Children and young people are loved, safe and nurtured
This means:
- they feel loved and supported
- they have family, whānau and homes that are loving, safe and nurturing
- they are safe from unintentional harm
- they are safe from intentional harm (including neglect, and emotional, physical and sexual abuse)
- they are able to spend quality time with their parents, family and whānau.
The best place for a child is in the safe, loving and stable care of their families, whānau, hapū, iwi or family group.
A stable and quality home environment with love and trust influences a child and young person’s wellbeing, learning and development on a daily basis, and their ability to form attachments to others.
Lasting and nurturing relationships are critical to many other aspects of wellbeing and the building of resilience and social skills.
A child needs to grow up feeling loved and wanted. This increases their chances of growing up to be healthy physically and mentally. A strong tree grows in good soil. With the right foundation we can all have brighter days.
Focus and key actions
Our focus is on supporting families and whānau to provide safe, loving and nurturing homes and preventing children and young people experiencing abuse or neglect, or being exposed to family or sexual violence.
There are already a number of actions underway to:
- Support parents caregivers, families and whānau
- Prevent harm and abuse
- Support victims and their families and whānau
- Improve the quality of State care
Indicators
Indicators are used to measure the outcomes in the most direct and simplest way possible. The specific indicators that are relevant to this outcome are:
- Feeling loved
- Feeling safe
- Family/whānau wellbeing
- Injury prevalence
- Harm against children
- Quality time with parents
You can learn more about these measures on the Indicators page.
