10,000 child removal orders in five years: Is this system working?

Thursday, 6 December 2018

It begins with a phone call, a report of concern. The next steps are crucial. When does a social worker act to remove a child from her parents? Is it riskier to tear a family apart, or to leave a kid in potential danger? Michelle Duff reports.

In planning their trip to the community, social workers knew they had to act quickly. Fred* was known for doing runners. In the first town, he had vanished; in the next , gone again. In yet another small town, where he and the kids were living out of a car, social workers thought they finally had him. But the street was deserted, just the grey of telephone poles staggering into the distance.

Reports about the young kids had been made to child protective services at multiple offices around the country. They were filthy. Dad drove erratically, without car seats. They were shivering. They looked hungry.

The place Fred washed up was a tight one. It didn't take long for the former meth addict's behaviour to raise alarm bells; he shouldn't be leaving the preschooler alone. No-one should yell at their kids like that. Was he back on drugs? 

According to social workers familiar with the case, locals tried to step in. Police, school teachers, a charity organisation Fred hit up for meals until a volunteer challenged him for allegedly assaulting one of the kids.

Oranga Tamariki was alerted, and social workers made the long trek to see Fred several times. 

But he didn't want to talk; he went bush, taking the kids - Gabriel* and Jesse* to a live in an empty house. They were seen occasionally, covered in scratches. Fred began talking about a conspiracy, that people were out to get him. He was willing to kill to stop his kids being taken away.

After interviewing Gabriel at school, a social worker was almost certain Fred was abusing the kids. Action was imperative.

It was early spring when the same social worker wrapped Gabriel's skinny body in her jacket. A squall whipped across the playground. Jesse's hair was a tangle of knots; a single grubby layer fluttered between her skin and the wind. 

In a police car, the other social worker gripped tight as the cop thundered along the gravel road, towards the peak where Fred had fled. Over the ridge, the signal dropped out. At a dilapidated cottage, the social worker – fierce eyes, short hair, about five foot four in flats – stood out of swinging range to tell Fred his children were now in state custody. He was angry. Minutes later he careened past the police car on the narrow road, stones pelting the windshield as his taillights disappeared.

Back in town, the kids were showered and shampooed. Clothes were produced; muesli bars and cup noodles scoffed. It was kind of exciting, an adventure. 'Where are we going?' they asked. And: 'Where's Dad?'

Shortly afterwards, the children opened up. They told Oranga Tamariki about the times their father had yanked them around by the hair, yelled at them, hit them.

Kicked them on the ground.

'You will never have to keep secrets like that again,' said the social worker.

Child abuse charges were laid.

Foster caregivers were found for the siblings.

Does this seem like a happy ending? 

By the time these two children were taken into state care, they had come to the notice of social services dozens of times since 2010. One of these interventions had seen the kids removed from their mother, an addict and a domestic violence victim, in favour of Fred, considered the safer parent. 

Some might argue they should have been removed earlier. But to what?

By the age of eight, most children in foster care will have been moved an average of seven times. Some have had up to 60 placements.

Around one in 10 kids in care will suffer further harm, from emotional distress to physical and sexual abuse. The majority will leave school at around age 15, without NCEA Level 2. A third will have their first conviction by this time.

Around 67 per cent of these kids are Māori.

Even as the Government prepares for a Royal Commission into Historical Abuse in State Care, it is continuing to remove a staggering number of children from their parents.

A Stuff analysis shows there have been almost 10,000 decisions to take kids into custody made in the past five years. That is, on average, more than five removals every day. And this is a measure widely considered the bluntest instrument in the fight against child abuse.

The state has an insurmountable power, being able to remove a child. For many children, and their parents, the separation itself is another trauma, layered upon a lifetime of them. And it's not consistent: studies have found the severity of state intervention is worse depending on where you live, and is influenced by race and class bias.

'What is clear to Family Court judges is that state care can have disastrous implications on a child or young person's development, and can greatly increase the risk of future offending,' Chief District Court Judge Jan Marie-Doogue said at a public lecture last month. 'We see a cycle of alienation, hardship, disempowerment and tragedy … it is disturbing to observe, and the outcomes are too often frighteningly predictable.'

