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Since all policies address problems, they necessarily include implicit or explicit constructions of these problems. This paper explores how child maltreatment has been constructed in New Zealand's child protection policies. It questions the underlying assumptions of this problem construction and seeks to shed light on what has been omitted. Utilizing a qualitative content analysis of eight key policy documents, this study reveals the construction of child maltreatment has been dominated primarily by a child-centric, risk-focused approach. This approach assigns blame and shifts responsibilities onto parents and families. In addition, the vulnerability discourse and social investment approach underpinning this perspective have allowed important structural factors, such as poverty and inequality, to remain unaddressed. This paper also highlights the one-dimensional focus on the lower social class to control future liabilities. We suggest that the harm inflicted by corporations on children's well-being is another form of child exploitation currently omitted from the problem construction. We suggest that child abuse should be defined and understood in policy as harm to children's well-being and argue that the state should prevent and mitigate harm by addressing structural forces of the problem as well as protecting children against corporate harms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of 'Kia Tika, Kia Pono – Honouring Truths' (Te Rōpū Arotahi 2022), an ethical framework to guide engagement with tamariki (children) and rangatahi (young people) who are care experienced (that is, who currently or at some stage in their lives have been in foster or residential care). Centring the voices and priorities of rangatahi with care experience, 'Kia Tika, Kia Pono' is intended for use by organisations and others working across the range of sectors and services that seek to engage tamariki and rangatahi who are care experienced in governance, policy making, service design, media or research. Its purpose is to ensure that these efforts are ethical, meaningful, and culturally safe. Grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and participatory rights frameworks, 'Kia Tika, Kia Pono' is responsive to the cultural context of New Zealand. It is also distinctive in its centring of rangatahi with care experience as both knowledge-holders and knowledge-creators. In summarising the key elements of the 'Kia Tika, Kia Pono' framework, we also draw upon our insights from the research process regarding participatory practice with rangatahi with care experience. Kupu Māori/glossary of Māori words: Aroha: love, compassion, empathy; hapū: kinship group, sub-tribe, sub-nation, to be pregnant; hui: gathering, meeting, assembly, seminar, conference; iwi: extended kinship group, tribe, nation, people, bone; kai: food, meal; karakia: incantation; a set form of words to state or make effective a ritual activity; kaupapa: purpose, agenda; koha gift; especially one maintaining social relationships and has connotations of reciprocity; korowai: ornamented cloak; mana: spiritually sanctioned or endorsed influence, power, and authority; manaakitanga: showing and receiving care, respect, kindness, and hospitality; māramatanga: enlightenment, insight, understanding; mauri: life principle, life force, vital essence; pono: to be absolutely true, unfeigned, genuine; rangatahi: younger generation; rangatira: chiefly, esteemed, leader; tamariki: children; Te Tiriti o Waitangi: the Māori version of the Treaty of Waitangi; tika: what is right/good for any particular situation; tikanga Māori: customary system of values and practices that have been developed over time and are deeply embedded in the social context; tūāpapa: foundation, platform; ūkaipō: a place of nurturing and of spiritual and emotional strength; wairuatanga: spirituality; wānanga: to meet, discuss, deliberate, consider; whanau: to be born, extended family, family group; whanaungatanga: relationship, kinship, sense of family connection; a relationship through shared experiences and working together which provides people with a sense of belonging [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: Reproductive justice in Aotearoa must be centred in Indigenous reproductive justice, challenging social and government systems that seek to maintain control of wāhine Māori¹ bodies in contradiction to our role as "he whare takata"², the house of humanity. This paper seeks to answer the question: What is the relationship between Indigenous women's reproductive justice rights and child removal in the Aotearoa New Zealand child protection system? APPROACH: Through centring our atua wāhine pūrākau knowledge, I look at the shift from wāhine as the holders of whakapapa³, through birthing practices and knowledge keepers, to the focus of the Aotearoa4 colonial project where women and children are controlled and punished. This article is a reflective, historical and contemporary analysis of complicit social work and settler state intervention on Māori bodies, with particular focus on wāhine and the child protection system. CONTRIBUTION: The article draws on the research and knowledge collected by wāhine researchers in the last 30 years, alongside my doctoral study locating Kāi Tahu wāhine narratives, post-child-protection system. Attention is paid to the colonial agenda which started prior to Te Tiriti o Waitangi (te Tiriti) in the clearly scripted story that usurped wāhine and continues today in multiple forms, including the child-protection system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the