We are committed to providing an excellent service for the families, children and young people that we work with.

Our promise to you

We will:

• be courteous and professional
• engage and enable your family/whanau to make decisions that are in the best interests of the child or young person
• give you information in a way you understand
• respond to you quickly
• encourage you to bring support people when we meet with you, as long as this is safe for everyone
• respect your privacy
• tell you who may be able to help if we can’t and help you get in touch with them
• always try to answer your questions. If we’re not able to give you the information you want, we will always explain why.
  

If you’re not happy with the service you’ve received we’d like to know about it so we can put it right for you and learn from it.

The easiest way to sort out a problem is usually to contact your local office.  Either talk to the person you’ve been dealing with or ask for the manager.

If we can’t sort the problem out straight away you can make a formal complaint by:

• calling us free on 0508 FAMILY (0508 326 459)
• filling in a complaint form
• emailing us at complaints@cyf.govt.nz
• faxing us on 0-4-916 0222

We’ll contact you within one week of receiving your complaint to talk with you about how we’ll manage it.  We try to resolve any formal complaint within four weeks of receiving it - if it’ll take longer, we’ll let you know.

We’ll treat your complaint confidentially and only discuss it with the people involved in sorting it out. 

There are some issues we may not be able to help with, such as decisions made by the court – we’ll let you know if this is the case.

If you’re not satisfied with the outcome of your formal complaint, you can ask for a review by the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development’s Advisory Panel.  To apply for a review, you can write to the National Manager, Review Secretariat, Ministry of Social Development, PO Box 1556, Wellington. Click here for more information about the panel.