KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's world-leading sex offender treatment programmes say they are being asked to perform miracles without enough back-up at home.
The three treatment providers _ Safe Network in Auckland, WellStop in Wellington and Stop in Christchurch _ claim one of the world's lowest youth reoffending rates. Only 2 per cent of the 216 adolescents who completed their treatment between 1996 and 2004 committed sexual offences again by October 2004.
But another 165 adolescents dropped out of the programmes, and the agencies say a major factor was a lack of training and support for the teenagers' parents or foster parents.
The manager of Christchurch-based Stop Trust, Don Mortensen, said New Zealand did not have an effective system for managing sex offenders in the community.
"When you look at the group of youngsters who didn't do well in treatment, the dropout group, issues of care were highly prevalent _ poor care, multiple placements," he said.
"We do have some fairly limited care capacity _ four specialist group homes, and some specialist care placements, about 20 throughout the country, where people are paid to deal with sex offenders and other issues, not just sex offenders.
"Beyond that there's Joe Public caregiver, who, unfortunately, is not always well prepared and is sometimes not told of a youth's full history, and placements don't always last because this is very demanding work."
In a joint submission to a parliamentary committee inquiry into youth sex offending, the three treatment units say the lack of trained caregivers sometimes forces Child, Youth and Family Services (CYFS) to place young offenders with untrained staff or in motels guarded by commercial security firms such as Armourguard.
"Where youth require intensive supervision in the community, CYFS often employs untrained staff on a casual basis as `trackers'," they say.
"Treatment providers cannot deliver good treatment without follow-through from the caregivers."
The four existing specialist group homes have just five beds each _ two homes in Auckland and one in Wellington all managed by Barnardos, and one in Christchurch managed by Richmond NZ.
The treatment providers say homes are also needed in the centres where they run branch programmes.
They also want to build up a pool of trained, specialist foster carers to look after young sex offenders for the long haul, developing the kind of stable "attachment" which youngsters need to form with an adult before they can develop healthy, trusting relationships with their peers and, eventually, with an intimate partner.
