New Zealand is the safest place in the world for children

Our Purpose

To prevent harm and violence to children through education and awareness

Our Role

• Education
• Collaboration and networks
• Specialist support and advice
• Monitoring and setting standards
• Building awareness
• Leadership

Our History

Child Protection Studies (CPS) was born as a response to the staggering economic and social impact of child abuse and cruelty to children. Since 1994, CPS has been educating New Zealanders about how to keep children safe from harm.

CPS' Reputation

CPS has earned a reputation for excellence in its child protection programmes which are aimed at improving the skills of all those whose work involves children, to enable them to intervene early to ensure children are safe.
Programmes are premised on the philosophy of multi-disciplinary and inter-sectorial participation. A child who is suffering from abuse or witnessing adult violence needs someone to take action to keep him or her safe. But because most children will not openly disclose they have been traumatised, it is up to the adults in the child's world to recognise the signs and work together to ensure that children do not fall through the gaps. CPS Programmes have been assessed and evaluated and student feedback shows that those who have undertaken CPS Programmes do make a difference.

External Evaluation of CPS

For many years the Todd Foundation has been a major supporter of CPS and of those who have needed financial support to attend child protection programmes.

As part of this support, The Todd Foundation made a grant for CPS to underake an external evaluation of the effectiveness of our services, and of possible future directions. Ruth Hungerford found "that CPS is effective in training people in child protection and raising awareness of child abuse issues and that it could be more effective if it had the resources and mandate to expand its training and other services"

Follow this link to the executive summary of Ruth's report Executive Summary