Social Work Now, Issue 31, pages 12-18.
Personal resource kits were developed for children and young people in the custody and/or guardianship of the Chief Executive of Child, Youth and Family as a result of recommendations made in the ministerial review undertaken by former Principal Youth Court Judge Mick Brown in 2000. Judge Brown emphasised the need to ensure that children and young people are the central focus of care placement and that care management is carried out in accordance with the objectives of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989. He further recommended that ‘children and young people in care be provided with kits containing age appropriate information about being in care and their rights, a scrap book and personal record of being in care, and a suitable bag or backpack for their belongings, inscribed with their name’.
In 2002 an intra-agency project team comprising members from the Child, Youth and Family national office teams of communications and service policy and development was established to implement this recommendation by producing a backpack containing the kits recommended by Judge Brown. The project team adopted a participatory approach in content and design and so engaged with children and young people in care or who had a previous involvement with Child, Youth and Family.