State urged to loosen control of Oranga Tamariki
A new Office of the Children’s Commissioner report on Oranga Tamariki calls for the state to loosen control of care for at-risk Māori children – handing over ‘‘every aspect’’ of decision-making for removing children to Māori.
The report, however, is light on detail on how this would work in practice. It recommends the
Government start by resourcing iwi, hapu and Māori organisations to figure out how the system would work.
The report, the second from a review triggered by the 2019 attempted removal of a Māori baby from its mother in Hastings hospital, examined how to keep Māori babies with whānau (wider family).
It does not describe how Oranga Tamariki, charged with looking after New Zealand’s atrisk children, might continue with significant duties and funding given to Māori, or how the services might fold in together.
The report says the first step would be to let Māori decide how any new system might work.
Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft said there had been an unsuccessful history of ‘‘patching and tinkering’’ with the system.
‘‘While there will be times when pepi [babies] need to be away from their birth parents, every aspect of the decision and placement should be managed by Māori, for Māori.’’
The review found no evidence that 30 years of incremental change has worked for Māori. It said racism, colonisation and disadvantage were still well entrenched.
A statistical snapshot released in January as part of the review showed that more than twothirds, 4420, of the 6429 children in state care by mid-2019 were Māori.
On average, Māori made up
two-thirds of the babies, 0-3 months, taken annually by Oranga Tamariki in the past six years.
Half of the Māori women who had their baby taken this way were in state care as children themselves.
The new report recommended immediate changes that could happen while a transition to ‘‘by-Māori for Māori’’ services took place.
It wants Oranga Tamariki to stop taking babies from hospital maternity wards or birthing units. It wants the Government to cap the caseload of social workers in Oranga Tamariki.
It wants without-notice removals of Māori babies stopped, and more work undertaken with mothers and whānau. It wants independent co-ordinators of family group conferences between whānau and Oranga Tamariki. It wants immediate changes to law deleting ‘subsequent child’ provisions (included in 2016) that require mothers, who have previously had a child removed, to prove they are capable of looking after further children.
Neither Oranga Tamariki nor the minister in charge of the agency, Kelvin Davis, are legally obliged to follow the report’s recommendations.
However, it comes with a warning from within Oranga Tamariki that the reality in communities is difficult for the public to understand.
An Oranga Tamariki social worker said most people had no idea what those on the agency’s ground floor were dealing with.
‘‘We’re not here to take children from their families, every social worker I know is trying to keep families together ... an uplift is a last resort for safety.’’
The social worker, who Stuff has agreed not to name, said that while there were always ways to improve the agency’s work, she wanted people to know how impossible the job can be.
‘‘If a baby is uplifted everyone hates us, if a baby isn’t uplifted and gets hurt then everyone hates us. We’re criticised no matter what . . . and we’re just trying to keep kids safe.’’
Oranga Tamariki chief executive Grainne Moss said there had been a 50 per cent drop in the number of Māori babies taken into care in the past two years.
Moss said the recommendations would be assessed with the findings of a Waitangi Tribunal urgent inquiry, which would reconvene in Wellington this week.