Digest No. 1602
Purpose
"The Bill amends the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 (the Act or the CYPF Act) to give better effect to the Act's objectives and principles, enable or direct best practice, and strengthen the effectiveness of family group conferences. The Bill covers care and protection of, and offending by, children and young persons"
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Main Provisions
Definition of "young person"
The Bill amends the definition of "young person" to raise the upper age to 18 years and makes consequential amendments to the Act (Part 1, Clause 4, amending Section 2(1) of the CYPF Act, substituting definition of "young person").
Comment
This extends the coverage of the CYPF Act to include 17-year-olds, bringing the Act into line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. (For the purposes of that Convention, a child means a human being below the age of 18 years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier: article 1.)
Duties of chief executive
The Bill places a new duty on the chief executive to have procedures in place to receive, hear, determine, and address complaints from children and young persons in respect of whom action has been taken under the principal Act, or their families, whanau, or family groups (Part 1, Clause 5
amending Section 7 of the CYPF).
Chief social worker
The Bill provides for the formal appointment or designation of a chief social worker by the chief executive and sets out the chief social worker's functions. These include the conduct of practice reviews. The Bill gives the chief social worker the ability to delegate his or her statutory functions to any other suitable employee of the department. The chief executive is given power to arrange for the chief social worker or any other person to conduct a review of any practice of the department in relation to the CYPF Act if, in the chief executive's opinion, a review is in the public interest, or is required to improve the professional performance of social workers or other employees of the department, or a review would promote the best interests of children and young persons, or their families or family groups. Evidence given in the course of a review would be privileged and confidential and publication of review proceedings would be limited. The Bill makes it an offence to publish confidential information or particulars that identify a person subject to, or who participates in, a review (Part 1, Clause 6, inserting New Sections 7A - 7C into the CYPF Act).
Views of child or young person
The Bill makes amendments in relation to the ascertaining of the views of a child or young person in proceedings under the CYPF Act. The child or young person must be encouraged and assisted to participate in the proceedings or process to the degree appropriate to his or her age and level of maturity unless that participation would, in the opinion of a person specified in the Bill
, be inappropriate having regard to the matters to be heard or considered. The child or young person must be given reasonable opportunities to express views on matters affecting that child or young person. Any views the child or young person expresses (either directly or through a representative) must be taken into account. Various amendments are made to the CYPF Act to emphasise the importance of this consultation (Part 1, Clause 8, substituting Section 11 of the CYPF Act; Clause 16, amending Section 29 of the CYPF Act; Clause 20 amending Section 130 of the CYPF Act; Clause 28 re-enacting and amending Section 250 of the CYPF Act).
Reports of child abuse
The Bill provides for the initial assessment of a report of ill-treatment or neglect of a child or young person made under Section 15 of the CYPF Act. The social worker or member of Police who receives the report must undertake or arrange an assessment. Detailed procedures are prescribed for further investigations. A care and protection co-ordinator must be notified if, after further investigation, the social worker or member of the Police believes the child is in need of care and protection. The Bill provides in detail for the matters that must be considered and who must be consulted in these processes (Part 1, Clause 10, substituting Section 17 of the CYPF Act and inserting new Sections 17A - 17F into that Act).
Family group conferences
The Bill makes various changes to the provisions of the Act relating to family group conferences including who must be consulted on date, attendees and procedure before the conference takes place (particularly, the child or young person concerned and family). The care and protection co-ordinator must make relevant information available to care and protection family group conferences. Amendments are made in respect of the enforcement of family group conference decisions (Part 1, Clause 12, substituting Section 21 of the CYPF Act; Clause 13, amending Section 22 of the CYPF Act; Clause 14, amending Section 23 of the CYPF Act; Clause 15, amending Section 28 of the CYPF Act; Clause 30, amending Section 255 of the CYPF Act; Clause 32 inserting New Section 269A into the CYPF Act).
Strengthening victims' provisions
The Bill provides that measures for dealing with offending by children and young persons should not only (as currently) have regard to, but should instead recognise properly, the interests of any victims of that offending (for example, by including consideration of whether reparation should be made to those victims) (Clause 27 substituting paragraph (g) of Section 208 of the CYPF Act; Clause 47 substituting Section 320(5) of the CYPF Act; Clause 50 inserting New Sections 437A and 437B into the CYPF Act).
Orders and penalties
The Bill makes various detailed technical amendments in relation to Youth Court orders and Supervision orders (Clause 34 amending Section 282 of the CYPF Act, Clause 35(1) and (2) amending Section 283 of the CYPF Act; Clause 35(3) amending Section 283(o) of the CYPF Act;; Clause 37 inserting New Section 289A into the CYPF Act; Clause 39, substituting Section 296 of the CYPF Act (relating to the expiry of Youth Court orders)).
