New Zealand News - NZ - Thousands locked out of schools

Perils of Commericalised Education

Criminality is the converse of Education. One thrives in the absence of the other.

Education advances humanity, as we discover, invent or develop new things, we train our children to master them.

Crime tends to advance as skilled people fall out of education or employment into limbo. Society protects Mr Average Unskilled with the social cushion of Welfare. Criminals may attempt to abuse the system and claim welfare when also earning money from crime. Welfare prevents those without resources from resorting to crime to eat.

The closure of this school is particularly sad. Started by an enterprising young woman that "the system" offered little to, it was probably too successful. Big fish tend to get caught in nets. The students that have had their courses interrupted probably are left with a sense of abandonment as they were locked out by the receivers. The government would do well to keep the school operating as a success story of individual effort.

State responsibility and control (of some things) is at least consistent. While the USSR failed to exploit natural resources to achieve economic stability, it did harvest some of the finest in ballet, film and the arts and created a more robust space exploration technology. There is something to be said for slowing progress and stemming the need to highlight the antics of the very very rich. The first we heard of this school was its closure. In the meantime we are bombarded by Government propaganda about the benefits of Genetic Modification, technology that could wreak NZ's farming economy (or, help it. What the heck is Government doing taking a punt with our main source of funds?)

It is a dangerous thing to put large numbers of people out of work. The criminals who used to steal the petty cash now satisfy their magpie addiction by breaking into houses while the gentle become legions of landscape gardeners, accepting but never quite able to reconcile why they were let go.

Education is the right that progress demands. Education is sacrosanct in human society. That a Government Dept screwed the business by not allowing it the funding to deliver to 3000 students (cap it at 600) meant that the major client was unable to be provided with the faciliities.

So while the NZ Government endangers schools in New Zealand the crime rate is rising.

Meantime, the crime rate going down in New York

Our hypothesis is that economic activity/assistance was suddenly available and much poverty crime became less necessary. Households of food thieves now had food on the table and could get back to the family business. The kids now go to schools that are being rebuilt. That kind of thing.

By privatising education, NZ has managed to put people at risk while exposing most to better technology and higher costs.

And through Government assistance, New York enjoys some hiatus from social crime.

See also:

• NZ Herald - Thousands locked out of schools
• NZ Herald - New York Crime Rate decline

School Closure, background

Top Stories from NZCity

Home Detention Outrage

NZ First MP Ron Mark said home detentions sends out the wong message about punishment for Class A drugs.

His argument assumes that in the case of Darren McDonald favour was given to the pretty boy from the right side of town. Mark opposes home detention for drug supply convictions making his own broad distinction between the treatment of gang members and white collar workers.

The thing is that gang members are also given diversions if it is applicable. White collar workers also go to jail. Addicts who may be victimised in jail because of the nature of their work should be diverted from overcrowded jails if that is the best thing to do in the case at hand.

Mark's self righteous stand is reactionary and likely to rouse a few angry voices in support but it makes more sense to cure those with a curable disease. Putting addicts into prisons is a sure fire way to set them up for a life of dependence of and support of criminal connections available in prisons as a free offer with most drug deals.

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Top Stories from NZCity

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CYFS

The Structural Faultline

The CYFS service has been given a reprieve so that the budgets for servicing the needs of 2000 kids on the waiting list can be organised and processed.

Indications are that pumping money into the service may or may not help it survive in its current form. It has to address key issues so that it evolves with society rather than against it.

A service that engages with an intimate level of personal intrusion as that that has to take children from the multicultural families of Auckland. These are the children who are being abused in the home, the children who are going off the rails, the kids who sell P to other kids, the kids who break into people's homes, the kids that re-enact the violence witnessed in nappies between warring parents.

These are the kids that require a Nanny State to step in and give a chance to break the cycle of violence or the cycle of drug abuse or criminality that has some families by the short and curlies.

The CYFS is there to step in on behalf of the child. Every case is urgent.

If such a body is established with a funding budget, on good old socialist ideals, and that budget includes a consideration for staff training and development. Like any Government funded scheme it is subject to razor gang ruthless budget cuts, even when the Government is in surplus, and this means that the kids take priority over the staff development programme and pretty soon society out evolves the dept that is supposed to be leading it.

Government funding lands up being a cake that makes everyone hungry. The motives are not to invest and expand as there are no competitors vying for the business. Social workers are trained but the organisation needs to learn how to evolve itself. It needs to be able to link its productivity to its results.

111 Million injections

111 Million Injections

We complain when a Government does nothing, but fronting $111 Million to save at-risk kids is a few steps in the right direction. The Government is there to think not just throw money at a problem.

People are not informed of all the circumstances of the department and assume all is in hand. Why was a management called "dysfunctional" in a ministerial report? The problem may in fact be a long term hiring problem that has seen a department not able to place adequate staff to address the burgeoning problem some have with children. And it is not just abusive or negligent parents or children who are at risk in the home that CYFS attempts to address as a department. The real question of course in our minds is how a department that only deals with severe problem clients is going to cope without resources.

There has been a lot of talk in the media about specific things wrong with the CYFS - how inadequate the Northern Regional lockup is - but they all seem to miss the point. If you have one problem child, it may take several staff to control the circumstances of the problem. Take for example the domestic violence environment. Two social workers manage the situation, and proceedings may be also brought by police. The calls for blood letting by a reactionary bogus media that can not interview staff of the CYFS quasi corporation as Government business in New Zealand are not completely divorsed from the corporate advantages of the private sector while remaining in a quagmire of slow process. The paper work must be exact due to the need for regulation in this area.