reforms of child protection legislation that have occurred since the 1980s as a backdrop, this paper considers young people’s perspectives on the factors that facilitated their engagement with child protection services and the barriers they perceived to effective service delivery. Drawing on findings from a New Zealand study of young people’s experience of multiple service use (child protection, mental health, youth justice and remedial education), the paper identifies that that rather than being ‘resistant’ or ‘hostile’ to statutory child protection intervention, young people reported a ‘conditional openness’. This conditional openness was characterised by three themes: communication; continuity and consistency; and contextual and cultural responsiveness. Interventions with these characteristics activated this conditional openness allowing effective interventions to occur. Using a series of case studies, comprising interviews and agency case file records; the paper considers the experiences of 109 young people (12–17 years) as well as those of the ‘person most knowledgeable;’ an adult nominated by young people because they knew the young person’s situation well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social work aspires to empowerment ideals, including taking a 'non-expert' position of professional curiosity, and validating the perspectives of people in contact with services. Yet in child protection, social workers are involved in practice that refutes the views and opinions of people and are positioned by their role as an identifier of abuse and risk manager. Social workers and people who are subject to child protection services can be locked into meaning battles regarding the effect of parental behaviour and the representation of risks to children. These negotiations over meanings are especially difficult in the pre and perinatal period, where who controls the representation of the baby's voice or best interests is fundamental to decision outcomes. Using Fricker's concept of 'testimonial injustice' as an analytical lens, this article draws on studies in two different contexts: Aotearoa New Zealand and Scotland, to examine the implications of the intense mediation of meanings that affect child protection practice. We find that concepts relating to the importance of mothering, love for children, and extended family relationships were sources of mother's disagreements with professional views of risk, but that through qualified agreement or advocacy from community workers, a shared risk narrative could be constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Zealand is undergoing major change in service delivery to children and families. A new Ministry for Children Oranga Tamariki has been established to oversee 5 work streams, one of which provides intensive intervention with families requiring a statutory response to child protection concerns. The government minister responsible promised that the service would be child‐centred and trauma‐informed. To date, these terms remain undefined, and there is no shared understanding of their meaning. Practice frameworks to support the work of the new ministry are still being developed, creating something of a vacuum in the meantime. The focus of this paper is the challenge of implementing trauma‐informed practice in the child protection service provided by the Intensive Intervention work stream. Limited research or commentary on trauma‐informed practice in this context currently exists. Drawing on the relevant available literature, the concept and its application in child protection social work is explored. An ecological framework is used to discuss the changes needed to achieve this. Particular attention is paid to the impact of historical trauma for indigenous people due to New Zealand's colonial history and their over‐representation in care and protection services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The White Paper on Vulnerable Children before the Aotearoa/New Zealand parliament proposes changes that will significantly reconstruct the child welfare systems in this country, including the use of a predictive risk model (PRM). This article explores the ethics of this strategy in a child welfare context. Tensions exist, including significant ethical problems such as use of information without consent, breaches of privacy and stigmatisation, without clear evidence of the benefits outweighing these costs. Broader implicit assumptions about the causes of child abuse and risk and their intersections with wider discursive, political and systems design contexts are discussed. Drawing on Houston et al. (2010) this paper highlights the potential for a PRM to contribute to a neo-liberal agenda that individualises social problems, reifies risk and abuse, and narrowly prescribes service provision. However, with reference to child welfare and child protection orientations, the paper suggests more ethical ways of using the model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Examining the concepts underpinning the reasoning processes of social worker's decision‐making provides important insights into how social work practice is undertaken. This paper examines one of the major discourses used by social workers in decision reasoning in a non‐governmental organization child protection context in Aotearoa/New Zealand: family maintenance. This study found that family maintenance as a concept was strongly privileged by social workers. This resulted in attempts to preserve families and created a hierarchy of preferred decision outcomes. A preference for family maintenance was supported by legal, moral, psychological