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July 11, 2019
Kopu looking for Maori solutions to baby uplifts
Waatea Team
Posted On July 11, 2019
A Maori Women's Welfare League past president says Maori problems need Maori solutions.
Dame Areta Kopu hopes some of those solutions will come out of this weekend's national hui on Oranga Tamariki's policy of uplifting babies.
She says Maori in the past offered solutions for the care and protection of children but they were shelved by the core government agencies.
She wants to see a focus on prevention rather than dealing with everything at a point of crisis.
"How do you get hold of that mother? Why does it have to be at the time of birth when you pick the baby up? Whereas her history must be known to somebody and the iwi needs to step in there, someone from the hapu needs to step down there, or someone in the whanau has to be there," Dame Areta says.
Every child needs a parent and the children she saw as a social worker always seemed to be running away so they could get beck to their family, however dysfunctional it was.
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