Safe children - strong families -
stronger communities

Introduction

This year sees some critical changes in the way Child, Youth and Family works with children and families, as well as with communities and agencies who work for children’s wellbeing – now and in the future.

These changes and the strategies that underpin them are contained in ‘New Directions’ – a plan that draws on recommendations from the recent Ministerial review conducted by former Principal Youth Court Judge Mick Brown and our own internal capability assessment. The plan outlines how Child, Youth and Family will move forward, enabled by additional funding from the Government in Budget 2001.

The New Directions plan is a realistic acknowledgement of the extreme pressure on Child, Youth and Family and the need for fundamental change as a matter of urgency.

The need for change

The Brown Review
Brown’s report on his review of Child, Youth and Family’s referrals, notifications and placement procedures was released in March 2001. It identified two central themes:

1. The adequacy of resources allocated to Child, Youthand Family.
2. The adequacy of the Department’s performance.

The report highlighted five overarching areas for immediate focus in achieving improved performance by Child, Youth and Family:

1. Development of a blueprint for the whole care and protection sector
2. Care management
3. Organisational performance and capability
4. Organisational change to support the Department’s performance
5. Staff training and development.

In total, Brown recommended 57 areas of change. These were accepted by the Government, which identified two interconnected approaches for bringing about the change: increasing resourcing from the Government; and changes to the Department’s culture and operation.

Internal capability assessment
The findings of the Brown review were echoed by Child, Youth and Family’s own assessment. The Brown recommendations, combined with the assessment results, emphasised the need for Child, Youth and Family to improve its performance, build its capability and strengthen its collaboration with others working in the child and family social service sector. It is clear that we must change our approach as a whole Department if we are to support our staff to achieve better outcomes for children, families and communities.

We have also begun to address issues of immediate, serious concern – such as unallocated cases and response time – to ensure a credible platform from which we can launch longer-term initiatives.

Puao-te-Ata-tu
Puao-te-Ata-tu, a fundamental document on how the Department will work with Maori families, was instrumental in shaping the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act (1989), framing outcomes in a positive and holistic manner and identifying overarching outcomes.

Furthermore, the Act focuses on advancing the well- being of families and children and young people as members of families, whanau, hapu and iwi. New Directions provides an opportunity for the seeds of Puao-te-Ata-tu to be realised. It strengthens the alignment between the Department’s activities and all of the principles and objects of the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act.

Budget 2001

The Brown review clearly identified resourcing inadequacy as a major factor influencing our capability. In response, through Budget 2001, the Government has allocated $216 million over the next four years ($44 million over the next year alone) in new funding to Child, Youth and Family. This funding will be instrumental in implementing the report’s recommendations through the New Directions programme.

What is New Directions?

New Directions is a comprehensive plan that outlines how Child, Youth and Family will change the way it works. It is about re-focusing our efforts so we are better able to give life to our vision of safe children, strong families, and stronger communities. It is also about working more effectively and closely with communities and providers to achieve sustainable, long-term outcomes for at-risk children and their families.

New Directions takes an honest look at the issues we currently face, identifies strategies and initiatives for improvement and maps a path forward for the Department. Its overall goal is to ensure we advance the well-being of families and the wellbeing of children and young people as members of families, whanau, hapu and iwi. Children and young people in need of care or protection, or who offend against the law, are the primary focus of our services.

The broad approach

There are three broad approaches that will assist us to achieve our goal:

• Join and build alliances with communities to achieve better outcomes: This approach recognises that Child, Youth and Family cannot make major improvements in isolation. Child, Youth and Family sits within a continuum of social services and is intent upon developing practices and strategies that maximise community collaboration and partnership.

• Become a joined–up agency that is outcomes focused, strengths based and client centred: The Brown Report and the Child, Youth and Family capability assessment both found that Child, Youth and Family is a fragmented organisation and this results in a lack of clarity for stakeholders and staff and inconsistent practices.