Yet, the rate of kids in care is at a ten-year high, and climbing.

And children are still being hurt and killed.

When your baby is taken away, you must stay calm. Don't panic, and definitely don't yell. This will be hard. But if you want a chance to see that baby again, Rebecca* says, it's important to keep your cool.

'You can't cry too much, but you do have to cry because if you don't, they think you don't care,' she says.

'But if you cry too much they think you're over-reacting, you're unstable.'

Living in poverty with inadequate housing can be enough to tip the scales against you, as will being the victim in an abusive relationship. The most recent Family Violence Death Review Committee report outlines how mothers are often penalised for having violent partners, with the assumption they could have 'done more' to protect their children. This makes it easier for them to lose custody, and harder to get it back. If you have had a child taken off you at any time – even if it was 10 years ago, with another partner – it is more likely you'll lose future children. And if you are Māori, the odds are stacked against you.

Rebecca's baby was three months old when mother and child were separated. Her story goes like this. Ever since birth, Rebecca had been taking her baby into the doctor to ask about the bruises that kept appearing. She thought maybe her newborn had a blood disorder, or some kind of rare disease. It was her first baby, so she wasn't entirely sure what was normal and what wasn't. After a visit to the doctor, a practice nurse made a notification to Oranga Tamariki about a bruise. A social worker came around, asked some questions, and left.

At home months later, her partner bought her child to her with an injury. Rebecca went to the doctor, who sent her to hospital. There, staff found multiple injuries they deemed could not be accidental. Rebecca told them she did not know how it happened. A police investigation was opened, in which Rebecca was not a suspect.

Rebecca had been to Women's Refuge several times during the abusive relationship. But she never imagined her partner would inflict damage on their newborn. This was not good enough for authorities. 'The social workers told me at the end of the day I was a mother who just didn't care about her child. They said, he'll be going home with us, and that was it.' The pain of losing her child felt physical, her breasts swollen from not being able to feed him.

Rebecca split with her partner, and has been trying to get her child back since. Initially, she argued the removal was unfair. Now, she does everything Oranga Tamariki say. Neither has worked. 'I learned very quickly if I was going to advocate for his rights that was not going to go well, I just had to shut my mouth. I was labelled a troublemaker early on, and I think that's worked against me. If they don't like you it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter how good of a person you are. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I'm financially stable, but none of that matters.'

Her visitation rights have fluctuated from 10 hours a week, to an hour, to four hours, seemingly arbitrarily. She's been in and out of court and continues fighting to be reunited with her child.

How do you know who is telling the truth? Which parent, if any, a child should be with? These are questions frontline social workers and family court judges have to grapple with every day. Their decisions have a huge and continuing impact on the lives of our tiniest and most vulnerable. In the worst cases – Moko Rangitoheriri, Nia Glassie – getting it wrong can be the difference between life and death.

These high-profile cases are often what we think about when we consider child abuse and neglect. These terribly sad stories render the problem huge, ugly, insurmountable. It's an evil done by other people, to be dealt with swiftly. If the problem is bad parenting, the solution is seen as simple; take the kid away, and early.

In fact, those that hit the news are a tiny proportion of the thousands of children who child protective services deal with each year. The most recent study, which followed all children born in 1998 until 2015, suggests one in four Kiwi kids will be reported to Oranga Tamariki at least once, with substantiated abuse found in 10 per cent of cases. For most of these children, separation from their parents is not necessary. For those kids in the most broken of homes whose safety is under threat, it is.

'You do get dangerous people who put kids in very risky situations and you can't muck around,' says former social worker and University of Auckland researcher Dr Ian Hyslop. 'But most child protection work is not about protecting kids from monsters – it's more about highly stressed families, it's often young women parenting in poverty, sometimes in violent relationships and difficult situations, drugs and alcohol. It's these high needs families who need a lot of support looking after their kids.

'It's whether you want to develop those social services to look after them, or do the hard and fast 'Let's take their kids off them'.

'It's accepted generally the service for children in care has been pretty poor, and sometimes appalling. It's about resources but also it's difficult to preserve kids in stable situations outside of the family.'

Most of our brain development takes place in the first three years. This is also when a child is most likely to be the victim of abuse.

