This article reports on the development of a procedure far standardized ass
essment of parenting within statutory child protection agencies. The instru
ments were trialed on 64 children and adolescents under the supervision of
the New Zealand Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Services (CYPFS
) and results were compared with normative samples from Canada and Australi
a Results revealed that CYPFS cases displayed poorer functioning and receiv
ed fewer positive parenting practices than the normative populations. Eight
of the CYPFS children were also subjected to severe or very severe abuse i
n the 1-month study period General population norms were then used to const
ruct a taxonomy of CYPFS cases according to the dimensions of nurturance an
d abusiveness. Using this schema it was found that 29 of the CYPFS cases co
uld be classified as "nonabusive + nurturant" and had therefore reached cri
teria for case closure. Limitations of the research and implications for pr
actice are discussed.