Working together for children
Transcription
Working together for children
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 1 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. 2 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. 3 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:[email protected] 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 4