data to show that—and that in itself is a concern—I have had 3 years as the Minister of Police and as the Minister of Corrections and I know that almost 70 percent of the people in our prisons have had contact with Child Youth and Family. I think that that is a terrible indictment on a system that is supposed to protect the most vulnerable children in our communities. It takes those children out of their families to keep them safe and then does not give them better lives. I think the most important work I will do as a Minister is change that system so that we can all be proud of a child protection system that indeed protects our most vulnerable children and gives them better lives when the State steps in and takes them from their families.Before I go to the recommendations from the Children’s Commissioner can I just say to the House that there are no quick fixes here. That is why I say that chucking a bit more money in and throwing in a few more staff is not going to make the systemic changes that we need to make. So it is not going to happen overnight but by the end of this year the expert panel that I have appointed working with a team of up to 50 people drawn from across the Government agencies will have designed a new system to be put in place for Child Youth and Family. There may well be legislative changes that will come to this House next year but we are determined to make sure that we redesign the system resource it properly and focus it properly on what is most important in the system—that is the children.I come to the recommendations of the Children’s Commissioner. His first recommendation is that we set clear expectations. I have to say that when I first became the Minister the agency was already working on a modernisation programme. One of the very first queries I had of it was as to whether it really did understand its core business.If you look at the terms of reference that I have given to the expert panel that is front and centre: what is the core purpose of Child Youth and Family? I was delighted to see that the Children’s Commissioner had set that as his No. 1 recommendation: clear expectations child-centred practice and a direction for Child Youth and Family and then he outlines some particular parts of that.Recommendation No. 2 is that the service be fully child-centred. I have set up as part of this process an advisory group of eight young people aged between 15 and 23 who have experienced State care. They are amazing young people. There are incredibly heart-rending stories that they tell of their experiences. Some stories are good and a lot are not so good yet they have come through that process and are prepared to get involved with redesigning a system that is about them—it is about them their siblings their families and the childrenwho come after them. That is what I saw in Europe when I went there earlier this year to have to a look at what other jurisdictions are doing. That was one of the key things that I noticed we were not doing here. We talked a lot about having a child-centred system but the way it was operating was all about processes.The Chief Social Worker’s review showed that our front-line social workers were spending less than 15 percent of their time face to face with children and more than 50 percent of their time with paperwork. That told me that our system was not child-centric. We talk about it but it was not so in practice. I was determined that we were going to have that in our system so there were two things that I did. First I brought out a man from Scotland to be part of that expert panel. Duncan Dunlop is the chief executive for an organisation in Scotland called Who Cares? Scotland which is an agency that is independent of the Government and works on behalf of and with childrenwho have been in State care. It lobbies the Government. It lobbied the Scottish Parliament to lift the age at which children need to be supported while they are in State care to 21 and it is going for a maximum age of 25. It provides activities and identity for children who have been in State care.So in order to ensure that we have those childrenat the heart of whatever system we redesign I asked Duncan Dunlop to be part of that expert panel. When I talk to his fellow panel members that is what he has been driving. We have made good use of him. He has been up and down New Zealand meeting and talking with young people caregivers and organisations that are working with these children and talking about that. So I am confident that we will end up with a system that will be child-centred.Recommendation No. 3 is that we invest in children in care placements.Again this was something I saw in other jurisdictions. We increasingly have childrenwith high and complex needs that are not currently being well supported in foster care places simply because those foster care parents even though they are well-intentioned do not have the support and certainly do not in many cases have the skills. We need think to carefully about those placements. The children themselves tell us that.I had a young girl tell me that she and her sister were taken into care. Her sister was very disabled both intellectually and physically and although they were put into care together it became very obvious very quickly that the foster parents could not cope particularly with the really disabled sister. There is a good news story in part with those two because even though they were separated the young disabled sister is getting very good care. The sad part of the story is that they have not talked to one another seen one another or been in contact with one another for something like 7 or 8 years. So we do need to be very careful about the in-care placements and we need to invest in those properly.One of the concerns that I have is whether we are putting childrenback into some very financially stressed families who are unable to cope so that another placement happens and that churn is what the childrentalked to us about. They are being pushed from pillar to post and all they really want—what they tell me they want—is that the first placement is the best placement the right fit for them so that they can settle down and get on with their lives.Recommendation No. 4 is about addressing capacity and capability issues. We talked about that earlier in the House. The Chief Social Worker is leading an internal process around the ongoing development of good practice and the sharing of good practice around the country. In addition to that we do need to look at the support that we give to our social workers. I have been around the country and talked to Child Youth and Family staff and they desperately need the support of some of those specialist services—the child psychologists the therapists the cognitive development help. They need all those specialist services to deal with the traumas and the complex needs of these children.Recommendation No. 5 is about improving cultural capability. I think I talked in question time today about the considerable work that is happening. Fifty-seven percent of the childrenwhom Child Youth and Family works with are Māori. When you talk to the children you find thattheir cultural identity is important. They want a connection with their hapū and their whānau. They want to know that they have a place that they can identify with which tells them who they are and there is a lot of work happening there.Recommendation No. 6 is the classic. If we do not have good data about what happens to these children how can we learn from their experiences? There is not good data. I have been amazed as a Minister at the paucity of data on what happens to children whilst they are in State care and that will be changed. I welcome the really good emphasis that the Children’s Commissioner has put on that. We need to monitor the health and the education progress of these children. We need to know whether they are doing well at school so that we can put in the extra resources. I have stood in this House and talked about national standards for all kids in education. Well it is even more important that at an early stage we follow what is happening for these children and what extra help they are going to need.Finally there is recommendation No. 7. It deals with setting clear expectations for other State agencies. I am delighted to tell this House that I have already begun talking with my colleagues in the social sector in education in health and in justice and we are all determined that we are going to work together to make sure that these children the most vulnerable children in our community get top priority get the resources they need and get the opportunities they need and deserve to live full and successful lives.This is a good report from the Children’s Commissioner. I welcome it as part of the major piece of work that this Government is doing to ensure that we treat every child who comes into State care as if they were our own.