August 14, 2013
Whānau ignored in child abuse plan
The Green Party is calling for iwi and whānau to be involved in any decisions about out of family placements for Māori children.
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is proposing changes to child welfare laws including making it easier for authorities to take children off parents suspected of abuse.
Greens co-leader Metiria Turei says Māori kids are three times as likely to be removed from their parents as non-Māori, with Māori making up half of the 4000 children in out of home placements.
She says while the new policy focuses on the individual child, the needs of the family are ignored.
"This policy tends to assume that if a parent had lost a child to the state for whatever reason, then that parent has to find a way of justifying why they should have that child back without any real investment going in to that family and that child to find what went wrong and how to repair it as a whānau approach as opposed to an individual approach and so I am really concerned about what it means for Māori," Ms Turei says.
She says Minister Bennett’s threatening and punitive approach to child welfare is likely to drive vulnerable families further underground, rather than encouraging them to put up their hands for help.
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