Foster kids in care until 21

Tolley says change will cost millions but end up saving even more if it leads to better lives

Young people in state care will soon have a right to stay in or return to care until they turn 21. The decision, which the Herald understands will be announced today, aims to give young people in state care the same kind of ongoing support from foster parents that others get from their real parents.

Social Development Minister Anne Tolley said it would cost millions, but would save even more in the long term if it helps young people to get good qualifications, then move into good jobs and acquire the life skills they will need to live independently.

“Just as a parent, you know . . . you don’t just send an 18-year-old off and say, ‘ You’re going to university and you’re on your own,”’ she said.

“There is always a place for them to come back to in the holidays. I have children in their 40s and I still have some of their furniture at home.”

The number of young people in state care has risen in the past three years from 4960 in June 2013 to 5312 in June this year, and the proportion who are Maori has risen from 54.7 per cent to 60.4 per cent.

Legislation is already passing through Parliament to raise the age of leaving state care from 17 to 18 from next April, when the new Ministry for Vulnerable Children Oranga Tamariki is due to replace the current Child, Youth and Family service (CYF).

But Tolley said the Government always planned to consider raising the age further in a second reform bill containing other details of the new child protection system, which is due to be introduced before Christmas.

A review panel chaired by economist Paula Rebstock last year recommended the age be raised to 18 with “a right to stay in or return to care until they are age 21” — a measure the Cabinet has now approved.

“This would align the care leaving age with social norms and bring New Zealand in line with comparative jurisdictions internationally,” the Rebstock group said.

Tolley said the shift to 21 was likely to be phased in over the five-year introduction of the new child protection system. She said young people leaving care would also get “transitional support and advice” to age 25.

But she said Cabinet had not yet decided whether to extend the youth justice age from a young person’s 17th birthday at present to their 18th birthday, as Rebstock also recommended.

Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft, a former Principal Youth Court Judge, has made raising the youth justice age one of his top three priorities, and Tolley said she had personally changed her mind on that and now supported raising the age.

“Once they get into that [adult] prison system it’s a pretty big treadmill and they are at the mercy of the gangs,” she said.

But she said she expected a robust debate in Cabinet, “probably within the next month”.

“Some people have quite strong views both ways.”