Gateway Assessments
The Gateway Assessment is a comprehensive assessment of a child’s education, health, care and protection needs. Gateway Assessments are available for children entering care, in care, or who have come to the attention of Child, Youth and Family (CYF) through the Family Group Conference process.
CYF, District Health Boards (DHBs) and education services work together on Gateway Assessments. DHBs collate information about the child from different agencies and services. DHBs then use the information to develop a plan for meeting the child’s needs.
Education services, including ECE services, contribute by completing education profiles of children attending their service. Completed education profiles are sent to CYF social workers and DHBs.
When an ECE service is asked to complete an education profile, it is important that it is done well and returned promptly. The information provided is a valuable part of a child’s Gateway Assessment.
Information Security
The Ministry wants to ensure that everything possible is done to protect information exchanged about children. It is important to make sure that information is secure, sent to the right person, and cannot be read by anyone other than the intended recipient.
To do this, the Ministry is asking all education services to password protect Gateway education profile documents before emailing them.
If you are asked by a social worker to complete a Gateway education profile for a child who attends your service, please take the following steps:
- Complete the education profile form and password protect it. For instructions on how to do this see:
Ensure that all personal and sensitive information is only contained in the password protected document. Do not put any personal or identifiable information in the email itself or subject line.
Double check that you have the correct email address and that you know the identity of the email recipient, before you send it.
Include your contact number in the email.
Send the email to a named person, whenever possible, not a generic email address, eg office@example.co.nz.
Provide the password to the intended recipient of the email and attachment. Safe ways to do this are in person (eg at a meeting) or over the telephone (phone call, voicemail message or text). Do not send the password in an email.
If you receive an email from another organisation with a document that contains personal information and it is not password protected, please password protect it before returning it.
This may look like a complicated process on paper, but it doesn’t take long to do.
Thank you for your ongoing contribution to Gateway Assessments for this very important group of children, and for ensuring that the information provided is secure.
The Ministry of Education has recently emailed ECE services about a new process for ensuring Gateway Assessment information about children is exchanged in a secure way. If you would like any further help or advice, please contact us at ECE.info@minedu.govt.nz.