According to Oranga Tamariki, formerly Child, Youth and Family:
Oranga Tamariki is currently introducing a new practice approach (completion 2024) that is framed by Te Tiriti o Waitangi, based on a mana enhancing paradigm for practice, and draws on Te Ao Māori Principles of oranga and transpires into a practice that is relational, inclusive, and restorative which is good for all tamariki, children, whānau, and families.[i]
It sounds rather like the ‘Maori way or the highway.’ In 2021 Te Pati Maori, supported by Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis, insisted that OT adopt a ‘by Maori, for Maori’ approach.
Children in OT care are now put into “four high-level categories”: Maori, Pacific, Maori/Pacific, and lastly, as an after-thought almost, NZ European and other.
But the definitions have become even more indistinct.
Just published, a survey of children and young people in state care contains the following table which illustrates my point:
Click to view
Children in the care of OT are now categorised as either Maori, Pacific, Maori and Pacific or non-etc.
Cultural identity is ‘paramount’ apparently ... but if you are Asian or Indian or NZ European ... yeah ... nah. You are just non-Maori or non-Pacific. The details of your lineage are of no account. In truth the only cultural identity of interest is Polynesian and OT struggles to disguise this.
How does the “bi-cultural practice” advocated in OT’s ‘Maori Cultural Framework’ serve, for example, a refugee child? When I asked OT which two cultures the framework catered to, the answer was inconclusive:
Under the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989, the Chief Executive of Oranga Tamariki must ensure, wherever possible, that all policies adopted by the department, and all services provided by the department, recognise the social, economic, and cultural values of all cultural and ethnic groups; and have particular regard for the values, culture, and beliefs of Māori.
I can only interpret that as Maori and other. Whatever happened to multi-culturalism?
Oddly though, in this ‘by Maori, for Maori’ organisation, in April 2023 only 28 percent of staff were Maori. Nearly three quarters weren’t.
And here’s another irony. Of those who answered all the questions in the survey referred to, “99% answered in English only, none answered in Māori only, and less than 1% answered in both English and Māori.”
Staff are predominantly NZ European, and the language used by staff and their clients is predominantly English.
Oranga Tamariki’s crucial role is to ensure the safety and security of children. All and any at-risk children. Yet the survey itself showed “little overall improvement in tamariki and rangatahi experiences.”
Their fixation with culture is a crock.
[i] OIA response to L Mitchell 21 June 2023
Lindsay Mitchell is a welfare commentator who blogs HERE where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
"draws on Te Ao Māori Principles of oranga and transpires into a practice that is relational, inclusive, and restorative which is good for all tamariki, children, whānau, and families"
Say what? I find it impossible to swallow this crock, as Lindsay rightly calls it, when in early-European times Maori were slaughtering and eating each other left, right and centre and only pushed for a Treaty so that the British could impose law and order and stop the massacre.
Bet there wasn't much if any "relational, inclusive and restorative practice" going on then.
Another fantasy concocted in the minds of our part-Maori activists and academics who think Disney's Moana was a real-life documentary.
Whatever happend to plain Churchillian English? Despite doing well in English at college I cannot fathom the italicised paragraph. And it is fortunate so few in OT are maori, or a host of other efficency, accountability and performance prblems would be added to existing management
Is this embedding a Maori system of being unable to care for children?
Yes Lindsay - it is a crock, I'm afraid. Having worked for many years in the child protection agency of various names ('tho' not in Care) I witnessed so many well-intentioned 'new deals' which were to solve the problem of poor care of Maori children - Puao-te-ata-tu, Maatua Whangai, hiring Maori social workers, and so on. I can honestly say staff tried so hard to listen and learn and make it work. And now we have ram-raids.
I am truly ashamed of the part that the present government has played in allowing Maori to believe that all their problems are at the fault of 'the coloniser' and not of their own making. There are good strong Maori voices being drowned out by the silly woke, who reinforce pernicious feelings of victimhood and inadequacy. Surely we can do better than this.
No doubt about it, a crock from start to finish. And, why have columns headed with both 'tamariki' and 'rangatahi' and then specify age groups? My understanding of those terms is 'children' and 'young people' respectively, so one or the other surely suffices? And why not a word like 'children' which the vast number of readers of the chart would recognise? But like the codswallop that is spun around their mission statement, why use one everyday word when two or more from te reo makes it sound ever so much more 'culturally attuned' and woke.
But just when are they going to wake up to the fact that Maori culture and its world view, leastwise when it comes to the appropriate rearing of children, is broken, and is the principle reason why so many (percentage-wise) need to come under the care of OT.
I understand that there are many so called "Maori" with European and non Maori surnames. This would imply that many have European and non Maori DNA flowing in their veins. So to truly make the survey accurate and show the true diversity of the ethnicity of New Zealand then a Maori/European category should be added to the survey. To not have this category is truly racist. It shows just how dishonest and misleading these Maori controlled government organizations have truly become.
One wonders how much further the pendulum can swing towards the furtherance of a contrived non-language before we can get back to the exclusive use of English in Dept. names, road signs, communications and all means of relating to each other. On a small scale it was always a fun thing to use common Maori words with fellow New Zealanders but it has long since ceased to be a joke.
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