Kerre Woodham: If Oranga Tamariki is the children's last resort, God help them

There is a story in the media that has got me absolutely furious, and it's not Ashley Klein, the referee in the Warriors game. It's a story that's being played out in the Coroners Court of a 12-year-old girl who took her own life in 2017, and she took her own life because the very agency that should have been caring for her, Oranga Tamariki, failed her. And in the Coroners Court, hearing the evidence of the witnesses, I think we have an understanding now why so many children end up dead and tortured at the hands of their caregivers.  

This 12 year old should be alive today, she should be 21, she should be making music, maybe in a band, hanging out with her friends because by all accounts, despite the awful, awful state of her "home", she was a popular girl, musically talented. But she had the great misfortune, as did her two younger sisters, of being born into a dreadful situation. Her life sucked, as a family member gave evidence. There were some people who cared about her, not her caregivers, but before the girl took her own life, her teachers were concerned, the principal was concerned, they'd made several visits to her home because they were so concerned about her appearance, her behaviour, and disclosures she'd made about her home life. They were filthy, she and her sisters, the nits were crawling down the back of her neck, they were starving. And what the school witnessed, according to reports, caused them to seek assistance from organisations such as Oranga Tamariki, New Zealand Police, social support agencies, and others. There's a list a mile long of agencies where you can get help, allegedly, that exist, that are funded to help just these sorts of children. 

She was doing everything right. She couldn't do much about her appalling home life, but she knew that this was not the way she was meant to be living. So she disclosed to teachers what was going on, and it wasn't the first time the agencies had been involved with the girl and those in her home. The counsel, who's in the Coroners Court to assist the coroner, said the girl experienced an extremely difficult childhood characterised by ongoing and severe abuse, as well as a generally unstable living situation. The caregiver was a druggie. Due to the difficulties she encountered in her home life, she spent many nights away staying with friends. She was desperate. She would have known that it was an imposition asking to stay at other people's houses. She'd have known what a real home looked like, and it certainly wasn't what she was going back to.  

The school principal, a police constable, and the young girl turn up at Oranga Tamariki, and a woman from OT told the Coroners Court she was appointed the girl's key contact. A safety plan for the girl was put in place along with a plan to refer her to other services, and an agreement was drawn up that included her caregiver's commitment to engaging with support. But guess what, the caregiver failed to engage, in a shocking revelation, just as she'd failed to engage the many other times that agencies had been involved in her life. There were reports of her being continually under the influence of drugs, concerns from the school about the girl's behaviour and her continued absence from school. So her safety plan included exit plans like calling the Police and running to the neighbours to seek help. 

Counsel for the coroner asked the question that most of us would have asked: if a 12-year-old needed a safety plan to live in her own home, what were they doing there? There was no comment from the social worker. The counsel pointed to multiple previous reports of concerns made to Oranga Tamariki relating to the girl and her living conditions and her druggie caregiver. The social worker said she wasn't aware of the agency's previous involvement when she first took on the case, hadn't reviewed any earlier reports.  

Can these people not read? Would you not think to yourself when a 12 year old appears in an absolutely appalling condition begging for help, supported by police and the school principal, wonder if they've come to our attention before? Wonder if the druggie that's looking after her has popped up on our radar before? Do they not even ask the most basic questions? Clearly not. Didn't read any reports, and that was the same with the Phillips children. An older sister provided an affidavit detailing the severe controlling and abusive experience, nobody read it. Nobody bothered to have a look and see if perhaps there might have been reports about his behaviour before. 

Here's the absolute kicker for me though, and this goes to explain the number of dead and tortured babies and children. The social worker in court said the goal was to work alongside those involved in caring for the girl, honouring them by allowing them to care for her with support. Honouring the druggie caregiver who had failed to engage the last four, five years. Honouring the drug abuser. What about the vulnerable children who are stuck living with that slag? The poor girl did everything right. She knew she and her sisters deserved better. She deserved more. Her school supported her, they tried to do what they could do. And yet that poor child was basically told she was on her own by OT, ring the police or run to a neighbour, but you're stuck there love, because they wanted to honour the caregiver. 

I'm beyond furious. At the bottom of the story there are ten numbers people can ring if they feel they have nowhere to go and nowhere to turn, but no one could help this young girl. When you've got OT saying you stay there and run to a neighbour's if you really feel you're in safety, fear of your life or being abused. Honouring the bloody caregiver. That Commission of Inquiry into the Phillips children said the children should be front and centre.  

If that is the culture at Oranga Tamariki, and it certainly seems to be, you've got to shut it down, it is not working. If that is the ethos by which they operate, honouring the caregivers by giving them support, basically turning family homes into social experiments and into social laboratories, let's see how much the kids can put up with before mum comes right, shall we? You've got to change it.   

We had a story the other day about Pet Refuge where people could put their pets and escape a dangerous situation and the pets stayed at Pet Refuge and they were fixed. Vets worked on them, they were loved, they were nurtured, they were fed nutritious food, they were cleaned, they had their fleas got rid of. We need a kids' refuge where exactly the same thing happens, where these children can go and they can be fed and they can be nurtured and the nits and the fleas can be got out of their bodies and they can have their broken bones mended and their gynaecological conditions fixed when you're 11 or 12 years old because you've endured things nobody should have to endure. We need a kids' refuge. OT is failing them. I've no doubt some of them are doing very good work, but if the ethos is honouring the caregivers who are torturing and abusing so many kids, the children need another option, they cannot depend on Oranga Tamariki because Oranga Tamariki is responsible for so many deaths and so much pain, and if they are the children's last resort then God help the children of this country.