A full inquiry is needed
December 23rd, 2010 at 1:00 pm by David FarrarStuff reports:
The failure of government agencies to halt appalling abuse of a nine-year-old girl has led the children’s commissioner to call for a broad independent report.
A neighbour said she called Housing New Zealand, a teacher says her school contacted the Education Ministry, and Child, Youth and Family were monitoring the girl’s family.
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett will this morning review a fast-tracked interim report by CYF about how the girl was left with her family despite concerns raised about her welfare.
But Children’s Commissioner John Angus said a wider, independent report into the failure by multiple government agencies may be required. “It looks like the systems have failed this child.”
I think a wider independent inquiry is needed, but note it may not be possible until the court cases are done. I want to know who did the school tell, and how often; why did CYFS not pick up the abuse; what did Housing NZ do etc etc.
The school board’s chairwoman said the school followed the right procedures in dealing with government agencies.
A next-door neighbour of the couple said she rang Housing NZ and told three different case managers of her concerns for the couple’s children. “I knew there was something wrong.”
The good thing is that people did report their concerns – the teacher and the neighbours did the right thing. But somewhere along the way there was a failure with agencies. Not good enough.
Trevor Mallard blogs:
I’ve not been a supporter of mandatory reporting of child abuse. One of those finely balanced 60/40 things. Not die in a ditch for me.
The evidence we got was that lots of kids would not tell teachers counsellors nurses about abuse if they knew Police or CYFS would automatically be involved.
Every time we have a bad case where the system fails a child I ask myself whether we have it right
I’m not sure if such a policy would have made a difference in this case, but generally I do support mandatory reporting. I think the fear of less reporting of abuse is supposition.
Related posts:
- Dom Post on child abuse white paper
- A sensible move
- I think I agree with Trevor
- The White Paper for Vulnerable Children
December 23rd, 2010 at 1:31 pm
In this case the teacher clearly identified the abuse and reported it.
Now, nothing was done. But that wasn’t due to lack of reporting but rather overworked social workers.
Surely the response to this case would be that social workers need *less* potentially time wasting reports, not more?
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 1:40 pm
We have to be very careful that we don’t create a climate in which every parent of a child that has a mark or a bruise is suspected of child abuse.
This is an extreme case and the vast majority of parents are good parents.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 1:43 pm
I actually agree with Trevor – and it is a finely balanced thing in terms of mandatory reporting. That said I am not sure whether that is a relevant debate to this specific case.
Perhaps it is time for a wider inquiry on the issue of child abuse as a whole? I do have some concerns that such an inquiry will be hijacked by the enablers and do gooders (child abuse is about poverty, the govt should do x, y and z etc) but perhaps something might come of it.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 1:46 pm
What did David Garrett say about sterilisation? Isn’t this a perfect case for it? Can someone tell me why these people should be eligible to have kids in the future?
Go on, try your hardest!
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 1:48 pm
But somewhere along the way there was a failure with agencies. Not good enough
..exactly, now lets find out where it broke down , who was responsible and hold them to account. Their heads need to roll.
Vote:No whitewash limp wristed report..just some accountability from those who f***** up.
December 23rd, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Lo! The Children’s Commissioner speaks!
The money spent funding this position and its office and staff, and the Families Commission, and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, might be better spent at CYF.
In a way Trevor Mallard has it right. We do not want to create a climate of suspicion. I was in a position a few weeks ago where a stranger wanted to know how my grandson got a bruise on his forehead.
I didn’t know. He’s 2. A normal kid. I know he’s not abused at home. But you can imagine someone taking it into their head to ring the police or CYF.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 1:54 pm
As for the teacher who reported the little girl’s injuries in west Auckland …
Does anyone know when she did this, and when she resigned? Was it this year? Last? This last term?
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Increased ‘reporting’? Good idea if we want a torrent of claims which must be followed up, burgeoning CYF budgets and staffing, accelerated number of children in state care (Sweden, the country that makes social liberals go dewy eyed in admiration has >1% of their children in the care of the state, and this number has been increasing)
I’d like to see an increased mandate for support of good parents and parenting (fence), rather than an ever increasing focus on intervention (ambulance)
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 2:01 pm
We have to be very careful that we don’t create a climate in which every parent of a child that has a mark or a bruise is suspected of child abuse.
True, but surely it is easy to tell what warrants further investigation. The difference between a small (old 20c piece sized) bruise and a fist sized bruise should be obvious.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 2:01 pm
What did David Garrett say about sterilisation? Isn’t this a perfect case for it? Can someone tell me why these people should be eligible to have kids in the future?
Fuck sterilisation! I’m all for going straight to the hangin!
On second thought – make that a garroting.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 2:10 pm
The feminisation of all these Government welfare agencies is the root cause of this. Far too many women are running these various agencies and instead of taking immediate action they instead want to sit around and talk about it, they don’t want to “offend” the perpetrators.
