Dr Tania Cliffe-Tautari (Te Arawa, Ngāi Tahu) has worked for years in education, youth justice, and now is a researcher at Waipapa Taumata Rau The University of Auckland. Over this time she noticed the common denominator for many rangatahi Māori offenders was the experience of trauma.
Along with her co-investigator Dr Luke-Fitzmaurice-Brown, Tania wanted to examine this link and their NPM funded research project focussed on several aspects of Māori youth offending and trauma.
While the overall statistics for youth offending have been trending down in the last decade, serious and persistent offending rates have not shifted, says Tania. “There is a small group of just under 900 youth whose offending is serious, and Māori are overrepresented in this cohort,” she says.
An important goal of the research was to listen to the voices of persistent offenders. However, as the project progressed Tania found this was easier said than done. “This is a really hard space to research into because the young people fall out of systems and have low trust with adults, so trying to hear their voices or the voice of their families can be difficult,” she says.
Building trust within the kaupapa Māori social service community workers was vital. After many months of meeting with community agencies, Tania was able to talk with rangatahi.
According to Tania, there can be many layers of trauma, and it may be situational, cumulative, inter-generational, or historical. “From my conversations with the rangatahi, parents might be caught in their own trauma cycle, or their offending is linked with poverty. It can be systemic, where care placements have been unsafe; in education, where learning needs were not addressed, or where they experienced bullying. Negative interactions with teachers or police over time can impact them, and that combined with trauma can be all too much,” she says.
Tania says that Western notions of trauma do not fully capture the lived realities of Māori, which was why she and Luke used a Kaupapa Māori approach which privileged a ‘mauri’ or wellbeing lens.
The research found critical disruptors to future offending were the community workers in Kaupapa Māori social services. “Because of the trauma that rangatahi have experienced, the key for them is being able to trust people. They want to be with people who have genuine aroha and respect for them. These are people who kōrero with the right tone and language and who give them a hug when they need it,” says Tania.
She says her research found people who have walked a similar path were often the best at connecting with rangatahi who offend. “It is crucial to have the right people who can connect because rangatahi often do not understand their own trauma experiences, or even what led to their offending,” says Tania.
Tania has made a submission to Parliament on the Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill recommending that a specialised workforce should be created to work with these rangatahi.
She says long-term funding and cross-sectoral support for organisations that are effective at establishing relationships with persistent youth offenders is vital if the Government is to make impactful change. And a long term, whānau-focussed approach ought to be part of the Government’s response.
“You cannot put youth back into the same environment they have come from after a period of individualised help and expect change. Serious growth does not occur in a couple of months or in a vacuum without including whānau and the communities that are important to them.”
Tania believes education also needs to be a part of the solution. She says mainstream education proved to be challenging for these rangatahi, and alternative education has never been properly funded.
“With minimal funding, alternative providers are doing their best with rangatahi, some of whom have the most complex needs. Diminishing their educational opportunities can funnel rangatahi further into crime if they do not have access to learning and opportunities that work for them.”
“Rangatahi Māori I spoke with have hopes for the future. They want to work and to have money to do things others are doing, but they don’t know how to get jobs, and sometimes they don’t have the support to get to where they want to be in life. Our research shows if they have committed people who are walking alongside them for the long term, then there is hope.”