• Take a regional approach to delivery: The majority of Child, Youth and Family’s stakeholders live in regional communities and the organisation is aware that over the past decade control of Child, Youth and Family resources and decision making has moved from the regions to Wellington. For Child, Youth and Family to be successful this trend must be reversed and decision making moved to the delivery points, closer to where the impact of decisions are felt.

How will New Directions work?

The plan has five key strategies designed to create confidence and better outcomes:

Through improved practice we will improve the delivery of our care and protection and youth justice core services.

The professional workforce will be strengthened through improved support for social workers’ professional practice with the development of practice models, training, supervision and practice support.

Collaboration with communities will be vital and we will continue to develop our relationship and alliances with communities, ensuring we have a common focus on strategies to achieve long-term wellbeing for families and their children.

Child, Youth and Family’s structure, processes and systems will be aligned as we design and build a joined- up agency with a common focus and voice, supporting a regional approach to delivering our services. We will also focus on building leadership capability within the Department.

Projects are associated with each of these five strategies, with nine identified as critical to the success of New Directions:

1. Holding future search conferences with community partners.
2. Designing the joined-up and regionally focused agency.
3. Improving the interface with communities.
4. Implementing an organisational governance and strategic leadership programme.
5. Implementing a comprehensive social work workforce planning strategy.
6. Implementing a learning and development strategy to meet social workers’ professional development needs.
7. Implementing strengths-based, outcomes-focused approaches to social work practice.
8. Designing and implementing meaningful performance measures for Child, Youth and Family.
9. Establishing quality assurance and internal monitoring processes and systems which will drive the new strengths-based, outcome focused approach.

Work is already underway on developing the social work practice model, and the future search conferences are scheduled for later this year. Meanwhile, work will begin soon on organisational governance and leadership development

What will New Directions achieve? –
what will be different?

New Directions is about more than achieving change just within Child, Youth and Family. Our ultimate goal is to advance the wellbeing of families and their children.

Achieving this goal will require a whole-of-community response, based on the recognition that care and protection is about adult behaviour. We recognise that we cannot achieve this on our own. We have already begun to see results from our New Directions Plan. The number of unallocated cases has fallen substantially and this will continue, ensuring that cases are being dealt with and, ultimately, reducing stress for staff. This in turn is clearing the way to implement longer-term changes.

So what will be different?
For staff:

• Increased focus on results and solutions
• Better access to training and professional support
• Resources focused towards client services and outcomes
• The opportunity to take a comprehensive approach to social work practice
• Working collaboratively as part of a social services continuum

For community providers:

• Hearing one voice, one story from Child, Youth and Family
• Planned alliances for service provision
• Shared outcomes across the sector
• Reduced compliance costs and participation in planning for client services
• Working collaboratively as part of a social services continuum

For Child, Youth and Family:

• Better core service delivery with more attention to outcomes and performance rather than compliance
• Clear single purpose on which the whole organisation is focused
• A fully qualified and competent professional workforce
• Stronger regional leadership

How will we involve the community?

“One area which could be tapped is the considerable reservoir of goodwill, knowledge and skill which undoubtedly remains in the wider community. Child, Youth and Family need to develop a culture of more open dialogue and better use of resource for the benefit of the children and families they serve”
– Mick Brown

Valuable perspectives and input
We recognise the importance and value of contributions from people outside the Department, and with this in mind have established an External Reference Group.

This group will consist of people who are not part of the Department but who have significant knowledge of and interest in our work and the social services sector. It will have two main functions:

1. To advise the Department on the New Directions plan as a whole and on significant individual projects.

2. To provide support for the plan and help explain it to others within and outside the Department.

An Internal Reference Group will also be established to provide front-line perspectives and advice.

Conclusion

The changes we are planning will not happen overnight, but we will begin to see progress as, for example, improved access to training helps to increase our skills and knowledge, and clients find it easier to access our services. Providers too will see improved relationships, and public confidence will increase as we see significant improvements in areas such as unallocated cases. Work has already begun on implementing this programme. We will keep you informed as it progresses.

