I am pleased to tell you today we passed an important milestone on our journey to realising the Government’s Children’s Action plan with the launch of new guidelines for people working with children. Social Development Minister Hon Anne Tolley launched the documents; Safer Recruitment, Safer Children and Safer Organisations, Safer Children in Hamilton at a well-attended event hosted by our Hamilton Children’s Director Cathy Holland.
It is very exciting Minister Tolley chose to launch the guidelines in Hamilton where Children’s Team Director Cathy Holland and her team are working hard to establish the first large urban Children’s Team in the country. Children have a right to have all their needs met and to be safe from abuse and neglect.
We want a children’s workforce with the shared knowledge and skills to work well together and with family/whānau. We want a children’s workforce that can better identify, support and protect vulnerable children. These guidelines will help the children’s workforce keep vulnerable children safe to thrive, achieve and belong and I encourage you all to read them.
Safer Recruitment, Safer Children will help organisations select safe people to work with children. Safer Organisations, Safer Children is a set of good practice advice to help organisations develop high quality child protection policies, which are now required in law for many organisations that work with children.
You can find Safer Recruitment, Safer Children and Safer Organisations, Safer Children plus more information about them on the Children’s Action Plan website. Here’s the link: http://childrensactionplan.govt.nz/whats-new/childrens-workforce-guidelines-available/
Minister Tolley thanked non-government organisation Child Matters for their work co-producing Safer Recruitment, Safer Children with the Ministry of Education on behalf of the Children’s Action Plan Directorate – a good example of the new way we are all working together for vulnerable children.
I would like to add my thanks to Anthea and her team for their contribution. You can comment on this news via Chatter, our closed online platform for information sharing and dialogue: click here. If you haven’t signed up for Chatter yet, please reply to this email and one of my team will help you with that.
Ngā mihi
Sue Mackwell, National Children’s Director