and Māori cultural concepts. This pattern of constructs underpinned the ‘weighing up of harms’ when considering removal, and generally reflected a child welfare orientation. In addition to this, it was found that ‘family’ was broadly defined, and could include people who had a relationship with the children, or Māori definitions of extended family, in addition to legal ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the reasoning processes of social workers in child protection social work as they make decisions. Within this interpretive process, they assign meaning to clients' behaviours in a context containing a multitude of competing discourses relating to the nature and cause of clients' problems. The study used a qualitative approach, specifically a critical incident framework. It asked workers to describe cases they felt ‘pleased with’ and explain the reasoning processes they used in those cases. It also asked clients their views of decisions made about them. This article draws on social constructionist theorising to describe and analyse the discourses used to frame the aims of practice and the causes of clients' problems. It found that workers valued family maintenance and sought to bolster this while managing potential risk. In the cases selected by workers, they constructed the causes of clients' problems in non-blaming but individualised ways, viewed clients as being capable of change and honest in their dealings with workers. It is proposed that these ways of viewing contributed to maintaining relationships with clients despite the challenges of balancing risk, care, control and power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The use of call centre operations in public and private sectors is a notable development in the changing structure and nature of employment worldwide. This trend is clearly evident in the South Pacific with the establishment of a call centre as the official point of entry for the statutory child protection systems in both New Zealand and New South Wales. As sites of professional practice however call centres are a controversial development. This paper discusses the practice findings of a qualitative research project which explored the particularity of intake social work (ISW) with 14 social workers employed at the Child Youth and Families' (CYF) National Contact Centre (NCC) in New Zealand. Findings were established through semi structured interviews and thematic analysis. They reveal a unique practice combining attributes of social work and emergency communication services in a workplace environment subject to similar output requirements as those found in commercial call centres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This study aims to provide an overview of the association between being in the custody of the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki (the child welfare agency of the New Zealand (NZ) government) and all‐cause hospitalisation and mortality. Methods: This was a national retrospective cohort study using linked administrative data from the Integrated Data Infrastructure. Data were obtained for all 0–17 year‐olds living in NZ on 31 December 2013. In‐care status was ascertained at this point. Outcomes of all‐cause hospitalisation and all‐cause mortality were assessed between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2018. Adjusted models incorporated age, sex, ethnicity, level of socioeconomic deprivation and rural/urban status. Results: There were 4650 in‐care children and 1 009 377 not‐in‐care children in NZ on 31 December 2013. Of those in care, 54% were male, 42% lived in the most deprived areas and 63% identified as Māori. Adjusted models showed that in‐care children were 1.32 (95% CI 1.27–1.38) times more likely to be hospitalised than not‐in‐care children and 3.64 (95% CI 2.47–5.40) times more likely to die. Conclusion: This cohort study highlights that the care and protection system prior to 2018 was not preventing children in its care from experiencing severe adverse outcomes. Overseas research has previously been relied on when making practice and policy decisions around child care and protection in NZ, so this research will provide valuable insight into best practice in an NZ context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mental health consumer movement initiated the development of the recovery approach, in which self-determination, human rights and the living of a hopeful life superseded merely symptom management for people living with mental illnesses and addictions. To what degree has this reimagined path to recovery shaped social work practice? In this paper we analyse the perspectives of eleven social workers doing child protection work in Aotearoa New Zealand. We examine also the accounts of thirteen parents living with mental illness or addiction who have been involved in child custody investigations in Aotearoa New Zealand. We ask whether the social workers understand recovery as possible for such parents, and if so, how they see it occurring. We found that there is a substantial difference between the way the social workers and the parents conceived of such ‘recovery’. While parents' descriptions of recovery reflected those of the mental health consumer movement, social workers tended to operate with a focus on clinical intervention, symptom and risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To contextualise the current reform process, this article broadly explores the development of child protection social work in New Zealand over the last thirty years. Reference is made to parallel developments in England. Critique of the role of