Abuse and conflict: The reality of life for Kiwi social workers

Thursday, 6 June 2019

'I think [an uplift] is one of the worst things that could happen to a parent, so you're thinking about that in your mind when you're having that conversation. But equally, sitting behind you is a group of people that have helped get to that point, and you know you've tried everything you can to keep that child with their parent, and it hasn't been successful. But it's heartbreaking,' says Oranga Tamariki practice leader for Hastings, Lisa Harrington.

Lisa Harrington has seen photos and names of her social workers plastered over social media.

Often, the abusive online messages will flood in after a day of conflict from the families they've been working with.

Sometimes, this might be as a result of Oranga Tamariki being in the news, as it was after the attempted uplift of a newborn at Hawke's Bay Hospital in May, when a contingent of police officers spent the night at the hospital because of a standoff involving midwives, lawyers and whānau and Oranga Tamariki.

Two midwives trying to prevent police and Oranga Tamariki from taking the baby boy, born on May 1, from his mother had their swipe card access revoked, and one spent the night outside the hospital.

* Social workers may live in at-risk homes in new service**

* Child welfare concerns on the rise in Hawke's Bay

Lisa Harrington, the practice leader for Oranga Tamariki's Hastings site, with Grant Bennett, Oranga Tamariki's chief social worker.

Despite it all, those frontline staff still turn up to work the next day.

'They're human, and they have feelings. But they love what they do, and they keep coming back. I'm really proud of them,' the ministry's Hastings site practice leader says.

That night at the hospital – May 7 – wasn't a pretty picture.

A judge granted the ministry permission to remove the child due to family violence concerns, but whānau fought back. The mother was eventually allowed to keep her boy.

But the damage had already been done. Oranga Tamariki were labelled baby kidnappers and the organisation was accused of racism and bullying.

And the spiral of negative headlines only got worse, as a video emerged alleging a boy was dumped by a social worker at a Hastings gang pad.

Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has asked his staff to compile an assessment of the hospital ordeal, while the ministry is internally investigating the gang pad claims.

THE WORLD OF SOCIAL WORKERS

Grant Bennett, the ministry's chief social worker, who's from Hawke's Bay, has been in the field for nearly three decades, while Harrington has been with the ministry for nearly two decades.

A normal day at the Hastings office – one of the country's largest – is pretty unpredictable.

First thing in the morning, it's usually a case of understanding what calls and issues have come in overnight. This could either be with children already in care, or new contact through the national centre in Auckland, which is then distributed to the appropriate region.

New work is triaged on a basis of how critical it is – 24 hours, 48 hours, seven working days or 20 working days – depending on the concerns that have been raised. It's divided up and added to social workers' existing caseloads.

'Two incidents in the media, that's what people see, but there's all this other work that's happening in the background that's not being reported on ... Working with whānau to build safety, sustaining children within whānau - it's the scale and the sense of proportion,' says Grant Bennett.

Some staff have region-wide responsibilities, whereas others have district-specific ones.

All up, there are more than 1570 full-time social workers, senior practitioners and supervisors with the ministry nationwide. Seventy-one of those staff were spread between Wairoa and Waipukurau at March 31.

Harrington says the work's tough – 'the pointy end of things' – with the most complex cases, the most vulnerable children.

'Being a social worker is a part of who you are, it's not just a job that you do nine to five. You don't leave at five o'clock and forget about your kids that might be on your caseload. You think about them all the time, and you worry about what's happening for them.'

A major struggle staff face is making judgments about children's safety with only pieces of information.

It's collected from a wide range of sources – police, courts, family, teachers – anyone in a child's network. It's then assessed for credibility, and balanced.

These days, the child's voice is sought and captured too, which is something that hasn't always been the case.

Harrington says making the decision to remove a child from its parents is the hardest decision a social worker has to make.

'A social worker doesn't walk into work one day and say: 'Hey, today's the day'. Obviously there's a lot of concerns, there's a lot of discussion internally, and also with our partners around what's the best next steps for this whānau.

'Often we've tried several times to create safety in different ways and it hasn't been effective. It's an emotional decision.'

'We've done some talking previously in our site about: 'What's your why?' What is the reason that you come? And everyone has a different story - but at the end of the day, it comes down to justice for kids, and wanting to get the best that we can for children and tamariki and whānau. That's the core of it,' says Lisa Harrington.

A Family Court always signs off on uplifts.

Then there's the execution. Having the heartbreaking conversation with a parent, and planning how to manage the situation in a way that minimises impact for both child and whānau – the how, when, where, who.

A unique plan is created for every event. Some families react badly, some don't. Others can even be relieved, Bennett says.

But that's not the end of things. Social workers have to work with a whānau even after the child is taken, on steps moving forward.

'It's a special set of skills that not everybody has. Even to talk to a child and get information at the first meeting in the first half hour about what's happening for them at home – not everybody can do that,' Harrington says.

PRESSURES AT WORK

A 2014 ministry-commissioned review found a number of care and protection social workers had 'unacceptably high' caseloads.

Others were overworked, and expected to use complex systems. It also found services were under pressure, and child and family needs were increasingly more complex.

Dr Ian Hyslop, senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, says social workers have always been 'caught in the mincer'.

'People like to see child protection particularly in a black and white framework, as a morally clear process … It's that 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' scenario.'

As a social worker from the 1980s through the mid-2000s, Hyslop had personal property vandalised, his tyres stabbed and slashed, windscreen marked, and even a brick thrown through his window.

