GP steps in to stop uplift of three children, including breast-fed 3-month-old
Monday, 8 March 2021
A Christchurch GP and youth advocate has stepped in to stop Oranga Tamariki from removing three young children from their single mother, including a 3-month-old baby who is still breast-feeding.
Youth 298 founder and GP Dame Sue Bagshaw, who had known the young mother since she was 11, said she was extremely disappointed to learn the ministry threatened to uplift the children on Friday evening.
Bagshaw wrote an email to acting chief executive Sir Wira Gardiner calling for the “act of extreme over-zealotry behaviour” to be stopped immediately.
Oranga Tamariki (OT) Canterbury regional manager Blair McKenzie said staff had “substantial concerns for the safety of the children” involved.
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“Following the granting of the ‘without notice order’ by the court, there are additional support people for this family. A meeting will now be held with the mother and those supporting her on how to move forward.”
The young woman was at a local park on Friday with her boys – aged 4, 2, and 3 months – when she received a text from an OT social worker about 7pm saying a court order had been granted, and they wanted to pick up the children.
She called Bagshaw and a friend who collected some clothing, nappies and food from her home, and went to the friend’s house “to calm down”.
“I was just worried and stressed. I told them they weren’t getting my kids and I would do anything I had to for them not to get them.”
She received another message on Saturday from a social worker who said they would not take the children this weekend but were still concerned her 4-year-old posed a threat to the younger children.
The woman was staying with an ex-foster carer and did not want to return home in case the ministry tried to take her children.
Bagshaw said she would meet with ministry staff on Tuesday to discuss the case.
“What I’d like to see happen is that they absolutely pledge not to take her children away – now she won’t believe them for ages – but I’d like them to follow through with that pledge.”
The woman, who is now 25, was placed in foster care when she was about 9 as her mother had an opiate addiction.
“It was very, very hard. I was just moved from place to place pretty much until I was 17,” she said.
She spent time at youth justice facility Te Puna Wai for car theft, had been supported by the Battered Women’s Trust to end an abusive relationship, and had suffered post-natal depression.
Bagshaw said the ministry had been “doing well” by offering her some support, but gave up when it did not get “instant results”.
“We should always be putting more support in and keep going with it rather than reverting to risk management and child removal. It just makes things worse.”
She believed the woman could be a good parent if she received the right support for her 4-year-old son and her oldest son, who was placed into care with his grandmother four years ago.
Bagshaw said she did not believe there was a case for removing the 4-year-old from his mother.
“Because that will just make him worse and his career is paved out before him to Te Puna Wai and jail.”
The young woman said she wanted people to know the ministry was still taking children from parents – and “not just Māori kids”.
“They’re just putting more trauma on children as well as me as the mother, and it’s not OK.”
McKenzie said social workers had previously tried to meet with the mother on multiple occasions to discuss safety concerns.
“Our staff always strive to keep children with their family wherever possible, and we are hopeful we can work to do that in this case, if safe for the children.”