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From heartbreak to hope: how kinship carers are saving New Zealand's most vulnerable children, in spite of the cost to their bank balances and themselves
They are the hidden heroes holding our tamariki together.
They don't seek praise, attention, or headlines, but day after day, thousands of grandparents, aunties, uncles, and close family friends quietly open their homes to young children, who can no longer live safely with their parents.
Forced out of their homes due to mental or physical ill health reasons, death, imprisonment, violence, abuse and/or neglect.
The situation can be tough, layered, complex... and expensive.
Its official name is kinship care, and this week is Global Kinship Care Week, a moment to shine a light on these heroes, and focus on a major new New Zealand study, which calls for urgent action to "better normalise and support kinship care in New Zealand, highlighting its unique strengths, but also the lack of recognition and resourcing for families who step in".
Supported by the Children's Commissioner, Dr Claire Achmad, the Strengthening Kinship Care in New Zealand research project was completed by Family for Every Child and released this week.
It is the first big study of its kind in more than a decade.
"Kinship care is the preferred option when children can't live with their parents," Dr Michelle Egan-Bitran from Family for Every Child tells The Detail.
"It's a really important strategy for keeping children safe and cared for, so every child has that right... and they have the right to belonging and connection, kinship care provides that."
Up to 22,000 New Zealand children are currently in kinship care, but too often, Egan-Bitran says, carers don't have adequate support or financial help.
The new report stresses that all kinship care arrangements, whether formal or informal, require recognition and tailored supports.
Recommendations include developing clear policies, strategies, and guidance; promoting public awareness and acceptance of kinship care; strengthening the capability of the social service workforce; and ensuring adequate and accessible funding for all carers.
"The message [to the government] would be, first of all, for an overall need for a child abuse prevention strategy, an action plan, an intervention.
"The second would be to prioritise kinship care as part of care reform, and as there is this global movement, that this should be one of the number one priorities because of the known benefits.
"We need to look at addressing the financial burdens for kinship carers, so it is equitable, across statutory, formal, and informal kinship care. And that can involve, for example, legal aid, it can look at supported caregiver assistance, and social work assistance with that.
"We need to be looking at access and funding to support the training of kinship carers to be able to care with those skills and knowledge.
"But also, we need workforce capability and capacity in New Zealand, so those who will come into contact with children, who are in kinship care and their caregivers... they need to understand the complex dynamics for children and their caregivers.
"So there needs to be investment in that by the government."
The country's track record of child abuse and murder, in homes and state care, is shameful, she says.
On average, one child dies every five weeks at the hands of those who are responsible for their care.
Between now and Christmas, it's likely - based on those statistics - two more children will be killed.
"New Zealand does not have a child abuse prevention strategy and action plan," says Dr Egan-Bitran, who was a principal advisor (faith) with the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Abuse in State and Faith-based Care.
"We have nothing at the moment in terms of a joined-up integrated approach across government, working with community organisations with iwi around the prevention of child abuse and neglect, and early identification and intervention.
"That's huge and that's what we need as the overarching priority... a core component of that is kinship care."
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