SINK OR SWIM: LEAVING CARE IN NEW ZEALAND.

• Author: Yates, Deborah
• Position: Statistical Data Included

Abstract

New Zealand has fallen behind other Western countries in its attention to young people leaving the statutory care services to undertake independent living. These young people comprise a very small and hidden population here, and very little is known about long-term outcomes for them, except that, anecdotally, they seem to begin to have children early, and to struggle to raise them without coming to the notice of child welfare services. This qualitative study, aimed at creating an opportunity for this group to voice their issues, listened to eight Pakeha care leavers as they talked about their experiences in care, at the point of leaving care and since leaving care. Like their counterparts overseas, it is clear that they carry more than their fair share of emotional, social and scholastic deficits. They would benefit from legislative, policy and practice reform aimed at assisting them through a gradual transition to adulthood.

INTRODUCTION

"It's not Social Welfare's fault, like, there were not many options open, it was like ... like I was going to have to start [living independently] somewhere. Just I would have liked to have started at a later date and gradually fit into it." (New Zealand care leaver)

The ground-breaking Children Young Persons and their Families (CYP&F) Act 1989 was the result of years of lobbying by a range of consumer and professional groups and particularly by Maori (Ministerial Advisory Committee 1986, Dalley 1998). The primary emphasis of the Act was the maintenance of children within their extended family or whanau group, rather than the earlier model of raising them in foster and residential care.

However, the funding and services to support families and communities to take on extra children, remedy their problems and manage difficult family dynamics were not available or were inadequate (Brown 2001). An increase in poverty caused by unemployment, reduced benefits and market-rate state rentals, and the attendant problems of stress, further reduced their ability to cope (Smith 1998, Morris and O'Brien 1999, Duncan and Worrall 2000). Difficulties in finding suitable kinship placements, pressures on underfunded social work services to attend adequately to the huge influx of notifications of abuse and neglect, and reports of extreme maltreatment and deaths of children known to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services (CYF), received considerable public attention.

One little-known consequence of these tensions is the plight of young people at the "back end" of the care and protection system -- those who remain in state care until 16 years of age. On or around their 17th birthdays they are usually, and often rather peremptorily, expected to take up independent living with minimal support and no monitoring (Ward 2000b). In other words, in line with 1990s ideology, they become individuals accountable for their own lives, despite their tender age and other disadvantages. They then "disappear" from sight. Data are not available about their prevalence in adult health, mental health or criminal justice services. However, experienced social workers are familiar with their reappearance as the young parents of a new generation of at-risk children; thus they contribute to the "front end" again. In these cases, an opportunity to intervene in the inter-generational cycle of abuse and unhappiness has been missed.

Under the Act, a child may be deemed to be in need of care or protection for a range of reasons (s14), preferably through a consensus decision between family and CYF at a Family Group Conference (FGC). Unless the family is able to resolve the issues informally, a Declaration that the child is in need of care and protection can be made by a Family Court judge, who will generally make a Custody Order (s101) at the same time and possibly a Guardianship Order (s110) to the Chief Executive of the Department. Alternatively, a parent may enter into a short-term Voluntary Agreement (ss139 to 142) for the Chief Executive to take custody of a child or young person. These two circumstances constitute formal or statutory care arrangements and are generally at the cost of CYF. The child may be placed with family members, foster parents, or, in the case of a young person, in a family-like setting. These arrangements may be short-lived if the child is able to return to parents once matters are resolved, or if they are taken into the guardianship of kin or non-kin caregivers.

If ongoing issues concerning the child or the adults involved are not resolved in the early stages, a child or young person coming into care may experience a number of placements and a number of changes of school and may never settle permanently with any family. By the age of 16 or 17, they are unlikely to be ready to manage their own finances, relationships, education and difficulties without family or family-like support. Once they have been discharged from care, or custody orders or agreements have lapsed, they no longer have any status with CYF, nor can this be reinstated at this age.

Care leavers have not been identified for statistical or any other purposes in New Zealand and have, until now, remained invisible. They may not comprise much more than 200 per year at present, although with care numbers increasing by 6-7% per year (verbal advice, Strategic Policy, CYF), this is on the rise. Table 1 indicates the sudden drop in care numbers around the ages of 16 and 17.

Table 1 CYF Clients in Care as at 30 June 2000 Caregiver type Age Agency CYF Family Home Whanau Residence Total 0 6 50 1 38 95 1 26 55 4 59 144 2 24 72 3 60 159 3 22 71 6 80 179 4 24 68 5 63 160 5 27 82 1 72 182 6 25 65 8 93 191 7 29 87 4 65 185 8 37 91 5 89 222 9 34 95 8 91 228 10 32 97 13 92 1 235 11 30 111 14 84 3 242 12 53 99 16 75 2 245 13 49 106 27 82 6 270 14 73 114 43 77 17 324 15 61 116 24 72 29 302 16 40 62 20 55 34 211 17 7 27 2 14 4 54 18 10 1 2 13 19 3 3 Total 599 1,481 205 1,263 96 3,644 This article briefly outlines attention given to date to this issue overseas and in New Zealand. It then looks at social work practice here, via the accounts given by eight New Zealand care leavers, of their personal experience of care and leaving care. It considers current New Zealand legislation and policy and makes suggestions for a more gradual transition-to-adulthood practice for this vulnerable group of young people, designed to increase their chances of positive adult outcomes.

THE OVERSEAS EXPERIENCE

About 8,500 young people leave care in England and Wales every year (Biehal et al. 1995). No doubt thanks to their numbers and resultant visibility, British care leavers' difficulties began to be highlighted and researched as early as 25 years ago (Godek 1976) and strong lobby groups of young people, caregivers, social workers and youth workers formed (Biehal 1999). Since 1983, "leaving care" has been recognised as a major social issue (Stone 1990), enabling significant legislative and practice changes. A considerable body of literature has been produced on the subject, including comparative studies with non-care leavers (Stein 1997). All have revealed multiple disadvantages for these young people.

Upon leaving care, a lack of adequate preparation coupled with the early age at which care leavers are expected to assume adult responsibilities have tended to mean that loneliness, isolation, unemployment, poverty, homelessness, movement and "drift" were likely to feature significantly in many of their lives. (Biehal et al. 1995:4) A similar awareness developed concurrently in the United States and, on both sides of the Atlantic, efforts to remedy the situation have been underway for many years. In 1986 a United States federal programme resulted in the proliferation of programmes focused on preparing young care leavers for independent living (Mallon 1998). In Britain, provision of Leaving Care Programmes by local authorities became mandatory in the 1989 Children's Act. Ranging from housing provision to drop-in centres for care leavers up to the age of 20, and sometimes as old as 25, these were extensively evaluated during the 1990s (Biehal et al. 1995, Stein 1997, Broad 1998). Last year, the British Government passed a Children (Leaving Care) Act, which comes into force in October 2001, with a budget of 256 million pounds sterling. It aims to ensure that all care leavers are supported and monitored until the age of 21 or, under certain circumstances, later (Department of Health 2000).

In both Britain and the United States, and in most other developed countries, the leaving-care age is the young person's 18th birthday, although earlier discharge is not uncommon. A large Australian study found that 17% of their New South Wales participants were discharged at 16, despite being in unstable circumstances. The authors write, "it is inappropriate for the state as guardian to abdicate responsibility and abandon such young people to their limited resources" (Cashmore and Paxton 1996:166). In New South Wales, 77% of care leavers are discharged at 18, however (ibid.).

PASSING LIKE SHIPS IN THE NIGHT

Paradoxically, when this issue was being raised in Britain and...