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Family for Every Child’s Virtual Gallery is dedicated to the voices of children and young people from around the world, exploring the issues that affect them and their care. They collaborated with VOYCE – Whakarongo Mai to support the “You Promised… Now Deliver!” campaign, and developed a gallery that highlights children and young people’s perspectives on care in Aotearoa via a virtual hikoi to parliament.
Below are the 6 promises that form the base of the gallery, and VOYCE Whakarongo-Mai’s petition and campaign. Some quotes from youth and care-experienced voices included in the…
This Family for Every Child podcast episode explores the context for children and young people with care experience in New Zealand.
Family for Every Child, CEO, Amanda Griffith, is joined by Tracie Shipton and Tupua Urlich from VOYCE-Whakarongo Mai, a new member organisation of the Family for Every Child alliance.
VOYCE-Whakarongo Mai was co-designed by children with care experience, for children with care experience, and exists to advocate for the approximately 6,000 children in New Zealand with care experience (be that foster or kinship (whānau) care).…
ABSTRACT
This chapter from the Routledge Handbook of Family Law and Policy examines how permanency for children is achieved in New Zealand in the child protection context. The permanent removal of Maori children from their families and extended family groups, including placement for adoption, has been a profound issue for Maori. The concern for Maori about the numbers of children being taken into care was a driver for the July 2019 amendments. Unlike other jurisdictions (such as England and the US), adoption of children in permanency cases has generally not been followed in New Zealand…
Abstract
The need for a supported transition for young people leaving care in New Zealand has been acknowledged with the implementation of new legislation and policy from 1 July 2019. One advantage of the protracted delay is the ability to draw on international research evaluating the impact of changes made in other jurisdictions. The article begins with an introduction to the New Zealand context. Current international research on the experience of care leavers is reviewed to identify key lessons and continuing challenges. Published research on the lived experience of young people leaving…
Abstract
Education can contribute towards improving the life-chances of children in residential and foster care. Yet, international research has consistently found that most in care face significant educational challenges, many do not receive a quality education, and few go on to university. This chapter from the book Education in Out-of-Home Care reports on a qualitative doctoral study that investigated the experiences of New Zealand care leavers who…
Abstract
Families are significantly affected by decisions made in the child protection context, yet decision outcomes differ even when cases are similar. Understanding the concepts, practices and processes of differentiation that push some cases over the threshold of key decision points, but not other similar cases, is crucial. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with child protection social workers from three site offices in Aotearoa New Zealand (interviews, n = 26; focus groups, n = 25) and using thematic analysis, this study identified the case, internal…
Abstract
Placement in out-of-home care is associated with a number of devastating outcomes for mothers and for their children in the short and long term. The aim of this study was to examine factors and processes of change that occurred through participation in a residential family preservation/reunification programme from the perspectives of service users and staff. We conducted in-depth interviews and a focus group with 12 service users and staff from one programme in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Three overarching themes common to the narratives of service users and staff were identified: 1)…
Abstract
Preventing child abuse is a unifying goal. Making decisions that affect the lives of children is an unenviable task assigned to social services in countries around the world. The consequences of incorrectly labelling children as being at risk of abuse or missing signs that children are unsafe are well-documented. Evidence-based decision-making tools are increasingly common in social services provision but few, if any, have used social network data. We analyse a child protection services dataset that includes a network of…
INTRODUCTION
Decisions in the child protection context take place in a complex environment influenced by individual decision-makers, institutional resources and practices, demographic inequalities, and family responses. While some variation in decision outcomes are inevitable and desirable in order to respond to unique family and whānau contexts, the principles, logics and resources informing such decisions should be consistent. Where they differ too much, families in similar situations receive different responses, contributing to inequities and inconsistencies in decision outcomes. Both…
Abstract
The present article reports findings of a narrative review of self- and carer-report mental health data that addressed the research question: Do adolescents who reside in statutory out-of-home care (OOHC) systematically underreport their mental health difficulties in population studies? A literature search was conducted to identify population studies of the mental health of older children and adolescents in OOHC that obtained self-report data. Studies were selected for review if mental health data were gathered in population studies (i.e., not clinical or treatment studies); data…