CYF notifications for 2010/11

More from the MSD Statistical Report just released.

The next set of figures is interesting and quite misleading unless you read through the text carefully. Since 2007/08 the Police have been required to notify CYF whenever they attend a family violence incident where children are present. Up until 2010/11 the police referrals were combined in general notifications. Last year where they did not require further action they have been listed separately. So what the following chart actually shows is that notifications not requiring further action are increasing.


 table CY.1: Numbers of notifications received and requiring further action

Outcome of initial assessment of notifications received	Number of notifications received1,2
	2006/2007	2007/2008	2008/2009	2009/2010	2010/2011
Notifications requiring further action	43,845	40,739	49,224	55,494	57,949
Police family violence referrals3	-	-	-	-	57,153
Notifications not requiring further action	28,082	48,722	61,573	69,427	35,645
Total notifications received	71,927	89,461	110,797	124,921	150,747

And what is the ethnic make-up of the children who are subject to these notifications?

Nearly one half of the notifications requiring further action were concerned with Māori children and young people Of the notifications requiring further action between 2008/2009 and 2010/2011: around 46% concerned children and young people identified as Māori 31% concerned children and young people identified as European around 11% concerned children and young people identified as Pacific people.

What type of abuse was found?

 table CY.3: Substantiated findings by type

Type of finding	2006/2007	2007/2008	2008/2009	2009/2010	2010/2011
	Number of abuse and neglect findings from investigation of notifications1,2
Emotionally abused	8,256	8,664	10,938	12,535	12,595
Physically abused	2,274	2,321	2,855	2,886	3,225
Sexually abused	1,194	1,003	1,126	1,201	1,505
Neglected	4,486	4,302	4,677	4,403	4,762
Total abuse and neglect findings	16,210	16,290	19,596	21,025	22,087

So how can the picture be summed up? More notifications of which a smaller proportion required further action. However actual substantiations have also increased. So, notwithstanding I haven't accounted for any demographic change, and CYF may be being over-zealous, it looks very much like the overall situation for children is not improving.