Jane Searle: Child Matters CEO talks growing number of reports of concern to Oranga Tamariki

A children's support charity says a mix of heightened awareness and more abuse could be the reason for more reports to Oranga Tamariki. 

The Ministry for Children estimates its seen a 45 percent increase in reports of concern in the year to April.

It comes as Newstalk ZB reveals more than a-thousand children are overdue to be assigned a social worker. 

Child Matters Chief Executive Jane Searle told Ryan Bridge it's aware of a large volume of under-reporting - especially in serious cases. 

She says increased reporting is certainly not indicative of just more awareness. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's a worry. These numbers coming out of ordering a
tamadiki this morning via a report from enz ME, more
than thirteen hundred kids who are overdue to be assigned
a social worker. On top of this, eighty one thousand
reports of concern that's when people are worried about a
kid they report it to ordering a tamidiki. Eighty one
thousand in the last year to March. That is a

(00:20):
forty five percent increase on the previous year. The chief
executive Child Matters Jane Searle with us this morning. Jane,
good morning, Good morning, Ryan. Now those overdue, So the
thirteen hundred kids overdue to be assigned a social worker,
that's ten days or more. How serious is that? Give
us an idea, Well, it's.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Usually concerning, So you need to have social workers in
front of these children to understand what the risk is.
So the question is what does it mean or we
have an increase in unallocated cases. The answers increase risk
for a vulnerable kids and.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
A forty five percent increase in the reports of concern.
Just to clarify, that's not necessarily eighty one thousand kids
that could be double ups there, so.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
It's well, it depends how they calculated and if there
are reports concerns about the same children or the same
children in one family. But I mean, we've always sat
high with our reports are concerns, but these are the
highest numbers that I've seen. What's called that that's up
for debate. We do know, of course, that that's as
a fraction of the children that are risk in the country.
Because report are concerned our only a fraction of what

(01:25):
we know is going on. So it shows that are
Englis commody keys increasingly swamped with this workload. And if
you're swamped to do the work that you're meant to
be doing, that's for a huge concern.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
You said, it's up for debate about why. Obvious answers
one is there's more abuse going on or people are
reporting it more. What do you say?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
I would say it could be a mixture of both.
But we know that there's a huge amount of underreporting,
and what I hear from the social sector is that
probably there is less reporting from some serious cases. So
it's certainly not indicative of the fact that it's just
more being reported and that we're knowing what's going on.
I don't think that's the case.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Help, This makes sense for me. Government says there's more
social workers going in, they've revamped the reporting system sixty
eight million dollars over four years or whatever it was
last year, and yet they are swamped. In your words,
what's going on?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Well, the answer is that OT is a very big
ship to turn around and it is going to take years.
We always knew that, but I think that, I mean,
this shows that the capacity is storm not what it
should be, and if our weight lists are growing, then
it's going to increase risk. So there's no way of
talking around that.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Jane, I appreciate your time this morning. Jane cell Child
Matters Chief executive.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
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