It’s all very well for the teacher to “report” her concerns but that was not the end of her responsibility. If nothing was done within 24 hours she should have marched downed to the Police station with the child in tow and got some men involved.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Schools keep accident reports. It wouldn’t be hard to keep a record of bruises, signs of neglect etc and for the counsellor or someone similar to check for patterns. One bruise a term isn’t necessarily a worry; always being bruised, cut, withdrawn etc are signs something is going on that shouldn’t be.
Vote:I am all for mandatory reporting as with sex abuse. The individual teacher need only report to the principal who then is responsible for taking action by notifying authorities.
A few bruised feelings by wrongly investigated parents are minor embarrassments compared to the torture, suffering and deaths of children we have witnessed in NZ.
If children are being failed by their parents then the school may be their opnly chance of help.
December 23rd, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Trev says…”I’ve not been a supporter of mandatory reporting of child abuse.”
This is the same Trev who made such a fuss about the tiny possibility of paedophiles working as child minders in gyms and sporting clubs.
Trev is full of shit.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Shit the Children’s Comissioner will be spewing, might have to actually do something and it’s Christmas and all. Have to call the girls back into the office, damn, bloody kids, they’ll ruin the holidays.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Seems to be the received wisdom that social workers are overworked so cannot get to all the cases on the list. I wonder if that really is the case. For one thing, we are talking about public servants here and one would expect management to balance the workload of their staff so they do not in fact become overloaded. In fact, I was talking to someone in an advisory role in this area only last week, and was assured that social workers are not overworked in terms of caseload. And that cases are assigned to social workers in terms of their experience – ie the more experienced ones collect the complex cases. That is not to say it is a cruisey job. But overloaded? Maybe not so much.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 3:37 pm
We don’t need to waste more money on another book for the book bin. Give Cyps the money and let then do their job without constant interference.
Their systems are so bad that I have been waiting 2.5 weeks to be paid for housing a family. I guess I will get paid but the don’t seem to be able to manage their money very well.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 4:10 pm
The Childrens Commissioner spouted the usual waffletwaddle expected of Officials of his status which invariably result in frenetic verbose reporting, numerous conferences and consultations as responsibility is compressed down to the lowest possible level. The teachers report probably had to go through several such upward levels and analysis before a conference reached the conclusion that there was no problem.
Vote:Lighter caseloads is likely to only result in more time wasting spent on the fewer cases. In cases like this one the child should have been visited at least fortnightly either at home or at school to visibly check for signs of abuse or neglect, not necessarily by a caseworker but by someone deputed to make visits full time.
December 23rd, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Sometimes, DPF, it’s hard to believe you make a living out of statistics :-/
It’s not a supposition. Introduce mandatory reporting and reports go up, while substantiation remains basically static (scroll down to the graph if you can’t be bothered reading the report).
It’d be wonderful if it worked, but it doesn’t. It just burdens social workers with reports from busy-bodies like the one that TripeWryter mentions.
And what are our politicians doing taking an “I’m not sure” approach? They have researchers, paid with our money, to find out for them. If you don’t know, Trev, find out.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 6:50 pm
I’m with Chris2. The ‘social worker’ and ‘school’ should be assumed to be incompetent from the very start. Just go straight to the police with these things. I’m sure they can drag someone off speed camera duty to investigate. It sounds like CYFS, the school etc stood around for ages while the abuse continued, but it stopped the first time a police officer got a look at the kid.
Also, what are the names and email addresses of the social worker and the school principal? They don’t have name suppression and people get publicly pilloried in the media for much less than this.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 6:57 pm
Haha, what an expression – you could be a politician.
Pike River: “there will be a full inquiry to discover the sequence of events which led to the explosion…" – Jonathan Young MP
Afghanistan veteran killed in Waioru: Minister Wayne Mapp said: “There will be a full inquiry…”
Mapp again after HMNZS Otago breaks down: “There will be a full inquiry undertaken because the next time the ships go out…”
Prison guard killed: “…full inquiry…” – Judith Collins
The “full inquiry” in this case might be slightly useful. But we know the two culprits – the mother and the father. These are the people who committed this crime, the fact is, since they didn’t commit murder, they’ll be locked up for much less than ten years when they deserve permanent detention. But that won’t happen. A few organisations will get blamed for not doing enough, they’ll look at their procedures, and then in a year or so we’ll get another case.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 6:58 pm
You really have to get over the PC crap and focus your limited resource’s where it does the most good.
Every brown coloured pair that have kids need to be monitored as if they are on bail ie: a 5K at anytime of the day or night.
All defaulters sterilised and their kids given to people who will look after them properly.
Simple really.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 8:05 pm
I don’t think an enquiry is needed. An equity is to forget what happened.
The parents are clearly at fault they are not suitable to raise a child. However this child had previously been in the care of CYPs and should have been better monitored during the first 9 years of her life. Clearly CYPs should have found out how bad the parents are. However blaming CYPs and their procedures is a cop-out.
