Children in CYF care at new high

''Too many of our vulnerable young people are being failed.'' Social Development Minister Anne Tolley

A record number of children have been taken into state care in the past year – a sign of serious underfunding as Child, Youth and Family (CYF) transitions into the new Ministry for Vulnerable Children, say the Greens.

Figures released by CYF this week show 5453 children were placed in the custody of the chief executive in the year to December 2016. It is up more than 300 on the 5139 children taken out of their families the year prior.

‘‘These figures show that we’re going the wrong way, that Child Youth and Family is having to pick up the pieces of a society that’s really struggling to get by and our children are suffering as a result,’’ said Greens social development spokeswoman Jan Logie.

The update, released without fanfare on the CYF website, comes days before the Government launches the new Oranga Tamariki Ministry for Vulnerable Children.

The new ministry will be launched today and from tomorrow will assume the responsibilities of CYF. It will work to a new operating model focused on prevention and working more intensely with families to keep children in their homes.

The ministry is the result of more than a year of work by the Government to overhaul state care practices in New Zealand, following decades of failures by an under-resourced CYF.

‘‘This is a record number, to my knowledge, of people in CYF care,’’ Logie said.

The numbers had got worse because the Government had underfunded the transition between agencies.

‘‘When we’re talking about the lives of children, I don’t think the concept of letting it get worse before it gets better is in any way acceptable.

‘‘The Government has had plenty of warning that they needed to put more resource into this and from what I can see – in terms of even just looking at the numbers of social workers – they haven’t done it,’’ she said.

Social Development Minister Anne Tolley agreed the number was too high.

‘‘We know too many of our vulnerable young people are being failed which is why we’re completely overhauling our care and protection system with a focus on trauma prevention and early intervention, rather than crisis management.’’

But simply having more social workers was not an adequate response to the scale of the problem.

‘‘We need to ensure we have the right people who are suitably skilled and experienced in the right places at the right time. We need to work with other agencies to ensure the whole system works better.

‘‘The new ministry . . . puts children and young people’s safety and wellbeing first.’’

Staffing the new ministry was almost complete.

Seven of the nine deputy chief executives had been appointed. Ten out of the eleven regional manager positions were filled. All four youth justice regional manager roles were filled, as were both the residence general manager roles.

‘‘The changes from CYF to the new ministry are focused on having fewer management layers, to ensure management are closer to the young people they serve, and staff on the ground have more direct access to management,’’ Tolley said.

The new figures come in the same week a Masterton Family Court judge accused CYF of wanting to ‘‘wipe their hands’’ of four children in a bid to save money.

A Masterton couple were left looking after their four nieces and nephews while CYF was reluctant to take official custody of them, which would have meant the couple were entitled to assistance with set-up costs, respite care and basic needs for the children.

Oranga Tamariki will officially take over on Saturday but legislation governing it is only partway through being passed.

The second stage of law reforms are at their second reading in Parliament but have stalled to allow for further discussion over wording that would remove the priority to place a Maori child with extended whanau, hapu or iwi, if it wasn’t immediately safe to do so.