Strengths-based
A strengths-based social work approach builds on family strengths and resources as the best means of achieving sustainable change for families and their children. Our current approach derives from the ‘deficit’ model, which identifies problems and focuses on managing or reducing risk. Whilst important, this does not in itself lead to long-term change within families as it relies on external control.

A strengths-based approach will not change the statutory responsibility for Child, Youth and Family to intervene where necessary to ensure the safety of children. It does, however, recognise that sustainable change can only come from within families, not from without.

“Interventions with an empowerment, strengths-based focus are more effective than those which are expert driven and deficit based”

McLeod and Nelson, Programmes for the promotion of family wellness and the prevention of child maltreatment - a meta analytical review, 2000.

Outcomes focused
The Brown report highlighted a number of concerns about our systems, capacity and capability. Specifically, when discussing management, accountability and outcomes, Brown identified that the current measurement of Child, Youth and Family’s outputs does not provide the Government with the information it requires about results for children and families:

“Nevertheless I suggest to you that the present outcomes as described in performance indicators do not inform you as to whether they have changed anything. To rectify that it seems essential that you be supplied with a specified series of objectives. The test is that specificity would be some measure of how you will know when you have got the result and more importantly the discipline of doing the job right the first time.” Brown, page 31.

Through an outcomes focused approach we seek to achieve long-term well-being for children, young people and their families, rather than quick fixes to immediate problems.

This approach provides us with a focus that is broader than just short-term immediate safety (although this outcome is still vitally important and will not be forgotten). The Children Young Persons and their Families Act identifies six key outcomes in its objects and principles:

1. Safety
2. Family functioning and support
3. Permanence and stability
4. Cultural and spiritual identity
5. Client satisfaction
6. Wellbeing

The broad approach

• Join and build alliances with communities to achieve better outcomes: This approach recognises that Child, Youth and Family cannot make major improvements in isolation. Child, Youth and Family sits within a continuum of social services and is intent upon developing practices and strategies that maximise community collaboration and partnership.

• Become a joined–up agency that is outcomes focused, strengths based and client centred: The Brown Report and the Child, Youth and Family capability assessment both found that Child, Youth and Family is a fragmented organisation and this results in a lack of clarity for stakeholders and staff and inconsistent practices.
• Take a regional approach to delivery: The majority of Child, Youth and Family’s stakeholders live in regional communities and the organisation is aware that over the past decade control of Child, Youth and Family resources and decision making has moved from the regions to Wellington. For Child, Youth and Family to be successful this trend must be reversed and decision making moved to the delivery points, closer to where the impact of decisions are felt.

How we will implement the strategies

Strategy	Initiatives - Now	Initiatives - Next
Implement practice improvement	Implement strengths-based outcomes focused approaches to social work practice Care Services Strategy implementation Develop strategy for services to children and young people with severe needs Evaluate Call Centre Operations	Develop and implement a comprehensive Youth Justice project Review of operation of the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act in relation to care Implement strategy for services to children and young people with severe needs
Strengthen the professional workforce	Develop comprehensive social work workforce planning strategy Develop Training and Development strategy to ensure focus on frontline professional development needs Provide stronger support for professional practice	Implement comprehensive social work workforce planning strategy Implement Training and Development strategy to ensure focus on frontline professional development needs Registration of Social Workers
Collaborate with communities	Future search conference with community partners Develop and implement Pacific responsiveness strategy Improve interface with the community	Strengthen public education role With partners develop a blueprint for Child and Family Social Services
Design and build joined up agency	Design the joined up and regionally focused agency Ensure Departmental resources are prioritised to focus on delivery of core services Review and design quality assurance and monitoring systems for both direct and indirect services to ensure they drive the new outcome focused and strength based approach	Design organisational systems to drive new outcomes focused and strengths-based approach Design and implement cohesive performance measures (outcomes and outputs) for Child, Youth and Family Implement system designs
Build leadership capability	Organisational Governance – building strategic leadership Progress Iwi Maori Strategy	Develop an advocacy role in child and family matters External Relationship strategy

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