Whānau-centred project aims to reduce chances of harm to children

Friday, 25 September 2020

Willie Jackson says Ngā Tini Whetū will offer support early in a child’s life, eventually lessening the likelihood of harm.

A new child-safety initiative aims to offer help before trouble starts, instead of being an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff.

The Ngā Tini Whetū programme was unveiled on Friday and is a collaboration between multiple agencies aimed at supporting North Island whānau.

It comes three months after children’s ministry Oranga Tamariki was excoriated by some Māori mothers complaining of institutional brutality, dishonesty and racism.

The new initiative, a year in the making, is expected to start work in January. Some details are yet to be refined, but the project has won encouraging words from the Children's Commissioner already.

Minister for Children Tracey Martin said current support systems often arrived too late.

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Ngā Tini Whetū’s backers hope the programme will help whānau get more intensive, earlier support.

Peeni Henare says the project will see how the Whānau Ora approach works as a decentralised early intervention model.

Associate ACC Minister Willie Jackson, Children’s Minister Tracey Martin, and Whānau Ora Minister Peeni Henare announced the initiative in Papakura, south Auckland.

“We want to reduce the number of incidents of harm and to improve access to services for Māori,” Jackson said.

He said the programme would fit with ACC’s injury-prevention approach. Ngā Tini Whetū involved a $42.4 million investment over two years.

It would gather evidence of how the Whānau Ora approach worked as a decentralised early intervention model.

“Our current systems of support too often see resources going to families after they are in trouble and an incident has happened,” Martin said.

“It shows that agencies can get together and that we need multiple solutions if we’re going to reach families in the right way – urban and rural and iwi-led and pan-Māori.”

Henare said the programme would build the capability and resilience of whānau.

John Tamihere, Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency chief executive, said the programme showed how Government and Māori organisations could work together to achieve beneficial outcomes for Māori.

Tamihere said the present system was not working and all three ministries wanted better outcomes for Māori.

He called the programme a first, positive step towards devolution of services to Māori, by Māori, for Māori and “one small step to devolution”.

‘Cautiously optimistic’

Judge Andrew Becroft, Children's Commissioner, told Stuff the initiative seemed like a step in the right direction.

Becroft said he’d also advanced arguments in favour of the “by Māori, for Māori” approach.

He said this devolved approach was better than the decades of patchy and incremental change New Zealand had unveiled in attempts to address Māori child safety and related issues.

“I’m cautiously optimistic … I want to make sure the resources make it into the hands of Māori.”

Becroft said New Zealand had long been a statist society, where the state was expected to be all things to all people.

In reality, Māori parents had for years been saying Māori approaches and community groups worked better for them than mainstream or homogenous models.

“Actually, the state can’t do it. Communities do it better. We have to genuinely transfer resources and power to good, competent community groups that can do better than the state.”

In June, a report from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner found unprofessional statutory social work practice was harming mothers, families and babies.

The report also found some Māori mothers of newborns involved with Oranga Tamariki (OT) found the child welfare system dangerous, brutal and racist.

Becroft on Friday said Ngā Tini Whetū was an incremental, relatively small but significant step towards devolution of Māori services.

Devolution, broadly defined, stands in contrast to centralisation, or the concentration of power in one place.

Becroft said colonial systems had for a long time informed the state’s interactions with Māori.

ACC, Te Puni Kōkiri (the Ministry of Māori Development) and OT are all investing in the project.

Work on the prototype for Ngā Tini Whetū began in December 2019.

The Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency co-designed the project with the three ministries.