Children and youth at risk provides information about children and youth at risk of poor future outcomes. It shows the different outcomes at-risk children and youth are expected to achieve without additional support, and maps the location of different risk groups down to area unit level (the equivalent of a city suburb).

Children at risk are identified using four risk indicators:

• Having a Child Youth & Family finding of abuse or neglect
• Being mostly supported by benefits since birth
• Having a parent with a prison or community sentence
• Having a mother with no formal qualifications

Children who have these indicators are more likely to leave school with no qualifications, to spend time on benefit, and to receive a prison or community sentence when they grow up. The greater the number of indicators a child has, the more likely this will happen.

Children aged 0 to 5 and aged 6 to 14 are represented separately, according to whether they have two or more risk indicators, three or more risk indicators, or all four risk indicators. More information about these risk indicators can be found in Characteristics of Children at Greater Risk of Poor Outcomes as Adults.

Youth at risk are identified as being in one or more of ten target populations:

Youth in target populations are more likely than other young people to not achieve a level 2 qualification, to be on benefit long-term, to receive a prison or community sentence, or to need mental health services. Different target populations are likely to have different needs, and require different services to meet those needs. Some young people may be in more than one target population. More information about how these target populations are identified can be found in Using Integrated Administrative Data to Identify Youth Who Are at Risk of Poor Outcomes as Adults.

The methods used to estimate future outcomes and costs are designed to provide a comparative picture of future outcomes and costs for different population subgroups, but they have some significant limitations. These estimates should be viewed as indicative, and not as forecasts of the actual outcomes and costs that will be incurred in the future.

Projected costs are in 2013 dollars and cover benefit payments, costs associated with serving sentences administered by the Department of Corrections, and costs associated with the services provided by CYF in childhood.

Youth transitions to adulthood provides information about the activities and outcomes of young people aged 15 to 24 in New Zealand. It shows the main activities they are undertaking as they transition to adulthood, how many are in employment, and how many are receiving benefits. Results are presented for different risk groups and are mapped down to area unit level (the equivalent of a city suburb).

Activities and outcomes are tracked across time by looking at the interactions that young people have with government agencies. School and tertiary enrolment information from the Ministry of Education tells us whether a young person is in education, tax data from Inland Revenue tells us whether they are working, and data from the Department of Corrections tells us if they are in prison.

Young people can be engaged in many different activities in a particular year. We look at the activities they were undertaking each month and average these across the year. Where someone is overseas in a particular month that month is excluded.

The main activity being undertaken is derived using a prioritised list. If a young person is doing multiple activities, the one that is highest in the list is used. Apart from being in custody (which has the highest priority), the lower an activity is in the graph the higher priority it is given. For example, if a young person is in school and in limited employment in a particular month, they are only counted as being at school.

• If a person spent more than 15 days in a particular month in custody or overseas, that is considered to be their main activity for the month.
• Education and employment activities are defined where a person spent at least 1 day of a month enrolled in school or in a tertiary course that equates to more than half of an Equivalent Fulltime Student (EFTS), or they earned at least $10 in the month.
• Where a young person had self-employment income in a tax year, it is not possible to determine in which months it was earned. The earnings are distributed across the year, while negative values are treated as zero income.
• Substantial employment is where a young person earned more than a person working 30 hours at the adult minimum wage would have earned in a month, while limited employment is where they earned less than that amount in a month.
• NEET means a young person is 'Not in Employment, Education or Training'. They may or may not be receiving a benefit, but there is no information to suggest they are in employment, education or training. In some cases they may be in an unpaid caring role, or another unpaid role. A young person is considered to be long-term NEET if their main activity is NEET for six months or more at a time.

Separate measures of youth on benefit and in employment are also reported. These are not prioritised. A young person's main activity in a month may be tertiary education, but if they also have earnings and are on benefit they will be counted as being both on benefit and in employment .

Data can be mapped as either the percentage of months spent engaged in each activity over the year, or as the number of person-years spent engaged in the activity (calculated by dividing the total number of months by 12).

Services for children and youth provides information about education services used by young people aged 6 to 19 and employment services used by young people aged 15 to 24 in New Zealand. It shows the extent to which at-risk children and youth are accessing these services, and maps the overlap between risk groups and service users in different parts of the country.