If children are raised to feel safe and secure, they will be more able to regulate their emotions later in life. But if, as preschoolers, their brains are wired for fear and uncertainty, it becomes difficult to change these learned responses to a hostile world. The seminal research in this area, the Adverse Childhood Experiences study, found trauma can be linked to lifelong health and social problems.

'Often, these children don't acquire the ability to self-regulate, so their behaviour will become more extreme,' says child psychology expert and University of Otago associate professor Dr Nicola Atwool. 'They can be highly reactive. They've often experienced multiple trauma, and their wiring has adapted to a heightened sense of threat.'

Children who have been removed from abusive parents are often challenging for new caregivers. Health problems aren't only trauma-related: up to half of children in care have foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which can cause developmental problems and intellectual disability. 

While kids are 'incredibly resilient,' recovery will not be miraculous, Atwool says.

'I think people who are not familiar with this stuff often think the child has been rescued and it's all wonderful from then on. It isn't. It's traumatic to leave the only family you've ever known, even for children who are old enough to know what is going on is not okay. It's the only world they've ever known. They want people not to be violent, but that doesn't necessarily mean they want them punished. They want them to change, and they want them to love them. Very few children ever give up hope that that will happen.'

It's 10am in Grey Lynn, and the social workers in Lisa Burnett's team have gathered around her desk. They've already been busy this morning, liaising with Oranga Tamariki's Napier office, where a runaway teen is currently having a meltdown. 'She's coming down from something today and she's very, very angry,' says Burnett.

Cups of tea are cradled, and it's time to listen. When a member of the public calls in to report a child, social workers at the national call centre are responsible for triaging the cases. They use a risk analysis tool to help decide the best path of action, a sliding scale which varies from none at all – simply making a contact record, and thanking the caller – to recommending a critically urgent investigation within 24 hours.

When an Oranga Tamariki response is deemed necessary, the contact becomes a report of concern and is delivered to site offices around the country for follow-up. Of the 92,250 reports of concern received last year, only around 41,800 led to assessments and investigations. Sometimes, they're re-notifications of children social workers are already working with, and are added to the case file; other times, a full-blown response is not needed.

'If its mum saying dad doesn't feed the kids properly when they stay with him, that's not ideal, but it's not a care and protection concern,' says Burnett. In that case, the social worker might contact another agency – like Family Start, Barnardos or iwi social services – to support the family. Sometimes, the cases that sound the worst can turn out to be nothing; a malicious report, or someone who's got the wrong end of the stick. Conversely, the most innocuous can be the most heartbreaking – concerns about a slightly dirty, sad child that uncover a lifetime of horrific abuse.

This is an imperfect science. Studies have found social workers of different levels of experience – and even across different parts of the country – make varying decisions on exactly the same case. Where one social worker sees a child at immediate risk, another codes the danger as more moderate. Implicit bias means Māori children are often considered more at risk, and are 20 per cent more likely to be taken into care after their first contact with a social worker than a Pākeha child.

'The response you get from the state might be determined by an accident of where you were born. It shouldn't be that you get a very different response based on where you're living, or what ethnicity you are,' University of Otago senior lecturer in social work Emily Keddell, who investigates decision making in child welfare, says. 'Are we paying enough attention to the context of people's lives? For Māori, particularly, given our long history of colonisation, we've got to understand how they might be disproportionately affected.'

The first kid on today's list is a 16-year-old girl who was hospitalised after an attempted overdose on Panadol. Sarah* is actively suicidal and social workers have previously spoken to her parents about removing all drugs and sharp objects from the house, but this has not happened. She has self-harmed in the past. Her parents are verbally abusive, and Sarah does not have a good relationship with either. 'She needs a safe, nurturing person in her life, and she doesn't have one,' Burnett says. It's been flagged up for urgent follow-up within seven days, and a social worker is assigned to visit the family again.

Next, there's a medical neglect case where a girl, 4, has had to have four rotten teeth extracted. A three-year-old who has said she doesn't like the way daddy touches her. A suicidal pre-teen, whose parents are suspected of abusing her. 'Kids are at times relieved to talk to someone who might talk to Mum and Dad,' Burnett says. 'We are in a privileged position – we talk to kids about their lives, and it's our responsibility to do something with that.