neoliberalism, scientific rationality and managerialism is developed. Specific attention is given to a racialised discourse in the New Zealand setting, in relation to the protection of indigenous Māori children. This discourse has merged with the concept of underclass reproduction in the current policy review process. A social investment policy approach perceives ill-treated children in terms of future liability. Accordingly, more children are likely to be brought into state care. It is argued that the social knowledge form endemic to social work runs counter to this science-centric and punitive neo-liberal approach to child protection. Implications of this analysis for the future development of social work practice in child protection are considered. It is suggested that social work is responding to the ethical challenge which arises. Pivotal roles for professional associations, advocacy groups and academics are identified in terms of championing the significance of the social work knowledge form in this conflicted field: developing alternative political and practice visions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives To explore the processes neonatal intensive care nurses used in their child protection role with preterm infants. Background Neonatal nurses' screening for family violence is important in identifying at-risk preterm infants requiring protection upon discharge from neonatal intensive care settings. We know little about neonatal nurses and their role in child protection. Design A qualitative research design using Glaserian grounded theory. Methods Ten in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with New Zealand neonatal intensive care nurses. Data were simultaneously analysed using constant comparative analysis and theoretical sampling to develop a substantive grounded theory. Results Dancing around families is the substantive grounded theory explaining how neonatal intensive care nurses respond to and manage an infant needing child protection. Knowing at-risk families is the process these nurses used, which draws on their personal and professional knowledge to identify an infant's child welfare requirements. A tension exists for neonatal nurses in shaping and framing the baby's safety and protection needs between their role of nurturing and protecting an at-risk infant and it belonging to the family. Conclusions Child protection is a source of conflict for neonatal intensive care nurses. A lack of education, dodgy families and lack of confidence in child welfare services all compromise effective child protection. Their reality is tension between wanting the best possible outcomes for the baby, but having little or no control over what happens following its discharge. Relevance to clinical practice Neonatal intensive care nurses are ideally positioned to identify and respond to those preterm infants at risk of child maltreatment. They need education in child maltreatment, and protection focused on preterm infants, collegial support and clinical supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how social workers and parental service users construct the meanings of parental problems in the child protection context is important, as ultimately this affects decision making. Using qualitative methods, this study elicited social workers' and parental service users' perceptions of decision reasoning and analysed them from a discursive constructionist perspective. By completing secondary analysis of social worker-parental service user pairs, this article describes patterns in how the causes of family problems were constructed by social workers and parental service users. It was found that explanations of poor mental health and lack of supports for initial family problems were used to emphasise a lack of parental culpability by both parties, particularly through a narrative of separating one's 'authentic self' from the impacts of mental illness on parenting. This convergence of explanations helped to maintain fragile parental identities, assisted with relationship maintenance, and allowed both social workers and parents to acknowledge harm to children. However, an individualised view of problems promoted by mental illness discourses was unable to account for the impact of domestic violence and poverty on parental life experiences, and thus sometimes over-emphasised parental responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States each endorse a national objective to protect the safety and well-being of children and preserve families, while dually seeking to re-establish self-governance within indigenous communities. This review presents a collective overview of indigenous peoples’ experience with child protection systems and evaluates the different national approaches used to improve child welfare practice and re-establish the sovereignty of indigenous populations within each of these countries. Key strategies for improving child protection, developing cross-cultural partnerships, and increasing the effectiveness of child welfare service delivery within indigenous communities are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Indigenous Australian children are significantly over-represented in out of home care. Figures evidencing this over-representation continue to increase at a startling rate. Similar experiences have been identified among native peoples in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. Drawing on interviews with lawyers who work with Indigenous parents in child protection matters in Queensland, Australia, this article examines how historical factors, discriminatory approaches and legal structures and processes