Oranga Tamariki expressed confidence that in general recommendations to all agencies in TOTB were being met in children’s residences. It noted though that consideration of how the grievance procedure could be made more independent was ongoing and the continued need for IT investment to improve the ability to analyse incident records. Responding to specific recommendations on children’s residences, the Ministry asserted that there was a reduction in use of force and secure care (though this was not borne out by the data). The Ministry also pointed to initiatives to find alternatives, for example the implementation of the restorative practice of Whakamana Tangata in youth justice residences. A submission from one civil society organization noted the key importance of updating the Regulatory Framework for Residential Care in order to make it consistent with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Whilst welcoming the options for change to the Regulatory Framework developed by Oranga Tamariki and opportunity to comment on these, it noted that no update had been provided since last year. The submission emphasised the need for a greater consistency of approach across residences, underpinned by universally applicable guidelines, and for more sharing of good practice. The current use of seclusion and restraint with children and young people: key findings There was little evidence that data collection and analysis improved since Thinking Outside the Box? was published. Pertinent data on the use of Secure rooms was still not collated centrally or recorded digitally. I was surprised to see that the Care and Protection unit we visited was still using large-format, pen-onpaper registers for the Secure unit. Poor record keeping in Oranga Tamariki residences had also been commented on by the Children’s Commissioner and the Office of the Chief Social Worker/ Director Professional Practice6 who noted that, whilst some data recording has improved in some residences, this remained an area of concern. As data on placements in Secure rooms was not collected and analysed centrally, the data analysed below had to be manually extracted especially for this report. The data provided to us by Oranga Tamariki on the use of Secure rooms in all its 4 Youth Justice residences and 4 Care and Protection residences,7 however, 6. See digest of annual facility reports for 2017: https://www.orangatamariki.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/ Publications/Residence-review-summaries/Korowai-Manaaki-2017-External-Summary.pdf 7. According to data provided to this review by Oranga Tamariki, in the 6 months between June 1st and December 31st 2019, children and young people were placed 625 times in a Secure room in one of the four Youth Justice residences operated by OT, and 173 times in one of the four Care and Protection units it operates. 27