Rob Vigor Brown<\/a> before joining Tauranga\u2019s Sharp Tudhope firm.<\/p>\nShe later discovered she wanted to be part of the other side of the law. She joined the police and spent her early days working the beat in Tauranga before moving to the CIB as a detective, specialising in child protection investigations.<\/p>\n
She later trained in fraud investigation before eventually moving to Child Matters as the general manager in 2015 and chief executive in 2017.<\/p>\n
Child Matters chairman Edgar Wilson said Searle had made an undeniable impact on the organisation\u2019s development. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnder her leadership, Child Matters has become financially self-sufficient, significantly widened the breadth and accessibility of its services and developed national and international networks to assess and translate global best practice for the New Zealand environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said she had been an \u201cunwavering public advocate\u201d for the safety and protection of New Zealand\u2019s children through the media and with government agencies and politicians.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are proud and grateful that she will be able to make an even greater impact for New Zealand children, their protection and wellbeing in her new role as Children\u2019s Commissioner.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Children\u2019s Commissioner operates as an independent Crown entity that works at arm\u2019s length from the Government and is exempt from policy directives.<\/p>\n
They advocate for the country\u2019s youth and are appointed to the role by the Governor General for five-year terms.<\/p>\n
Searle will replace outgoing commissioner Claire Achmad on August 1.<\/p>\n
Kelly Makiha<\/a> is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cJane has a deep understanding of issues faced by children today, informed by more than 15 years\u2019 combined…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17623,4749,14903,2740,20836,111,43,139,69,1327,257186,1354],"class_list":["post-518035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-appointed","tag-childrens","tag-commissioner","tag-former","tag-jane","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rotorua","tag-searle","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}