'I come from a humanistic place. You want to help people, you want to give people the best lives that they can have, particularly for children. For me personally, that took on a different level of meaning when I had my own children ... you soon realise there's no love than the love for a child. So that's what sustains you in this work. Because it isn't easy,' says Bennett.

But pressure doesn't just come from the families social workers deal with.

There are 'contradictory' internal expectations: empowering families, but keeping children safe; establishing long-term secure care for a child, but placing children with family where possible.

'Social workers do make mistakes. But plumbers make mistakes, surgeons make mistakes, and airline pilots make mistakes. It's never going to be a fool-proof system.'

As a minimum, social workers need a four-year degree, and a minimum 20 hours of professional development each year. They follow a code of ethics, and a code of conduct.

For years, the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers campaigned for mandatory registration, which became reality with the the Social Workers Registration Legislation Act this year.

The association's chief executive, Lucy Sandford-Reed, says social workers are often caught in a no-win situation.

'If they don't uplift and something goes seriously wrong, they are castigated in the media. If they do uplift and it gets messy, they are again castigated.'

Despite pay equity settlements, many staffers remain overworked and under-resourced, Sandford-Reed says.

Bennett says social workers are at a disadvantage, because they can't ever tell the whole story to media when it comes to cases in the public profile.

Social media has also meant greater accountability when it comes to ordeals like the hospital standoff.

But this has also increased security concerns, particularly for workers in regional communities, he says.

'You don't have a level of anonymity that you would in some of the bigger cities like London, Auckland.'

Harrington says the name-calling wears thin.

'I know from my experience the mother, her mother, and the grandmother. And I know the family dynamics, I know the pieces that fit that are invisible to other care workers, and from the very very onset of the pregnancy we are working with the woman ... and developing care plans for her, around her, and with her whānau well well before Oranga Tamariki even come into the picture,' says Jean Te Huia, of Māori Midwives Aotearoa.

'Social workers get sworn at, yelled at, abused by whānau that they work with regularly … it is tough.

'[They get] knocked down and criticised and commented on on social media and they still come back to work the next day, because they have an unwavering commitment to child protection.

'We know what we're doing is the right thing. And that's what keeps us going.'

Whenever there's a particularly emotional incident, staff at the Hastings site gather and discuss what happened; how people feel.

Harrington says they also talk about staffers' 'why': the reason they continue to turn up to work.

'It's not shameful to be upset by things that have happened, or to be stressed about the work that you're doing. It's really important that we look after ourselves and each other.'

Bennett says to engage well with children and whānau, 'you've got to be well yourself'.

COMPLEXITIES THEN VERSUS NOW

The pair have noticed a lot of changes over the years, both to the system and society itself.

Addiction, and the rise of methamphetamine, have made people increasingly unpredictable. More serious mental health concerns have made it harder to engage with families.

Increasingly, teens are coming into the system having experienced 'terrible lives' at younger ages – abuse, trauma, drugs – 'things they shouldn't have', Bennett says.

'They externalise that through their behaviour … Maybe we're just better at identifying, [but] I don't recall having the number of young people with the level of need we have now.'

Hyslop says the system just isn't equipped to deal with those socioeconomic drivers of child maltreatment and neglect.

Increased pressures has meant social workers can come across paranoid, or caught in a silo/siege mentality.

'And sometimes social work organisations can mirror high needs families, where everything closes in and scrutiny from the outside isn't allowed.'

Organisations need to work hard to keep an open and internal working climate, where uncertainty is allowed, and a variety of people are involved in decision making, he says.

From July 1 new care standards, which lay out national expectations for care of kids in state custody, come into force.

The transition between the current model and the new one is well under way.

Experts have wondered whether they will do anything to change the system, but consensus appears to be that positive steps are being made.

The other big change is the ministry moving to a more culturally responsive service, sparked by disparity shown in negative figures involving Māori children.

Recently, the Government announced $1 billion in funding over four years for Oranga Tamariki in its Budget.

Bennett says it'll go into frontline staff across the ministry, iwi, Māori organisations and NGO partners; as well as into new dedicated support workers for caregivers, more workers to support additional youth justice placements, and specialist transition support workers.

The ministry even touted possible live-in social workers for the most at-risk whānau.

But Bennett admits despite the 'huge boost' in funding, it needs to continue working with partner agencies for the best outcomes for children and their whānau.

Those relationships, while progressing, are under strain.

Ngāti Kahungunu's chairman, Ngahiwi Tomoana, was unavailable for an interview for this report, but said in the wake of the hospital incident that 'uplift' was a 'sanitised way' of describing kidnapping.

Jean Te Huia, of Māori Midwives Aotearoa, was one of those locked out on May 7. She's been in midwifery more than 25 years.

She says that, at the moment, power is still 'firmly and squarely in one arena' – Oranga Tamariki's.

'Our voices completely get stifled. We are not currently asked to provide a report to the judge, neither are we included in the planning. And even more insidiously, we [are] kept out of the uplift.

'Working together, I believe we will have a solution. But I believe Oranga Tamariki is working in isolation. And that's the biggest problem we have.'

Bennett says the ministry needs to keep having those conversations, but in a way that brings agencies together, as opposed to fragmenting them further – the 'risk of the narrative at the moment'.

'The solution lies within an overall society response.

'We can get more investment, that'd be great. And we can do more. But actually, we're never going to solve this. No one agency is ever going to solve this.

'Every adult has responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of children in this country.'