contribute to the high rates of removal and, we argue, to the perpetuation of the stolen generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the practices of social workers have been extensively researched, qualitative researchers have paid less attention to how child protection work is accomplished through networks that bridge the human and non-human worlds of assessment and intervention work for ‘at risk’ children and families. Drawing on the work of Actor Network theorists, we argue that child protection social work can be tracked as multiple partially connected networks that are organized around children and families, while at the same time incorporating hierarchical occupational group practices. The circulation, prioritization and hierarchical ordering of professional reports, case notes, court reports and assessment documents that organize particular sets of action by social workers has seldom been analysed. This article examines child protection social work as sets of associations between human and non-human actants with significant outcomes for individuals, whanau and families. It draws on detailed interviews with child protection social workers throughout New Zealand who spoke about their experience of particular cases, their interactions with other human service professionals and the documents they accessed, analysed and created as they assessed whether children were ‘at risk’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The intersection of public policy and legislation addressing children and domestic violence is fraught with complexity. Domestic violence responses, child protection responses and family law responses, all potentially collide where a child witnesses or experiences domestic violence. These responses not only operate with different purposes and assumptions, but also construct the problem of domestic violence in different ways. This article is based on the preliminary findings of a larger research project exploring the history of domestic violence policy in Australia. Drawing on Bacchi's (1999) 'what's the problem represented to be?' approach we consider how children's experiences of domestic violence are named and framed in Australian and New Zealand law and policy. In identifying and making apparent these particular understandings, and considering the implications of these meanings for current responses, we seek to open up debates on the future direction of domestic violence policy and legislation concerned with children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family Group Conferencing (FGC) as a solution-focused strategy in child welfare has now been a mandated practice in Aotearoa New Zealand since 1989. This qualitative study examines the experiences of Care and Protection Coordinators who have been convening FGC since the early years of the legislation. The study explores early perceptions of the legislation, what first attracted them to the role and what keeps them in the job. In particular, the study explores the practice tensions that rest within family-centred child protection models, and the ways in which FGC practice has developed in response to modern imperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1985, Victorian police (Melbourne, Australia) adopted 'Protective Behaviours' and promoted it nationwide as a school-based child protection programme. New Zealand police examined and rejected this 'empowerment' model and, with the cooperation of the Ministry of Education, created their own stage-by-stage school curriculum for children of 5 years upwards. Three hundred and seventy-eight Australian and New Zealand children were interviewed before and after using the programmes, with a 12-month interval to assess retention rates. The New Zealand method was more effective in increasing children's safety knowledge. In both countries, success related to the factors of social class, level of teacher commitment and parent participation in the programme. Descriptions of the two types of programmes are presented to help informed choice regarding child protection programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing movement to integrate conceptual tools from the health inequalities field into research that examines the relationship between inequalities and chances of child protection system contact. This article outlines the key concepts of an inequalities perspective, and discusses how these apply to inequalities in child protection in the Aotearoa New Zealand context. Drawing on existing research, this article shows that while there is evidence of links between deprivation, ethnicity, location and system contact, a more systematic research agenda shaped by an inequalities perspective would contribute to understanding more fully the social determinants of contact with the child protection system. An inequalities perspective provides balance to the current ‘social investment’ policy approach that targets individuals and families for service provision, with little attention to how structural inequalities impact on system contact. Directions for research are discussed, with some specific questions suggested. These include questions relating to the relationships between social inequalities and various decision points in the child protection system; if a social gradient exists and how steep it is; the inter-relationship between ethnicity, deprivation and patterns of system contact; and how similarly deprived children in different locations compare with each other in relation to child protection system contact, that is, is there an ‘inverse intervention law’ operating? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]