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March 2015
Working together for children
Social Development Minister Anne Tolley in Hamilton to launch children's workforce guidelines
Left to Right: Hamilton Children’s Team Director Cathy Holland,
Child Matters CEO Anthea Simcock, Minister Anne Tolley
Social Development Minister Anne Tolley announced the release of children’s workforce guidelines in
Hamilton on 10 March. Read her media release about the event: http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/saferchildren%E2%80%99s-workforce-guidelines-launched
Hosted by Cathy Holland, Hamilton Children’s Team Director, local leaders, community groups and those
setting up the new Hamilton Children’s Team attended to celebrate the publication of the guidelines and to meet
and hear the Minister speak.
Child Matters CEO Anthea Simcock co-wrote the Safer Recruitment, Safer Children guidelines and also spoke
at the event.
Read more details about the workforce guidelines in the following pages.
In this issue:
• Minister Tolley announces release of children's workforce guidelines
• Guidelines for a safe and competent workforce
• We're happy to talk about the Children's Action Plan
• How Children's Teams are helping children and their families/whānau
• Update from Sue Mackwell
• Visit from an Australian expert
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Guidelines for a safe and competent
workforce
Children have a right to have all their needs
met and to be safe from abuse and neglect.
A key focus of the Children’s Action Plan is
fostering a safe and competent children’s workforce
that can better identify, support and protect vulnerable
children.
Initiatives being introduced include standard safety
checking of the children’s workforce and child
protection policies. Guidelines recently released by
Minister Tolley have been developed to introduce some
of these key changes.
Safer Recruitment, Safer Children is being
released in advance of
changes in the Vulnerable
Children Act 2014 to have
standard safety checking. It
provides good practice advice
for organisations on selecting
safe people to work with
children.
The guidelines were
developed in partnership with
Child Matters, a Hamiltonbased non-government
organisation with child
protection expertise. Minister Tolley paid tribute to this
collaboration in her speech, commenting “The
Children’s Action Plan is about government and
communities working together to better support
vulnerable children. These guidelines are an example
of that innovative partnership.”
Safety checking practices are being developed to
make it easier to identify the small number of people
who are a risk to children they work with.
The first safety checking requirement: that all new
core workers entering the children’s workforce will be
safety checked to the new standard.
For more details about these changes check out
the Children’s Workforce section on the Children’s
Action Plan website.
The second set of guidelines developed for the
children’s workforce is Safer Organisations, Safer
Children. These guidelines are designed to support
organisations that employ children’s workers to develop
child protection policies. These policies will shape how
organisations support their children’s workers to identify
and respond to vulnerability, including possible abuse
and neglect.
Child protection policy requirements are already
required in law and government agencies are working
with their sectors to implement these, with the support
of the new guidelines.
Under the Vulnerable Children Act 2014 the
Ministries of Education, Health, Justice, Social
Development, Business,
Innovation, and Employment
and Te Puni Kokiri, Police and
District Health Boards must
have child protection policies,
and make sure that the
providers they contract to
deliver children’s services also
have policies.
A better future for
vulnerable children is at the
heart of the Children’s Action
Plan and these guidelines will
support the children’s workforce to identify, support and
protect those children.
For more information
The guidelines and additional information are on our website:
http://www.childrensactionplan.govt.nz/whats-new/childrens-workfroce-guidelines-available/
We’re happy to talk about the
Children’s Action Plan
Jackie Talbot, Workforce Programme Director at the Children’s
Action Plan Directorate giving a presentation on changes for the
children’s workforce and their employers at the Legal Services
Conference 2015.
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How Children’s Teams are helping
children and their families/whānau
Professional prepared a Child’s Plan for Tyson which
included arranging a teacher aide to help Tyson
manage his relationships better and make good
decisions, and some additional tutoring. Tyson’s now
achieving and behaving better at school. The Children’s
Team also got Tyson into the school’s breakfast club,
where the provider sat down with Tyson’s parents and
worked out how they could provide good affordable
lunches for their son.
