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Social Development Minister Paula Bennett was delighted to get unanimous support from Parliament for the Vulnerable Children Bill at first reading.

“This legislation is part of the wider Children’s Action Plan, with more than 30 initiatives to prevent child abuse and improve the lives of our most vulnerable children,” says Mrs Bennett.

“I’ve deliberately kept politics out of this and I’m delighted Opposition parties have found a way to support this work in exactly the same vein.”

The Vulnerable Children omnibus Bill proposes two new Acts: the Vulnerable Children Act, and the Child Harm Prevention Orders Act.

It also amends the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 and the KiwiSaver Act 2006 and makes consequential amendments to a number of other Acts.

This Bill is about protecting vulnerable children, and putting that priority ahead of the needs of adults.

These changes are bold and by their nature, controversial.

The Government is considering options contained in an independent report to strengthen the Child, Youth and Family complaints process.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett has asked officials to investigate a recommendation to expand the capability of the Children’s Commissioner to assume a greater independent monitoring role of CYF.

“I commissioned an independent report to investigate whether any changes to the complaints system are needed to ensure independence.

The Foundation-Focused Training Opportunities (FFTO) programme is to be replaced from 1 January 2014 with an expanded range of more effective education and training programmes to help beneficiaries and young people get into work, Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce and Social Development Minister Paula Bennett announced today.

FFTO programmes consist of 26-week foundation-level training courses for beneficiaries funded by Vote Social Development and administered by the Tertiary Education Commission.

FFTO will be replaced by the following:

Changes to the living alone payment coming into effect today will ensure better support for superannuitants and veterans’ pensioners who live alone.

When a superannuitant or veterans’ pensioner suffers the loss of a spouse or partner and now lives alone, they are entitled to the living alone payment to help with the costs of running their household.

“We know it’s tougher living alone when you can no longer share basic household costs like groceries or the power bill,” Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said.

A mobile app designed to encourage young fathers to interact with their children has been launched today by Social Development Minister Paula Bennett.

The ‘Peekaboo’ app, developed by Plunket, Vodafone and the Ministry of Social Development, is available in English and Te Reo and will be free for download from both the Apple and Android stores from September 1.

“Launched to coincide with Father’s Day, the app is a homegrown, educational tool that brings parents and their young children together,” Mrs Bennett said.

Thousands of New Zealanders have come off welfare and into work thanks to the Government’s Job Streams wage subsidy employment package.

“Introduced a year ago, Job Streams offers beneficiaries a flexible pathway into work through two distinct initiatives - Flexi-Wage subsidies and Skills for Industry training programmes,” Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said.

“The simple, work-targeted focus is making a real difference for Jobseekers.”

Hundreds of beneficiaries are taking up the new work bonus payment by leaving welfare to take up work opportunities.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says this incentive payment is for beneficiaries who go into work despite having no work expectation on them.

It means instead of the benefit simply stopping, it is phased out incrementally so people keep a proportion of it as they transition to a wage.

“In the last two weeks of July alone, 239 people took advantage of the work bonus payment as they proactively found jobs,” says Mrs Bennett.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett has announced measures to better support children as they move out of State care and into independence.

“While on my U.S Eisenhower fellowship, I was impressed with savings accounts set up for children in care and saw an opportunity with KiwiSaver.”

“New Zealand children in care generally don’t have family who can sign them up to Kiwisaver, but being enrolled will help them later in life and send a message that their future matters,” says Mrs Bennett.

I think the most important work I will ever do as a Minister is the work contained in the Children’s Action Plan.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is introducing legislation with sweeping changes to protect vulnerable children and help them thrive.

More than fifty children have died in the last five years because of extreme abuse; we know many of their names.

“We’ve all had enough, it just has to stop,” says Mrs Bennett who launched the ten-year Children’s Action Plan last year.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says young people are responding well to the new way of working with Youth Services.

“We introduced welfare changes for young people to help them into work quickly so they can lead positive, productive and independent lives.”

“Community providers work directly with young people to help them navigate what can be a daunting world, by getting them help with paying their bills, budgeting and parenting as well as supporting them into education.”

The Social Media Innovations Fund has reached a key milestone with the recent release of the Phobic Trust’s mobile phone mood diary app.

