- In 2010/2011, we received 150,747 Care and Protection notifications. This is an increase of 20.7 per cent from 2009/2010. The increase was due, in part, to the number of family violence referrals from the New Zealand Police and the greater visibility of child abuse in the community.
- The number of substantiated abuse/neglect cases within six months of previous abuse/neglect finding increased from 1,797 in 2008/2009, to 2,253 in 2009/2010, to 2,509 in 2010/2011.
- The rate of substantiated abuse/neglect within six months of previous abuse/neglect finding increased from 2.21 per 1,000 children aged 0–16 years in 2009/2010, to 2.48 per 1,000 children in 2010/2011.
If more children are safe MSD must believe that they have only previously detected and dealt with a small portion of those who are either abused, neglected or at risk.
2 comments:
Yes it would appear so. But while incompetence on the part of MSD & other govt agencies (ever wondered what Family & Community Services actually does? They seem to spend taxpayer funds & fail in all their objectives) may have played a huge part in the failure to protect at-risk children, the deviousness of the perpetrators & the silence on the part of friends, family & the community would surely have always limited their effectiveness.
Interestingly Christine Rankin said many years ago (when she was head of that Light trust thing) that roughly 30 children are abused, neglected & maltreated in NZ each day. The MSD stats indicate the rate of abuse is much less. Which I think means that it will always be a difficult issue to accurately measure. Regardless, one child being abused, neglected or maltreated is always one too many,
But either way, more notifications has got to always be a good thing. Let's just hope that the increased dialogue and 'narking' translates into less children being harmed. Sadly, I suspect this is wishful thinking.
"If more children are safe MSD must believe that they have only previously detected and dealt with a small portion of those who are either abused, neglected or at risk."
Or more likely, the definitions of abuse and neglect are constantly "evolving".
What we don't know is whether the increased cases of abuse are catching the hard core or simply those on the margins of the definitions and/or increased enthusiasm by authorities to be seen to be doing something.
Take the ultimate statistic.. child murder.. it's been an average of 10 per year for a long time and its a statistic that can't be inflated much by changes in definition.
If that stat doesn't change much then you have to ask "why not?" when the more generic figures for "child abuse" are inflating furiously.
JC
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