Young child ‘running wild’, drunk, as child protection agency fails to respond to warnings

Saturday, 11 July 2026

Canterbury principals have asked senior Oranga Tamariki managers for a meeting.

The agency responsible for keeping children safe is broken and “dysfunctional”, say Canterbury principals.

A 12-year-old student who was reported as being at imminent risk of “a serious incident or disaster” was not allocated to a social worker by Oranga Tamariki for more than two months.

The principal who referred the pre-teen student to Oranga Tamariki told The Press she was frustrated and heart-broken at the lack of action following her report in March. “They just seem to be dysfunctional.”

She said she had written a 'fairly full-on' report describing a complex family situation involving physical violence, self-harm, drug use and neglect. “It is my professional assessment that a serious incident or disaster is imminent without immediate whānau support”, she wrote in the report.

Two months later that same young student was caught on the school’s CCTV camera at 3am, drunk and with others who were vandalising the school.

When the principal, who spoke anonymously to The Press, followed up with the agency she was told her report had not been allocated to a social worker. She told the agency the young student had “no supervision” at home and was “running completely wild”. She was also self-harming.

A few weeks later the student was arrested for assault with her case now being managed by youth justice.

Referrals are expected to trigger a safety assessment by a social worker within 24 hours, 48 hours or 10 days, depending on the urgency. Beyond this window, the case is deemed to be “overdue”.

Children are being let down by Oranga Tamariki, say principals.

A total of 434 at-risk children in Canterbury were overdue an assessment by a social worker - one of the largest backlogs in the country - according to April 2026 data obtained under the Official Information Act.

The principal said the single parent family had moved from another region to Christchurch for a new start several years ago after previously having children removed by the agency, and then returned to their care.

But she said they were not assigned a case worker for nearly a year after arriving in the city and had received little support.

Oranga Tamariki ‘unpredictable’

Cotswold School principal Chris Smith said Oranga Tamariki was so overworked and underfunded that only the most extreme situations garnered a response.

Lemonwood Grove School principal Blair Dravitski said it often took six weeks to hear back from the agency.

“It saddens me how hardened I have become to the conditions some of our young people are living in. Our staff are often heartbroken by the details shared with them, yet they are left feeling helpless when they realise that the necessary support simply does not exist.”

In Rolleston, Lemonwood Grove School principal Blair Dravitski said the threshold for intervention by Oranga Tamariki was unpredictable due to the “huge number” of cases being referred.

He said occasionally he has had responses from Oranga Tamariki within two to three weeks, but often it took six weeks to hear back.

The Canterbury Primary Principals Association president Lisa Dillon-Roberts said the group has asked senior Oranga Tamariki managers for a meeting to discuss their concerns.

Canterbury Primary Principals Association president Lisa Dillon-Roberts said clarity was wanted on Oranga Tamariki’s thresholds for acting on concerns about a child.

When she recently asked members to comment on their experience of the agency’s response being “timely, responsive, and effective” not one of 40 principals said 'consistently'.

A majority of 26 said this was 'rarely' their experience, while 18 said “sometimes”.

Dillon-Roberts said principals didn’t have confidence their reports would be responded to with urgency and they wanted some answers from the agency about what expectations and thresholds they were working to.

“It seems like a bit of a lottery on whether or not these cases are going to be picked up in a timely way that results in good outcomes for children.”

The decision to make a report of concern was a legal and ethical responsibility for schools but wasn’t taken lightly, New Zealand Principals Federation president Jason Miles said.

“It's incredibly distressing when you do get to the stage where you need to report a concern. It's done because the teacher, or leadership or principal feel that it’s their duty to speak for the child, because they're in a dangerous situation.

“That can lead to some further distress if the family concerned are unhappy with the school for notifying, so it’s not done lightly.”

Barnardos operations manager, Christchurch Serena McNaught says the charity’s social workers have no more than 15 cases at one time.

Burnout and chronic underfunding had left a dwindling number of social workers in the country and this was a major contributor to the crisis in child protection, said Nathan Chong-Nee from the Association of Social Workers.

This left remaining social workers responsible for a larger number of children and more complex cases, he said.

“If we want to take pressure off the Oranga Tamariki system, we have to invest in early intervention and community-based services.”

Children’s charity Barnardos is contracted to provide social work services for cases which have been referred to Oranga Tamariki but haven’t met its threshold for direct intervention.

But Christchurch operations manager Serena McNaught said Barnardos had limited capacity. Families were only accepted if they had at least three “vulnerabilities” such as domestic violence, non-attendance (at school), and addiction.

The Press asked Oranga Tamariki for information and comment. The agency is treating it as a request under the Official Information Act, which allows 20 working days to respond.