‘Children shouldn’t suffer from CYFS actions’ says Turia

Co-leader, Maori Party

20 December 2005

The Christmas stopwork scheduled to take place on Friday, when members of the National Union of Public Employees working for Child, Youth and Family take strike action, has prompted immediate response from Tariana Turia.

“It is disappointing that staff have to take action at a time when families are often under stress” said Mrs Turia. “However, we also accept that social workers should be far better paid than they are, given the complex and difficult nature of their work”.

“CYFS workers are poorly paid", said Mrs Turia “which makes a mockery of the status we accord the families of this nation”.

“If we are really committed to supporting families to restore their sense of pride and wellbeing, we must ensure there are adequate resources in place” said Mrs Turia.

"CYFS Managers are judged on how they remain within budget not whether, their stressed under-paid workers have the resources to assist families which are also stressed”.

" Workers under stress don’t always make the right decisions.”

“For the sake of our children and families” said Mrs Turia, “We must ensure that CYFS workers are resourced appropriately, including decent wages, to support families in the transition from crisis to well-being”.

“I have been critical of this agency in the past” said Mrs Turia, “but I take nothing away from the difficulty of the work. If we are serious about improvements in this agency, an agency often in crisis, we must take every step to ensure we can lift staff performance and motivation”.

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