Biff CYFS – an overview
Parental responsibility, support where it’s needed and zero-tolerance of child abuse with stronger police intervention
all underpin United Future’s approach to families and the structure it today unveiled as an alternative to the failure
that is CYFS.
In promoting the new model, United Future leader Peter Dunne and family affairs spokeswoman Judy Turner said it had
become increasingly clear that despite tinkering and throwing money at it, CYFS was utterly unable to ever meet the
needs of vulnerable New Zealand children.
“CYFS has failed. New Zealanders know that. It is only at the level of officialdom that there continues to be hope
against hope,” they said.
“In handing CYFS the massive task of ensuring the well-being of our children, a core value of our society was lost,”
they said.
“Namely, that parents and communities have primary responsibility for the care and development of their children.
“And as a wider society, we need to give parents the tools to fulfil their responsibilities and also crack down hard on
parents who abuse their children.
“It is time to recover that value,” they said.
The United Future model emphasised parental responsibility in two crucial ways.
by improving access to services that support families, thereby encouraging parents to take responsibility for
recognising and addressing their problems; by creating a greater role for police in investigating child abuse, to send
the message that we take child protection seriously, and that those parent who do harm their children will be held
accountable – and not at the point of the child’s funeral.