'Uplifting would be a last resort – almost always we would try and embed the child within a network of safety in their own home. It is a constant balancing act of risk and safety, and constantly re-evaluating the level of involvement.'

There are times when Burnett's team must act immediately. Last year, they received a report at 4pm on a Friday of a child living in filth. When social workers attended, they found a 22-month-old who had spent the majority of his life living in a portacot in a windowless room. His legs were so bowed from a lifetime on a mattress he couldn't walk. When they arrived, the boy was fossicking in bags of leaking rubbish for food scraps. Social workers sought an urgent order to uplift the child. 'There was such a level of risk we decided he must come out of his parents care then and there,' Burnett says.

'That night when he came in, I felt tearful. This child had been living in these circumstances, and our gut feeling had been to respond immediately. We could see that other agencies had seen this child and thought he was okay, but we needed to see for ourselves. Another day of this situation would not have been okay.'

His single mother, a sex worker with with a serious mental health diagnosis, was considered by the family court to be incapable of looking after him. He was placed with permanent caregivers, and now, at age three, is almost developmentally caught up.

His mother will never have custody of that child again, Burnett says.

In the hundreds of child abuse and custody cases Acting Principal Family Court Judge David Smith presides over each year, there are two recurring themes.

'Drugs, and poverty,' says Judge Smith, from his office at Palmerston North District Court. 'The scourge of P has increased the pressure, the misuse of synthetic cannabis or cannabis, and also alcohol. Alcoholics don't make good parents, generally.

'Sometimes dad loses his job and becomes unemployed, puts real pressure on the family, and in trying to cope with that becomes unpleasant. There's every possible permutation you can think of when it comes to human beings and the way they treat each other.'

When children need to be urgently removed, police or social workers will apply to the court for an uplift warrant which places the child in the custody of the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki. The child is appointed a lawyer, and then it's back to court to decide where they should live. This is re-assessed once every six months for a child under seven, and once a year for older children.

These hearings can be fraught. Judge Smith will be provided with a psychologist's report, social worker and lawyer's assessments, statements from family and supporters, and information from police. He will not approve returning a child to either parent if he believes there is a real risk of harm or neglect.

'Sometimes [the danger] is easy to establish, sometimes there's a real argument as to whether it exists or not. We see a lot of cases where the parents become addicted to methamphetamine, their ability to rationalise their behaviour is seriously impaired, and they obviously don't want to lose their kids from their care, but the children are at risk of serious harm if they stay there,' Justice Smith says.

'But they will fight, and I understand why they want to fight. Everybody wants to look after their kids and to have their kids with them. But their lifestyle is injurious to the child.'

The family court is not a well-oiled machine. Reforms in 2014 designed to speed things up had the opposite effect - a backlog of cases means hearings are frequently delayed. Decisions are often made in chambers, without family attendance, adding to the sense of secrecy and perceived injustice. Social worker reports can be months late, and files are shuffled between different judges.

Sometimes, a judge will pay special attention to a case, keeping it under their wing until it is resolved.  

Stuff applied to view court documents relating to one such case, overseen by Auckland Family Court judge Margaret Rogers last year. It reveals the precarious situation children often find themselves in when they are separated from their families; living with caregivers who have little support and are struggling to cope, leaving the kids vulnerable to being moved again.

In this case, two children were placed into the care of an aunty, Ngaire*. Their mother had mental health and substance abuse issues, and had been in violent relationships. The kids were close to Ngaire, and called her mum. But Ngaire, who works and has her own children, was finding it hard to meet their complex health and social needs – including providing medication for ADHD and autism, and closely monitoring the highly sexualised behaviour of one of the kids.

Despite knowing this and holding three family group conferences to establish the children were at risk, social workers failed to finish health assessments or follow up in any way. 'Oranga Tamariki have an open file on the family but they have done little, if anything, to assist the family,' Rogers observed. 'If the Ministry do not support the family, there is a real risk that eventually the full responsibility for [their care] will fall to the Ministry.' Concerns for the children were not due to Ngaire's failings as a parent, Rogers said; she had been placed in an impossible situation. Rogers ordered Oranga Tamariki to file a report on what they were doing to support Ngaire within 28 days. 