We believe that if there is a need for bureauracy, then it is an independently funded and established bureaucracy that works with the deliverers of servce to clients. Those skilled social workers that do the work of two others that are not there could have a better chance of delivering if there was an accurate assessment of need and a proper requisistion from Government. Instead we have a manager apologising for the lack of resourcing and you are not convinced she is not actually in negotiation with her tight fisted treasurer or is actually not up to adminstration (possibly having an experiential history of a practicioner now expected to undertake business adminstration), (or worse, a bottom line man that has no appreciation of the art of delivery to clients.

Government after Government falls on this sword. Crime reduction is achieved when there are enough jobs for the unskilled. And the really stupid or evil kids are addressed early in their careers, with assistance, to be able to live and cope with our fast moving world.

STUFF - STORY - HOME : New Zealand's leading news and information website

CYFS under Fire

Child, Youth and Family Services management is under the microscope. The Government will pump millions of dollars so the dept can be rescued from crisis and a "dysfunctional senior management team".

This dept has the responsibility to help children become part of the real world instead of falling off the rails from truancy to crime to drugs and prison. It is there to help children from abusive homes. It failed to respond to the call of the distressed father of Corel Burrows and that meant that it failed to protect a child in danger.

The conditions of its northern residential centre have come under criticism. Some of the failicites we have viewed have been substandard and others extremely good. That is it a service overloaded with difficulty is not in question. That is is underfunded is not in question.

It is hard for Governments faced with massive interest bills to see reasons to invest in kids who may be criminals. But it is important to provide help before the behaviour is ingrained. The investment of a few million dollars by a Government running in surplus to help integrate 2000 kids back is the least they could do. We ask if the management of CYFS is considered defective, then why not start at the top, and do the job properly.

Nobody in CYFS want poor management. An investment here is good news. Let's hope they find people who can spend it wisely. The trouble often is that great practicioners oft do not make great adminstrators.
STUFF - STORY - HOME : New Zealand's leading news and information website

NZOOM - ONE News - Politics

Police get new powers

New Zealand Pollice have new powers to intercept communication and deal with terrorist acts in New Zealand. The law needed some updates to comply with UN regulations.

"The new offences include improperly dealing with nuclear or radioactive material or unmarked plastic explosives; contaminating food, water or other products intended for human consumption; infecting animals with the intention of causing serious harm to animal populations and damage to the national economy; harbouring or concealing a terrorist; threatening major harm to persons, property or the national economy; or making malicious hoaxes.

With penalties for certain acts being increased from 3 months maximum jail sentence now to 10 years and half million dollar fines, a clear signal from the Government that it plans to deal with terrorism as a matter of criminal law.

"The use of tracking devices under the Act, where a breach of the law is needed to put them in place, will be limited to Police and Customs. Safeguards include the need for a judicial warrant requirement in all but emergency situations, and requirements to report on the extent to which such devices are used.

"Evidence of serious criminal offending lawfully obtained by an interception warrant will be admissible, even if the warrant was issued in relation to a different offence.

"Police will also have the power to require assistance from a person where necessary, such as providing passwords to access computers, but the assistance must be both reasonable and necessary. A judicial warrant is required.

See also:
Beehive
NZOOM - ONE News - Politics

New Zealand News - NZ - CYF admits ignoring Coral call

Child, Youth and Family

Its an important Government function - looking after children who are neglected by their family or subjected to abuse. They are there to help children back into the eduction system. They are there to help with families in trouble.

As an agency, they are not exactly popular in the media. The latest run of headlines lead a growing popular opinion that there is something wrong with the agency itself.

Every failure to act that results in tragedy will hit the headlines, but when an agency like CYFS managed to get it right, nobody gives a hoot.

How many calls for help from broken families has CYFS acted on only to find resources squandered with time wasters? Are CYFS free to act to protect children in every case or is there a serious resourcing problem that the Government should look into?

CYFS admits to being understaffed and other agencies in the Youth Jusitice System have complained that CYFS effectiveness is undermined by the way in which it is staffed. Police have also found it difficult to get social workers assigned by CYFS in some cases. Comments from officials ranged from "CYFS is staffed by idiots" to "CYFS are overwhelmed with demand and yet face budget constraints that leads to hiring the wrong people and they are paid so little that staff turnover is extreme."

CYFS has 1780 cases that have not been allocated a social worker. These cases are "lower levels of urgency".

There are valuable professionals in CYFS whose effectiveness is hampered by the burden of process and cases with a lower level of urgency are people sliding down the slippery slope, and every single case needs to be addressed. Not just family violence, but the massive wave of truancy and petty crime that leads young minds along a road that is extraordinarily hard to rehabilitate from. If these "not urgent" cases were not stuck on an endless waiting list, the tax payer would save on a large number of prison attendances over the next twenty years. More importantly, kids lives will be saved from living at the edge, committing crime or selling P or engaging in prostitution.

Kids grow up and become adults. CYFS helps those that can not help themselves, but it seems that the department needs help to function, and it is more than vital to our future that CYFS does function.

See also:
New Zealand News - NZ - CYF admits ignoring Coral call Stuff.co.nz - Opposision demands action on CYF report