Discussion and Policy Recommendations

Discussion

The introduction of the DRM to CYFs is an important step forward towards reforming out-dated child protection policy in New Zealand.  Its success will be determined in two ways, the first will be a reduction in CYFs case loads, providing more time and services to those children who are genuinely require state intervention.  The second way to judge the success of this programme will be in greatly improved statistical data reflecting child and youth indicators of disadvantage within the community.  Nevertheless, on its own the DRM will not be the solution to all of our policy woes.  This reform is but one aspect of reshaping the current child protection policies in New Zealand.  Therefore, the cry that should reverberate throughout government departments, community groups, NGOs, schools, hospitals, and homes across New Zealand is DO NOT STOP HERE.  KEEP GOING.  There are four strategies that are crucial to drive the success of the current reform, these are as follows. 

The first is that we should empower community providers and NGOs, reprioritising accountability.  In the CYFs department in the Hibiscus Coast in Auckland, they have focused their efforts in building functioning relationships among key community service providers and schools in the region.  They have made a concerted effort to invest in their community and make the community itself, accountable.  They have found that network building has made a huge difference for families and their children, within the region.  Anecdotally, they are now less stretched and the social workers can focus on those children and young persons who do require state intervention.  The second strategy maps on to the first as it acknowledges that more community providers and NGOs is not the solution, rather fostering relationships are.  Therefore, policy needs to adopt a less-is-more approach, whereby government departments, community providers, and NGOs are not made ‘fatter’; instead, they are given larger briefs and more responsibility.  How this is achieved might involve the implementation of the third strategy, namely introducing whole of government and public health models into child protection policy.  As I discussed earlier, policy reform in Victoria in Australia, integrated a whole of government response to their new legislation and this ‘promotes consideration of a broader ecological perspective on the different variables contributing to vulnerability and places children and their families in the services most appropriate to their needs[1]’.  As was the case with health legislation reforms, focus has shifted to a population-based model.  I surmise that a similar shift in ideology might be effective in child protection reform too as it will allow us to tackle the underlying causal and contributing factors that lead to child abuse and neglect.  The final strategy is a broad-stroke one, where any reform should be research based and until we have robust data to suggest otherwise, we should remain wary of haphazard changes in policy that might be band-aid solutions, at best.  In the section below, I have given a list of the four policy recommendations described, that would improve child protection policy in New Zealand. 

Policy Recommendations

• Empower community providers and NGOs, as it is these groups who are often better equipped to consider the needs of their communities. 

• Adopt a less-is-more approach.

• Introduce whole of government and public health models into child protection policy.

• Research should inform policy reform.

[1]               H. Buckley (2008)

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