Children and young people are involved and empowered
This initiative, funded through Budget 2019, aims to increase child wellbeing through increased service capacity to meet demand for prevention, education, early intervention, assessment and treatment services for children and young people who display concerning and harmful sexual behaviours.
This includes ensuring services (including assessments, treatments and preventative initiatives) can be delivered in a kaupapa Māori context and are suitable for those with behavioural problems, intellectual disabilities or neuro-disabilities.
Oranga Tamariki has increased funding to existing providers to target existing waitlists and stabilise the service provision while design and development progressed. Work is also underway to establish a partnership approach with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), to develop kaupapa Māori service responses for victims/survivors, perpetrators and their whanau).
Upcoming work includes: an early intervention pilot that will train early learning and primary school educators on how to identify and respond to concerning or harmful sexual behaviours; developing a more inclusive response for those with intellectual and neuro-disabilities;exploring ways of delivering specialist harmful sexual behaviour services for those in smaller geographical areas; and finalising the partnership approach with MSD for kaupapa Māori services for those with harmful sexual behaviour.