Open letter: Oranga Tamariki social workers in 'terrible, almost untenable position'

Wednesday, 3 July 2019

A child dies, and we are asked where we were; a child is taken into care and experiences more abuse; we made poor choices.

OPINION: As a social worker with Oranga Tamariki, I'm used to public and media misrepresentation of my profession. A child dies, and we are asked where we were; a child is taken into care and experiences more abuse; we made poor choices. We accept that nobody hears the success stories, the families we work with that have pulled through and moved mountains; and we realise that nobody knows the abuse and deaths that we've prevented by intervening at the right time and in the right way.

But the media onslaught and public vitriol towards my colleagues over the last few weeks has hit us extremely hard. The limited understanding of the complexity and difficulty of our job, and our inability to respond to any of the accusations, puts us in a terrible, almost untenable position.

Minister Tracey Martin is mistaken when she says that social workers have the same unconscious racial bias as other New Zealanders. Our four-year Bachelor's degree is heavily focused on de-colonisation, cultural competency, self-reflection, psychology and sociology. Every single graduate should be well-versed in the nature of structural inequality and discrimination. Many of us became social workers because we are activists and if we choose to work for the state, we do so with the knowledge of the power imbalances implicit in this job. We don't remove children because we are targeting Māori or the poor; we remove children because they are being seriously harmed or in serious danger of being harmed.

* Babies are caught between the state and their families

* DHB chair would 'seriously consider' policy preventing state uplift of newborns until post-discharge

* The number of newborn babies removed from their parents is rising**

Our work could be likened to fighting an angry, roaring fire that has been raging for generations, with a small garden hose. This fire is epic and it has multiple sources (colonisation, inequality, discrimination, poor education and health, poverty and a dangerous culture of equating masculinity with power). The result is that our children in Aotearoa are listening to and seeing heart-stopping scenes of family violence; they are being physically abused, sexually abused, seriously neglected, and we're seeing frightening amounts of parental drug-addiction, particularly to methamphetamine. Rather than 'not one more child' uplifted by the state, how about we put our energies into not one more child being harmed or abused by the adults they trust?

I want to clarify some of the confusion about our work.

There are no targets for bringing children into care - we want to keep kids out of care and much of our work does sit in that prevention space. We're hoping this will be better resourced in the future.

Kids can't be taken into care on the whim of a social worker. There are assessments, investigations, case consults, whanau consultation, and, if the child is still not safe, a detailed sworn affidavit, a court-ordered custody order and the managed removal of a child. I'm aware that this is not always done perfectly, and I'm glad the publicised uplift in Hastings is being reviewed. The doco appears to show serious procedural issues in that instance, but it's also heavily edited and completely one-sided. Let's see what the review says and keep an open mind.

The limited understanding of the complexity and difficulty of our job, and our inability to respond to the accusations, is putting us in a terrible position.

Oranga Tamariki social workers are social workers for children and young people, not for their parents. We are required by law to put the child's wellbeing first.

When you hear the media talk about a child being 'uplifted', this means that Oranga Tamariki has taken custody of the child. This is usually a temporary court order and we will always try to place with whanau first. It doesn't always mean that we have physically removed that child. Often, the mother is able to remain with her child, overseen by whanau or in a residential placement, while she or her partner take the steps required to learn safe parenting skills or get clean from drugs and alcohol.

Nobody likes removing a child from their family, regardless of the circumstances. It's the worst part of the job.

Every 'uplift' is followed by a court plan. In most cases, parents are given clear goals, and the time and the resources to make the necessary changes, if that's what they want. I'm afraid that the reality is some parents are not willing or able to take the steps needed to offer a safe home for their child.

Finally, to give some context to the uplift narrative; in the 2018 tax year, Oranga Tamariki received almost 90,000 Reports of Concern, carried out 41, 250 assessments and investigations, and substantiated 14,000 cases of child abuse. 1663 children and youth entered our care that year (some of these are youth in the justice system). Taking into account sibling groups, that's roughly 2 per cent of our initial assessments ending in an 'uplift'. Our core work is not 'stealing babies'.

I want media to understand that when they fuel an anti-Oranga Tamariki onslaught like the current one, it makes our families scared and anxious, less likely to report suspected abuse, and more likely to hide from us or refuse our assistance. We are not able to respond to any of the stories published in the media because our Code of Ethics directs us to respect the privacy and mana of our clients. The news stories are consistently one-sided at the moment and I wish I could tell you the reality behind some of them.

Child protection social work is very difficult and burnout is common. Every time a social worker leaves, their caseloads are spread amongst the remaining workers. Some of us have 50 children on our caseloads (our union, PSA, recommends 14-20 children per social worker as a safe level). It's not enough to have a Master's degree now (and many new social workers do), you must also be able to work under enormous pressure, have a deep understanding of tikanga Maori and the other cultures and religions that make up modern Aotearoa, and be willing to constantly reflect upon, evidence, and defend your analyses of highly complex human scenarios.

I'm not asking for sympathy, after all we chose this career path and it's a vocation for many of us, but I ask that you don't blame the fire fighters for the fire. Aotearoa has some of the worst child abuse statistics in the world, with a child killed every five weeks, usually by someone known to them. This isn't made up. Children are seeing and experiencing terrible things that deeply traumatise them. If our child uplift rate is high, our child assault rate is much higher and more insidious - it's simply unreasonable to criticise one without acknowledging the other.

_Signed,

A frontline social worker for Ministry for Children, Oranga Tamariki._