Children in care get specialist assessments

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is delighted the Government‘s Gateway Assessments for children in care start rolling out this week.

“I’m incredibly proud of this initiative, it’ll make a real difference to the health and wellbeing of children who’ve had a rough start to life,” says Ms Bennett.

“Children come into care because of serious abuse and neglect and are most likely to have missed out on regular education and healthcare.”

This initiative will see a paediatrician and nurse fully medically assess each child and recommend necessary follow up health services.

Teachers will then provide a profile of the child’s educational history and dedicated coordinators will pull everything together to assess overall need.

“It costs on average $900 per child and we’re putting $15.3 million in to reach 4,200 children a year,” says Ms Bennett.

Gateway health and education assessments were piloted over two years, across sixteen Child, Youth and Family sites and five District Health Boards.

A review of the pilot programmes found 88% of children in care had serious unidentified health needs, 25% of these had three or four health needs.

“Simply put, these children are more likely to have physical, behavioural and emotional problems that need addressing and we’re doing just that.”

Gateway Assessments are part of a $43.7m children in care package including:

Mental health services for children in care - $14.513 million

Early childhood education for children in care - $11.467 million

Parenting support services for foster carers - $2.4 million

“This is a complete package to ensure children in care get the health, educational and mental health services they need, while providing much needed support for grandparents raising grandchildren, fosterers and carers.”