The Lead Professional worked with the family to
ensure Tyson received all his immunisations and
medication for the school sores. The family’s doctor
now keeps the Lead Professional updated, with the
Working better together leads to real results for
children. Local Children’s Teams are making a
difference in three important ways. Once a child’s
referral is accepted they are assigned a Lead
Professional, who acts as the main contact for a child,
placing them at the centre of everything we do.
The Lead Professional, supporting agencies and
the child and their family/whänau work together to
complete Tuituia, a multidisciplinary assessment. This
provides the child’s own team with comprehensive
information about the child and their needs. The team
then works together to deliver one integrated plan for
that child and their family/whānau. The services
provided for the child and their family/whänau is
reviewed and adapted as their needs change.
As a result, we are seeing Children’s Teams make
a real difference. As of February 2015 Children’s
Teams received 346 referrals from government and
non-government agencies. The teams then coordinated
598 new services to 92 families. These services ranged
from counselling or therapy, budgeting advice, health
and education services.
These are two specific cases where Children’s
Teams have been able to support a child and their
family/whānau.
Six year old Tyson’s* teacher worried the little boy
was arriving at school without any lunch, suffering from
school sores, making poor choices in friendships,
underachieving and being disruptive in class. She
referred him to the Children’s Team. The Lead
consent of the family, and Tyson’s parents are keeping
up with his medical appointments.
Folole’s* family moved away from their extended
family to find work. They found a three bedroom house
to live in, but it was sharing with two other families. The
family of five still struggled to put food on the table –
and they all developed significant health problems due
to the overcrowding.
The Children’s Team worked with FamilyWorks to
provide immediate support for the family, and with the
local Work and Income Office to make sure they
received their full entitlement. The Lead Professional
liaised with Housing New Zealand to find them a new
house and two weeks later Folole and her family moved
into a larger, more suitable home.
By working together we can better support
vulnerable children to thrive, achieve and belong.
*Names have been changed.
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Update from Sue Mackwell
Kia ora koutou and Happy Easter!
We’re making good progress establishing and
supporting Children’s Teams. Hamilton Children’s
Team Director, Cathy Holland, has made a great start.
As you can see on the front page Cathy welcomed
Minister Anne Tolley to Hamilton on 10 March to launch
two new children’s workforce guidelines. It was a great
turn out including local leaders, community groups and
those setting up the Hamilton Children’s Team.
In her media release Minister Tolley said, “Every
child has the right to be safe from abuse and neglect
and these guidelines will help us build a stronger
culture of child protection across New Zealand where
the safety and security of children is paramount.”
We are proud to launch these guidelines which
assist employers of children’s workers to consistently
recruit safe people to work with children and to develop
good child protection policies.
On 31 March I am co-presenting to the 14th
Australasian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect
(ACCAN 2015) together with members of the
Whangarei and
Horowhenua/Otaki
Children’s Teams, about
Working together differently
for vulnerable children.
We will talk to
attendees about Children’s
Teams and how they are
transforming the way we
work together and how they
are making a real
difference in their
communities by improving
outcomes for vulnberable children.
We are also looking forward to the opportunity to
learn from our colleagues and their experiences in
supporting and protecting vulnerable children.
Hope you all have a relaxing Easter break.
Sue Mackwell
National Children’s Director
Visit from an Australian expert
Janet Vickers, District Director, Family and
Community Services from the Central Coast District,
New South Wales visited Lianne Egli and the
Whangarei Children’s Team on 20 February.
Child Protection has been a fundamental part of
Janet’s work for all her 35 years in the Public
Service and she is committed to collaborative and
integrated approaches that work for clients.
Janet also spent time in Wellington meeting Sue
Mackwell and members of the Directorate. We have
identified opportunities where we can maintain a
close relationship with Janet and her organisation
in the future.
FEEDBACK
We welcome feedback about this newsletter or any
aspect of the programme. If you have any comments or
questions for us, or want to join Chatter (our closed online
community for information sharing and dialogue), email
us:admin@childrensactionplan.govt.nz
To find out more on the Children’s Action Plan visit:
http://childrensactionplan.govt.nz
To find out more about the Vulnerable Children’s Act visit:
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2014/0040/latest/
whole.html
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