Media Statement
For immediate release
Tuesday, 27 July, 2004
Turner: Ministry rolling out failed CYFS pilot scheme
A failed CYFS pilot scheme to ascertain the needs of at-risk families, and the community services available to them, is
being flicked over to the Ministry of Social Development to run as an expanded version, United Future's Judy Turner
revealed in Parliament today.
The Local Services Mapping initiative was trialled by CYFS for two years at six sites, and was supposed to comprise five
phases to map out the needs and corresponding services required in local areas.
"However, not one of the six pilots completed three of their five phases, and one even failed to complete the first
phase," Mrs Turner, United Future's welfare spokeswoman, said.
"If they can't complete six pilot programmes, how can the Government have the slightest confidence that the full
roll-out of mapping across 20 sites by the new Family and Community Services Group will be completed, and be of any use
at all?"
Mrs Turner is also sceptical that the new Family Services Group, set up by the Ministry of Social Development as part of
the Baseline Review to relieve pressure on CYFS, will co-ordinate the vital preventative services for families at the
ground-level where it really counts.
Citing other documents obtained under the Official Information Act, Mrs Turner said the sum total of the Family Services
Group's work since last year appears to be establishing 23 new national and regional management jobs, compiling a list
of organisations and developing a website.
"They also seem to have spent a lot of time dreaming up such helpful and illuminating concepts as 'families as nested
wholes', and the goal that people should be 'comfortable in their own skins'."
In April this year, United Future announced its proposal to tear down the current structure of CYFS and replace it with
the kind of dual-track model for family support services that has already proven successful in Canada, the United States
and Australia.
In response, the Government assured the country that they already had the situation in hand, through the development of
the Family Services Group.
"But what these documents show is that the Government has made a poor start in rebuilding the capability to combat child
abuse and neglect at the community level, and still hasn't figured out where it is heading," Mrs Turner said.
Ends.