Social Welfare Dept trend to mixed-sex facilities

Press, 3 December 1987, Page 7

Social Welfare Dept trend to mixed-sex facilities

PA Wellington Over the next three years all of the Social Welfare Department’s residential children’s institutions will either be closed, wound down or changed, the State Services Commission says. Stage one of the reorganisation was the closing of the department’s six homes for younger children, the commission said in a letter to the Public Service Association. Three have already closed with the others due to follow within the next five months.

The P.S.A. has already negotiated a deployment package with the commission for these closings. Today social welfare delegates will meet in Wellington to discuss job losses caused by the next phase of reorganisation.

“We have been told there is going to be surplus staff but we haven’t decided yet whether we will be opposing the redundancies or simply negotiating the detail,”

P.S.A. assistant general secretary Joris de Bres said.

According to the letter, the reorganisation was designed to ensure that the department’s services were more relevant to the needs of the children and the young people they served.

“In making sure that these services are more relevant, there has been a change in the philosophy of provision which will minimise residential group care and put more emphasis on communitytype care,” it says.

"The staff role will therefore change from a custodial/remand function to embrace the wider aspect of social work.”

Residential services would be reorganised on a regional basis, the letter said.

“It is planned that regions will be self-sufficent by 1990, by which time the current services will have been replaced by new services and programmes.”

The re-organisation would include the closing

of Wellington Girls’ Home and Epuni Boys’ Home in March, 1989 and the closing of Christchurch Boys’ Home in February, 1988.

A 10 bed assessment unit at Porirua would be established in early 1989 and an alternative care centre would be set up in Lower Hutt to provide an information resource for alternative care services.

By March, 1989, a 14bed mixed-sex unit would be established on the Epuni Boys’ Home site.

Hokio in Levin would be wound down over the next two years and finally closed in December, 1989. Kohitere, also in Levin, would be wound down to a third of its present size by December, 1988. Dunedin Boys’ Home and Dunedin Girls’ Home would close in December, 1990. A new purpose-built, mixed-sex campus would be built in Dunedin to replace these two homes.

Several “outreach” teams were also to be developed in certain parts of the country.

These teams were designed to work in the

community. Many of the present employees would be needed to run the new services, the letter said.

“Both the commission and the department are confident that all of the current employees will be able to be redeployed to or retained in alternative work either in one of the new institutions, elsewhere in the department or elsewhere in the service.”

All staff at present employed within residential services would be offered the options of attrition, redeployment, retraining, leave without pay or enhanced early retirement. Part of the reorganisation was a move away from single sex to mixed sex facilities.

Kingslea Home in Christchurch, previously used for adolescent girls, has already become a mixed-sex home. As well as new mixedsex facilities in Lower Hutt and Dunedin, Bollard Girls’ Home in Auckland would become mixed-sex during the next year.

The department’s deputy director general for policy and services, Mr Rob Laking, said the department was moving towards mixed-sex facilities because they provided a more normal situation for young people. “We don’t regard our residential facilities as juvenile and we aim to get as close as possible to an ordinary living situation.”

He said there was always “fairly intensive” supervision in the homes. “We certainly don’t anticipate any hanky panky going on.”

Most of the children in social welfare homes were there because of behavioural problems, Mr Laking said.

“Some of them have been involved in sexual abuse and obviously we would keep an eye out for any developing personal problems they might have.

“But for the large percentage of them being in a mixed-sex facility could normalise their outlook on life.”