The fault is with our society, all of us. We see how people behave but we take no responsibility. We know that for social agencies to act they require funding but we complain that money is wasted on bureaucracy. We vote in successive Labour and National governments that do nothing to tackle the problems of poverty, greed and addiction that leads to other people committing violence against children.
We are weak.
We let down the school teacher who did try to help this girl. Our society allows an increasing number of people to commit disgusting crimes against children.
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 8:23 pm
we complain that money is wasted on bureaucracy
It is, Inky.
We vote in successive Labour and National governments that do nothing to tackle the problems of poverty, greed and addiction that leads to other people committing violence against children.
How do you establish this causal relationship Inky? I agree there is a correlation. That doesn’t, as we know, mean causation. What specifically can you point to which establishes this? (P.S. Don’t give me correlation data, I’m not asking for that.)
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 8:50 pm
> I think the fear of less reporting of abuse is supposition
I think it’s fact. Robyn Stent – who knows a thing or two about being falsely accused of abusing a child – recently complained about the suspicion that was cast upon parents taking their kids to Starship Hospital. Last week, it was reported that a nurse at Starship had told a conference that all parents who brought their kids to the hospital were “liars until proven otherwise”. Why would a parent go to Starship if they’re going to be treated like child abusers?
Vote:December 23rd, 2010 at 9:13 pm
So it was: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/4473859/Starship-nurse-claims-all-parents-lie
Vote:That’s diabolical, but shows the dilemma of trying to get the right balance. A lot of kids have purely accidental injuries, most parents would never deliberately harm their kids, so the first assumption should be innocence. There must be standards warning signs of abuse in many cases, or at least of possible abuse that warrants further investigation.
December 23rd, 2010 at 10:38 pm
An enquiry? My arse.
I’ve done my own enquiry, and have come up with the answers.
1. Scrap the DPB.
2. Scrap all these useless ministries, where people think the gummint will take care of our kids, and return us to family and personal responsibility.
3. Permanent disentitlement to any benefit for parents who are convicted of assaults against their own children.
4. Life in prison (never get out) for parents convicted of such crimes.
Seriously, nobody with any common sense thinks we need an enquiry. It is well known why parents assault their kids like this. Firstly, they were probably beaten to a pulp when they were kids, regularly. Second, they are likely to be highly uneducated. Thirdly, they are likely to be long term beneficiaries. Fourthly, they are likely to have drink and/or drug issues. Fifthly, they probably have no family support at all and rely on the state for everything, which probably lets them down daily/ weekly. I could go on, but I needn’t.
We don’t need an enquiry; we need action. Next year, on January 1. Enough of the talk, which is cheap. Let’s see some serious, discernible action. Key talked the talk with the “underclass” and then the visit to McGehan Close.
We need action in 2011 Mr Key. Real, discernible, action. You can start with points 1-4 above.
Vote:December 24th, 2010 at 12:13 am
Well said Gooner, you nailed it. 10.38 pm
PC bullshit vs common sense.
We could start by making an example of these latest mongrels.
If they are convicted.
Give them a sentence that will make news worldwide.
show we mean business.
Make their eyes water its so harsh.
Next case, give an even harsher sentence.
Then keep it up.
Any person found to have been aware of abuse and done nothing. Harsh sentence.
Does anyone doubt that this approach would have some effect.
It might not be the final solution but as long as the message got out even mongrels as in the latest case would think twice.
The alternative.
Keep wringing our hands in despair?
Convene a committee to investigate the matter ?
Then again we could prepare a national register to record bruises.
Great idea Beab 2.17 pm Not. This kind of crap idea sounds good to the hand wringers but would have nil practible effect.
As you say, we need action, discernable action.
Normal people know this, how has our society become so fucked up,
let me guess, we’ve become hamstrung by gormless ideas like, establish a national bruise register.
Why not adopt the above suggested action in the meantime ?
Bottom line.. are we going to take some ACTION or should we establish some more enquiries and
investigations and committees ?
This problem could begin to be addressed by a Tea Party type revolution and application of common sense.
Vote:December 24th, 2010 at 7:23 am
1. Scrap the DPB.
What would happen to the 100,000 parent and kid/s who suddenly have no means of support? The DPB has become a major costs and problem, but scraping it would cause far more problems.
3. Permanent dis-entitlement to any benefit for parents who are convicted of assaults against their own children.
4. Life in prison (never get out) for parents convicted of such crimes.
Any type of assault? Including under S59? Should we make, say, the whole North Island a prison and leave the South Island for those who are left?
Societal violence and over-dependence on benefits are major problems, but there are no quick easy fixes. Sledge hammer changes are likely to cause more problems than they would solve – in fact they would probably solve little.
No worries, government won’t take any notice of extreme reaction nuts.
Vote:December 24th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Yes, another report. Just what we need. I am going into 2011 with total confidence in the Government, their ability to write reports and do fuck all about it afterwards has inspired me.
Fucking chair polishers.
Ho ho ho.
Vote: