Services provided by Child, Youth and Family

Summary and History

The Department of Child, Youth and Family was created on 1 October 1999, and focused on supporting families to achieve well being for their children and young people.

On 1 July 2006, the Department joined the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) as the Child, Youth and Family (CYF) service line. The merger allowed closer working with partners in the social sector to improve services to vulnerable children and young people and their families. It also strengthened CYF’s whole of Government approach to helping children and young people in need.

The role of CYF is defined by the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act (1989, and amended 2005), the Care of Children Act (2004), the Adoption Act (1955), the Adult Adoption Information Act (1983), and the Adoption (Intercountry) Act (1997).

The work of CYF involves a variety of functions:

• social work services to children, young people and their families
• adoption services
• youth justice services
• prevention services covers provision of education and advice services for the prevention of child abuse and neglect, and the promotion of the wellbeing of children, young people and their families. It includes activities to promote and support stronger communities, including public education programmes
• approval and contracting of social and welfare services.

Note on ongoing improvements in data collection, recording and reporting

MSD has recently completed improvements to CYF’s client information management system to ensure the more consistent reporting of data. Comparisons of demographic data over several years should be treated with caution due to the significant number of clients with unrecorded demographic details in earlier years.