Jane Searle: Child Matters CEO on the $41 million investment into Oranga Tamariki staff training

The Minister for Children's $41 million workforce investment is expected to train and retain youth care staff. 

Karen Chhour says her new funding follows a 2023 Oranga Tamariki review, which found many workers weren't equipped to deal with the high needs of some kids in care. 

The boost will qualify more staff, recruit capable workers to vacant positions, and establish clinical roles in each residence. 

Child Matters CEO Jane Searle told Ryan Bridge dealing with high-risk kids takes a level of expertise. 

She says they were having staff who didn't have that level of training and struggled, causing high turnover. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now. Minister for Children Karen Shaw yesterday announced more money
for ordering a Tamadiki staff professional training forty one million
dollars for the residential workforce. She said the funds will
go towards uplifting the number of staff with quote professional qualifications.
Jane sill Is Child Matter CEO with me this morning.
Hi Jane, good morning, Ryan, Thanks for being with me.

(00:20):
So what exactly do the staff need training for?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, we've known there's been this has been an issue
for years and years. It's been identifying reports. The kids
they're dealing with are really high needs and complex, and
we've known that the staff didn't have the training to
know how to meet their needs, deal with the escalate situations.
So I'm happy to see the investment in the space.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Okay, what exactly you know? Have we got examples of
things that are going wrong?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, we've known for a long time that the staff
went suited. They didn't know how to deal with the
trauma thest kids go through, They didn't know how to
de escalate situations. Is a good one. You know that
takes a lot of one key and a lot of
expertise to actually make a difference when you're dealing with
some of our most high risk kids, and we were
having staff that didn't have that expertise, and there was
high turnover and there just wasn't any consistency of training.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Right, Okay, so who's going to do all this training?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Is?

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Are there people they're ready to go and do it
once the money is free?

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, I don't know that we've had the details release
of exactly who it's going to be, but my understanding
is is they want to get experts in certain areas
to do that. How they implement this is going to
be the key. So the amount I'm I'm happy to
see good investment. In fact, i'd like to see that
a cross training right across Old Rang and somebody key.
But how they actually do that and how they make

(01:39):
that a difference, that's going to be the key, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Well it will be how much time they have for
each case is also pretty crucial, isn't it, Because I mean,
if you're going in and trying to do a quick
job on a very broken child, I imagine that's not
a sustainable way to go about business.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Not all, it won't make any donts, it's years and
years of work that it takes to actually fully support
these kids to be able to make the changes that
we need. So we've got five residents of New Zealand
and by my calculations, about one hundred and seventy one
spaces that can be filled. So there all fill. That's
a significant amount of young people that we need to
support long term. So it's a big undertaking.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, certainly is Jane appreciate your I cross that this
morning for us. Jane cell Child Matters CEO. For more
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