The social worker's ensuing report was a list of agencies Ngaire could contact for help. Rogers' final decision was highly critical of Oranga Tamariki, saying the children's wellbeing was due to their aunty's love and dedication rather than the state's intervention. 'It would be fair to say I am disappointed in the response, which takes a very narrow view of circumstances which the legislation urges us to approach in a holistic sense,' Rogers wrote. '[Ngaire] has impressed me with her efforts for her niece and nephew, in the face of very significant odds.'

Rogers awarded her permanent custody.

In 2015, the biggest reforms in child protective services since the 1980s were ushered in by then Children's Minister Anne Tolley under a National-led government. An expert advisory panel led by Dame Paula Rebstock used a social investment lens to quantify how much delinquent, neglected or abused children cost the government, concluding that the downstream costs to the health and justice system justified the state's interest in elevating vulnerable children.

The review was an acknowledgement that the government was continuing to fail kids. The ensuing transformation of the beleaguered Child, Youth and Family into new agency, Oranga Tamariki, began in April 2017 and is projected to take five years.

Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft likes to compare the task to doing repairs on a Boeing 747 while it's in the air. He thinks it's possible, as long as the now Labour-led Government commits to the extra $524 million it was earmarked to cost.

'The fundamental issue is how do we genuinely turn off the tap [to state care], and it's got to start way earlier. That's why I think the new Oranga Tamariki has in it the seeds of genuine hope,' Becroft says.

'We do have a once in a lifetime opportunity – this is once in my lifetime – to develop a genuinely world leading care and protection and youth justice delivery service, and I'll be devastated if anything here was compromised on. The new team is committed to making the change but as of yet we have not seen significant changes at the coal face and that's where the battle is won or lost.'

A new set of laws due to take effect in July next year will place a 'very clear and new emphasis on earlier intervention,' he says. This means wrapping services around a family when it looks like a child might be at risk of removal, rather than acting after the fact. Oranga Tamariki would now be required to report on outcomes for Māori, something it had never done, and had developed new practice guidelines and a set of strict care standards. The tikanga Māori concepts of mana tamaiti, whakapapa and whanaungatanga will be enshrined in the new laws.

With the new Oranga Tamariki, and if measures to reduce child poverty are put in place, Becroft says the result will undoubtedly be fewer child injuries and deaths. 'We are embarking on a great social voyage.'

Some would argue parents have the sole responsibility for their children, he says. But in his years on the youth court bench, Becroft saw the realities of lives lived in severe deprivation. 'There is something about being in chronic disadvantage that causes bad decisions to be made. We've got a very blamey culture in New Zealand, of course parents have to be responsible but it's very easy to throw stones from the luxury of your Karori home, without realising the impact of chronic and toxic stress that families, particularly sole parents with young kids are facing, and how hard it is to make good decisions in that capacity.'

Oranga Tamariki chief executive Grainne Moss says the agency has a renewed emphasis on keeping families together, and intervening much earlier to try and see this happen. This includes more support for parents, and for caregivers and whānau where removal is necessary.

The organisation is currently working on an intensive support programme which will target between 4-6000 children considered 'on the edge' of care, providing social workers and therapists to work closely with families. This too is scheduled to start in July next year, along with a lift in the age of youth justice from 17 to 18, and a new transition service for kids leaving care.

'What children tell us and what their behaviour tells us is even when they come from the most distressed situation, they still love their parents and they want to be with their whānau,' Moss says.

'What New Zealand does actually quite well and has done for some time is has very strong whānau care. We're continuing to support this and looking at ways of taking a different approach.

'We're also looking at what the kids want – kids do, in the vast majority of cases, want to return or remain at home. So we need to explore how can we make that happen safely, as research has found this to be the best possible outcome for children.' 

Child, Youth and Family has been restructured 14 times in the last two decades. The current reform is a much bigger dream than that – but last year's funding was about 10 per cent of what was needed in the next few years, Moss admits. 'It's definitely a journey, if something could have been changed overnight people would have done it years ago. We've got great momentum, we need to really accelerate that. We need this to continue.'

* Names have been changed.