“I’m pleased to see the Phobic Trust mood diary app is now available for free from the Apple Store, allowing young people easy access to an innovative tool to help manage their mental health,” Mrs Bennett said.

The Phobic Trust was one of five organisations awarded a one-off grant when the Fund launched in February this year.

Taking a lead role for sexual violence services, Minister Bennett is working with a range of government agencies on a review of funding and services.

“The Government recognises the sector does incredibly important work for victims of sexual violence and needs funding certainty,” says Mrs Bennett.

The in-depth review into the sexual violence response sector will look at:

A major funding boost to assist victims of sexual violence was announced today by the lead Minister for Sexual Violence Services Paula Bennett.

Funding will help the Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation (HELP) provide a sexual violence crisis response in Auckland and Northern districts.

The funding of  $1,371,000 over three years will contribute towards a 24/7 telephone support service, a call out team of specialist trauma counsellors, an acute crisis counselling service and court preparation and support services.

Today the Rotorua Children’s Team begins working with children and families for the first time, says Social Development Minister Paula Bennett.

“Children’s Teams support communities to better protect their children.”

Central to the Children’s Action Plan (CAP), Children’s Teams work with vulnerable children and their families to ensure children are safe from abuse.

The first Children’s Team is made up of a group of Rotorua-based senior professionals representing health, education, welfare and social services.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett today announced funding to strengthen the social sector through the new Capability Investment Resource.

“This is the first round out of a total of $31.65 million in funding, aimed at building a stronger, adaptable and more integrated social sector

The first round of the Capability Investment Resource provides $1.7 million for 233 organisations to use for organisational capability self-assessments and/or planning with Capability Mentors.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is pleased to announce 92 organisations providing budgeting support and advice will soon receive extra funding.

“As part of Budget 2013 I announced $1.5 million extra was being provided to assist the work of Budgeting Services, in addition to $8.9 million in Government funding in 2012/13,” says Mrs Bennett.

“We’ve targeted funding towards organisations who demonstrated the greatest need, and those who are facing a high demand for their services.”

Child, Youth and Family and Ngāti Porou have signed a Memorandum of Understanding committing to work together to better protect vulnerable children.

“Ngāti Porou want better outcomes for their children, and the agreement signed in Gisborne today is a significant step towards achieving this,” Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said.

“The MoU will allow Child, Youth and Family and Ngāti Porou to take meaningful action towards reducing child abuse and neglect on the East Coast.”

All low decile primary schools will have social workers to help protect and support children, by the end of the next school term.

“I’m really pleased we’ve been able to expand the number of social workers, adding an extra 149 frontline staff around the country.”

“Social Workers in Schools (SWiS) do an outstanding job of protecting children, they’re a vital frontline response to preventing and addressing abuse and neglect,” says Mrs Bennett.

Despite notifications to Child, Youth and Family more than doubling in the past six years, social worker response times continue to improve, with 98.7 per cent of critical notifications being attended to within 24 hours.

“As has been repeatedly explained to the Labour spokesperson, the cases she refers to were not instances where children were left in danger, but where cases were not recorded in the system in a timely manner,” says Social Development Minister Paula Bennett.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett announces the appointment of Belinda Milnes as Chief Families Commissioner.

“Ms Milnes is well positioned to lead the Families Commission, having been interim Chief Commissioner since February this year.”

An independent panel said Ms Milnes had demonstrated good judgement in her current role and has a broad knowledge of the Commission’s role and direction as well as the current legislative changes.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett welcomes the Ministry of Social Development’s Household Incomes Report for the 2011 calendar year.

“This provides a candid snapshot of how New Zealanders were doing financially in 2011,” says Mrs Bennett.

The report shows incomes increased as New Zealand recovered from the Global Financial Crisis and work increased on the Christchurch rebuild.

The latest quarterly benefit figures released include both the new categories effective from July 15 and the old categories for comparison.

“We’re continuing with a transparent approach to reporting benefit numbers as we said we would,” says Social Development Minister Paula Bennett.

“There are currently 309,782 people on benefits in New Zealand, a reduction from 310,146 the previous quarter and down from 320,041 the year prior.”