Factors associated with disparities experienced by Māori children in the care and protection system

Methodology

Defining ethnicity

There are four high level categories Oranga Tamariki uses to describe ethnicity:

1. Māori – children who identify Māori as one of their ethnicities.
2. Māori and Pacific – children who identify both Māori and Pacific as their ethnicities.
3. Pacific – children who identify Pacific (but not Māori) as one of their ethnicities.
4. New Zealand (NZ) European and Other– children who do not identify Māori or Pacific as any of their ethnicities. This includes NZ European, European, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American, African, and other ethnicities.

It is not uncommon for an individual to have multiple ethnicities, particularly crossing between Māori and Pacific communities. The ‘Māori and Pacific’ category includes children and young people who have ever been recorded as both Māori and Pacific.

This report compares disparities between two groups:

a. Māori – this group includes the ‘Māori’ and ‘Māori and Pacific’ categories outlined above.

b. NZ European and Other – this group includes the ‘NZ European and Other’ category. ‘NZ European and Other’ includes New Zealand European, European, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American, African, and other ethnicities.

Note, the ‘Pacific’ category has been excluded from this analysis as the group of interest here is Māori. Future reporting may focus on disparities between ‘Pacific’ and ‘NZ European and Other’ ethnicities with Māori excluded. We recognise the limitations of using prioritised ethnicity vs total ethnicity and are looking to develop an improved approach to employ this definition in future iterations.

Defining escalations
This analysis focuses on ‘first-time’ involvement in reports of concern for children with no prior CYF/Oranga Tamariki interaction, and ‘first-time’ escalations between successive stages of care and protection involvement for children with recent CYF/Oranga Tamariki interactions. This report focuses on the following escalations:

1. being involved in a report of concern for the first time
2. having your report of concern referred to assessment or investigation for the first time (within the quarter)
3. being involved in a care and protection FGC or FWA for the first time, for children involved in reports of concern within the last 15 months
4. entering a foster or family/whānau placement for the first time, for children involved in FGCs or FWAs within the last 15 months.

Repeat escalations through the system (such as reports for children with prior reporting history) and escalations outside the ‘standard’ sequence of casework stages (such as emergency placements for children with no prior FGC/FWAs) have not been considered in this analysis. We expect that repeat escalations through the system will show similar or smaller differences by ethnicity, as any differences that appear to be associated with ethnicity will be partially or wholly captured by factors reflecting previous CYF/Oranga Tamariki involvement.

Selecting characteristics
Statistical analysis was performed in the Statistics New Zealand Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) to explore differences in Child, Youth and Family or Oranga Tamariki involvement for Māori children and children of ‘NZ European and Other’ ethnicities. This analysis considered demographic, socioeconomic, and parent, sibling, or child characteristics visible within administration datasets that have also been suggested by research studies as being associated with care and protection concerns.

These characteristics include:

• Demographic: Age, gender, and ethnicity.
• Socioeconomic: Parent income (grouped), education levels, recent and lifetime benefit receipt, socioeconomic decile, and frequent address changes.
• Parent history: Parent history with Child Youth and Family, recent and lifetime Corrections involvement, and mental health or substance usage service contact.
• Child history: Child and sibling reports of concern and Police Family Violence Centre notifications to Oranga Tamariki (for examining likelihood of involvement in statutory care and protection), Police-recorded victimisations, recent emergency department contact, potentially avoidable hospitalisations and mental health service contact, B4 School Check referrals, school disengagement indicators, and (for ages 13+) Police-recorded offences.

Key considerations and limitations
A key limitation to this analysis is that many of the factors considered at an operational level were not available for consideration (such as the nature of the safety concerns reported for children, child and family/whānau needs and strengths, and availability of NGO and other supports). Partly due to this, the findings highlight the association between Oranga Tamariki involvement and socioeconomic and selected parent/child characteristics at a group-level, but also show substantial variation between outcomes for individual children and across different regions.

It is also important to bear in mind that ethnic disparities are also present in many of the socioeconomic and parent/child characteristics controlled for in this analysis. By controlling for these, the analysis is aimed at identifying additional disparity over and above that inherent in those characteristics. If there is ethnic disparity in the relative
likelihood of different children moving between care and protection stages, then it is possible that this may be captured by these other factors, rather than being explicitly attributed to ethnicity.

Selecting time periods
This document has two key focus areas, each using data from different time periods. For both focus areas, no data is used beyond 31 March 2020. This is to exclude data that may be distorted by COVID-19.

a. Method of analysis on differences in care and protection involvement for Māori children and children of ‘NZ European and Other’ ethnicities

This first phase uses data over the 10-year period to 31 March 2020.

b. Method of analysis on the involvement for Māori children and children of ‘NZ European and Other’ ethnicities pre and post the formation of Oranga Tamariki
The second phase of this study uses data over two periods:

• the three-year period before Oranga Tamariki’s formation (1 April 2014 to 31 March 2017).
• the three-year period after Oranga Tamariki’s formation (1 April 2017 to 31 March 2020).

Note, compared to the prior release of this report, the assumed date of Oranga Tamariki’s formation has been shifted from 31 December 2016 to 1 April 2017. This may lead to some minor differences between any pre-Oranga Tamariki figures quoted in the two reports.