IDI data on the services people access is limited. Employment and education are two areas where a lot of data on government-funded services is available, but not all services are included. In many cases government agencies, such as the Ministry of Education, do not collect information about which individuals access which services. For example, schools may have access to a number of different services to meet the needs of a particular child. Some of this service information is not provided to the Ministry and cannot be presented in Insights. Insights does not present information where services are not funded by government.

Education services presented for 6-14 year olds are:

• Correspondence School - Students who study by correspondence at Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (Correspondence school) instead of attending a physical school.
• Interim Response Fund - A fund that is available to keep students engaged in learning following a significantly challenging behavioural event. It gives funding for a short term response while a more comprehensive plan is developed.
• Reading Recovery - An early intervention for students making limited progress in reading and writing after their first year at school.
• Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) - RTLB teachers are funded to work with teachers and schools to find solutions to support students in Years 1-10 with learning and/or behaviour difficulties. This information is not available after 2013.
• Special Education - Children can access different Special Education services. Services include communication, behaviour, and early intervention services, the Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme (ORRS), High Health, and where a child attends secondary school over age 19, or primary school over age 14.
• Truancy (Non-Attendance) - A student may be referred to truancy services when they are enrolled at a school but don't attend classes. This data is only available from 2013 onwards.
• Truancy (Non-Enrolment) - A student is referred to truancy services when they leave a school but aren't re-enrolled in another school within 20 school days.

Additional Education services presented for 15-19 year olds are:

• Alternative Education - 15 year old students who cannot settle into the school environment are offered an alternative education outside the school.
• Gateway Programme - The Gateway service provides year 11+ school students with the opportunity to access learning opportunities in the workplace.
• Industry Training - Delivered to people in employment, helping support the development of skills that meet industry needs.
• Secondary-Tertiary Programme - Provide vocational education opportunities for secondary school students, such as through Trades Academies.
• Student Allowance - A weekly payment to help with living expenses while studying full-time. Eligibility is dependent on personal income, parental income, living situation, and having dependants.
• Youth Guarantee: Fees-Free - Provides fees-free tertiary education for students aged 16-19 years who have no or low prior qualification achievement.

Employment services are funded by the Ministry of Social Development, and often delivered by Work and Income. In most cases information is presented by the type of service, instead of for individual services:

• Information services - This includes careers guidance advice and seminars.
• Placement and matching services - Services that match people with jobs and help place them into job vacancies.
• Skills training services - Business training and advice, payments for course fees, industry partnerships, job-focussed training, and literacy/numeracy training.
• Wage subsidies - Payments to employers to incentivise them to hire, train, and retain disadvantaged jobseekers, including those with disabilities.
• Other employment services - This includes a range of services, including those that build work confidence, involve people in work in the community or conservation work, grants to help setting up businesses, and job search assistance.
• Youth Service: Youth Payment/Young Parent Payment (YP/YPP) - Youth Service provides mentoring services for young people. Young people aged 16 or 17 who do not have the support of a parent or guardian, and young parents aged 16 to 18, may be eligible to receive either YP or YPP respectively. Young people receiving YP or YPP must take part in Youth Service.
• Youth Service: NEET or Youth Transition Service - Mentoring service for 16 or 17 year old young people at risk of becoming NEET. Youth Transition Service was superseded by YS: NEET in mid-2012.

Information on the use of education services by 15-19 year olds can be restricted to those who were enrolled in education in the year of interest by using the Subset to user input. Similarly, information on the use of employment services can be restricted to those young people who received a benefit in that year. Service use can be looked at over the last year (the year of interest) or over the last five years.

At-risk children and youth are more likely to need support to achieve good outcomes. Different services are targeted in different ways to meeting these needs. While some services are offered to a broad group of young people, others are targeted at a specific high-needs group, or are in reaction to a poor outcome occurring (such as non-attendance at school). As such, we would expect the extent of the overlap between risk groups and services to vary by service. The overlap could vary across the country for a number of different reasons, including access issues, differing local area needs, or different choices about the use of alternative services.

Information on other types of service, such as health services, will be added to Insights over time. As new service data is added to the IDI, the range of services covered will continue to expand, providing a more comprehensive picture about which young people are accessing which services, and where.