Leading from the front issuu

ily Group Conference (FGC). This was the vehicle for
determining the level of intervention and the forum for
devising and agreeing to plans. The FGC was the alternative
to seeking court intervention and state care. The
CYP&FA was also clear that it was the state’s role to support
whānau and where appropriate resource the plans
agreed to at the FGC. Residences were closed down and
funds reallocated to initiatives such as Maatua Whangai
which was resourced to find whānau/hapu placements
for Tamariki Māori.
SOUNDS EXCITING SO WHAT
WENT WRONG?
I delivered the initial training and it was clear from the
start that the notion of power sharing was both not understood
or in some cases not very welcome. Social
Workers were used to doing things their way and they
soon proved either unable or unwilling to change. In particular,
the FGC was viewed with suspicion, the key role
of the FGC coordinators devalued and in some instances
undermined. In addition, the role of the department to
resource FGC plans was obstructed by the way Departmental
budgets were allocated and managed, following
the advent of the Public Finance Act in 1989. The perverse
outcome was that it was easier to go through the
Court, get a custody order and pay board, rather than
fund FGC outcomes and keep kids out of care.
Things weren’t going much better when it came to
working with NGOs and iwi. There was a lack of leadership
and clarity around how the community sector
should work alongside the department and in particular
what work could be devolved and if devolved how it
could be funded. A competitive model was introduced
which left community based organisations fighting for a
place in the queue, with little thought as to how the best
overall outcomes could be achieved for the community
as a whole. Scant attention was given to capacity building
within the NGOs and iwi. While community based
services did great work with the families they traditionally
worked with, they struggled with the type of families
that were the core work of the Department.
Probably the most overlooked factor for the ongoing
systematic failures of the Department (by now restructured
several times) was the creation of a National Call
Centre. While created with a good reason, its impact
had never been accurately predicted. Almost overnight
notifications to the Department went from a few thousand
a year to tens of thousands a year. The organisation
was simply swamped, caseloads went through the
roof, there were delays holding FGCs and the quality of
Artwork by Byron Konia, Flaxmere Primary School.
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Napier Pilot City Trust – for a kinder, fairer city