Two leading Māori social workers are scathing of Oranga Tamariki's attempts to fix huge gaps in sexual violence crisis support for children.
(File image) Photo: 123RF
The child protection agency has spent millions of dollars on this since 2019 but says it is still in a "relationship-building" stage with Māori providers, and has no targets for when it will begin to co-design or launch new services.
Official reports note the country has starkly fewer support services for sexually abused children than for adults.
Oranga Tamariki says its new services must be a genuine partnership, so it is moving at the slower pace of the Māori providers to set them up.
But Te Whāriki Manawāhine O Hauraki general manager Denise Messiter said this was an old line used for decades, ever since the landmark Puao-te-Ata-tu in 1988 that led to big law changes.
"They're still saying now they've got to develop relationships with whānau, hapū and iwi?" she said.
"How long have they had?
"And they are using that as a reason not to have services in place? Well, that doesn't stack up," Messiter said.
Oranga Tamariki said in a series of statements to RNZ that it was in talks with Māori providers in various regions to build relationships - "shifting its way of working to a community-led, regionally-enabled, centrally-supported approach".
Messiter said she has had no meetings with the agency since December 2020.
"Nope, not about co-designing services, not about how we might use resources.
"It doesn't wash.
"We have to wait for them to catch up with us. You know, we've designed our own solutions. We're implementing our own solutions without any resources from them.
"So it isn't about us, ... service providers, being on the back foot. It's actually them who's on the back foot."
At their last meeting, back in 2020, they had asked for more resources, she said. "As soon as we asked for resourcing to covering our contribution, they stopped talking to us."
Last year, Oranga Tamariki had $11 million to spend on the new sexual violence services. It spent just $7m and had to hand the rest back.
It has been unable to tell RNZ how much it has spent so far this financial year.
A survivor and researcher into abuse in state care, social worker Paora Moyle, said talk of relationship building was "more dishonesty".
Social worker Paora Moyle. Photo: RNZ
"It's more rhetoric to appease the public," Moyle said.
"Actually, it's not happening. It should have been happening. Years and years ago - yesterday.
"It's not good enough that we have to wait for them to get their s--t together. These are ... New Zealand's children and they have a right to have services that look after their needs.
"They are our babies."
The agency had been about to begin designing new crisis support and other sexual violence services in October 2020, when it got caught up in controversy and reviews.
This culminated in a new Māori Advisory board reporting back to the government six months ago, saying Oranga Tamariki was "self-centred and constantly looks to itself for answers".
It made four broad recommendations, including to improve relationships with Māori.
In December, Children's Minister Kelvin Davis said: "I firmly believe the answer lies in Oranga Tamariki taking a back seat and working in true partnership with communities who know best for their young people".
Partnership meant not setting any unilateral timelines, the agency told RNZ.
Paora Moyle said it was simply making the right noises.
"Because they're accountable to the minister right now and the Māori Advisory Board, stage one and stage two, 'we're doing this, this, this and this' - actually, they have to say all of those things," Moyle said.
"I'm saying to you, it is not happening."
Messiter asked how Oranga Tamariki would know when it had built an adequate relationship.
"What's the performance measure for that? Is it going to be another tick box?
"Is it just going to be another tangata whenua service provider falling over backwards to meet what they say we need to be doing?
"Providers have been getting money through contracting processes for years now - how come there's no relationship? And I know that that's not on the service providers," Messiter said.
Oranga Tamariki was not involved with Kaupapa Māori providers' Rōpū, or group, she said.
"We all share, what's going on. What's the secret? If you want to co-design, how can you co-design something in secret?"
Guidelines - but not for OT
In fact, new draft guidelines already exist, co-designed with Māori, for sexual violence support services.
Paora Moyle, Denise Messiter and five other sector experts just have just finished drawing them up and call them "groundbreaking" for melding theory with delivery.
But these new guidelines were commissioned by the Ministry of Social Development, which provides services for adults.
They do not apply to Oranga Tamariki.
Moyle and Messiter said it persisted in trying to work with children separate from their whānau, which was bound to fail.
The draft guidelines had been reviewed by the Ministry of Social Development and external experts and will be tested by Kaupapa Māori sexual violence services providers.
The two social workers say the ongoing legacy of the lack of good sexual violence services was being testified to by survivors at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into abuse, time and again.