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Because We're Family 

A Study of Kinship Care Of Children 
in New Zealand 

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements 

for the degree of 

Master in Soc;ial Work 

at Massey University, Albany Campus 

Jill M. Worrall 

February 1996 



0 

ii 

ABSTRACT 

Since 1989 child welfare policy and practice in New Zealand has been guided by the 
Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act (1989). This Act mandates 
placement with kin as the option of first choice for children in need of care and 
protection. 

However, there is an absence of New Zealand research on this practice. The few 
recent overseas studies showed that children placed in kin-based care have similar 
levels of physical, emotional and educational difficulties as children in stranger foster 
care and that the personal consequences for caregivers and their families are 
significant. The 1989 Act defines family in the widest sense and includes members 
of the extended family. Definitions of family serve different political interests, and 
this thesis compares the current structure of New Zealand families with the ideological 
constructs of family/whanau inherent in the 1989 Children, Young Persons, and their 
Families Act. 

This qualitative study describes the experiences of five families who have cared for 
abused and/or neglected kin children. The thesis develops an understanding of the 
transitions occurring in kinship care for the children and their families through both 
ecological and feminist theories, and focuses on the gendered, economic, and political 
environment in which kinship care is performed in New Zealand. The feminist 
caregiving literature comments on the social expectation that women will assume the 
caregiving role, and the effect that this has on their lives. This study shows that the 
task of caring for a kin child who has suffered abuse and neglect is taxing on both 

caregivers and the whole caregiving family, and not made easier by virtue of a 
biological relationship. 

Children placed with extended family and children placed in foster care with strangers 
are treated as two distinct populations in terms of both practice and policy, kinship 
care families being considerably under-resourced. This thesis shows that such a 
dichotomy is not justifiable, and that the knowledge gained from foster care research 
should be transferred to the kinship population. The 'invisibility' of kinship care 
allows the particular needs of this group to remain unaddressed. Data is urgently 
required in regard to numbers of children placed with kin, and the longterrn outcomes 
for both the children and their families. 

A reconstruction of kinship care, using a critical theory framework, concludes the 
thesis and provides recommendations for policy, social work practice and future 

research. 



iii 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

This thesis would not have been written without the support and encouragement of 
my family, friends and colleagues. I thank you. 

I am most grateful to my mentors and colleagues at Massey University. I particularly 
wish to thank Dr. Rajen Prasad for his supervision of this thesis. Dr Prasad's 
knowledge of the field has been invaluable, and his theoretical critique has been 
enlightening and challenging. I must also thank Dr. Jocelyn Quinnell for reading and 
commenting on the many drafts, and Dr Marilyn Waring, Dr Mike O'Brien and Dr. 
Michael Belgrave - for their time, advice on various issues and support. I would 
also like to express my appreciation to Dr. Robyn Munford for her encouragement, 
constructive critique and sensitive review. 

To my friends - thank you for understanding my preoccupation with the task. I 
particularly thank Diane Hawken, whose comradeship on the journey has kept me 
going to the end, and Dr. Valda Youdale for her gift of editorship and critique. I 
also owe a debt of gratitude to my New Zealand Family and Foster Care Federation 
friends, Ngahuia, Barbara, Pat, Vema and the late Mary Moodie - you have each 
offered support and encouragement in different ways. Thank you. 

Most importantly I thank my family - (in the widest sense) - for your patience, 
tolerance and encouragement. In particular, I thank my husband, John, who has 
supported me in so many ways, not only through this endeavour, but through my 
whole academic career. It is not easy to be the partner of a thesis writer. I have 

returned! 

Finally I am indebted to the caregivers and their families- I thank you sincerely for 
trusting me with your family stories. I also thank you for giving of your time when 
so many people demand it. I feel most privileged and admire your courage and 
commitment. This thesis is for you. 



Acknowledgements 

Abstract 

CONTENTS 

i 

11 

Chapter One Introduction : Siting the Study 

Organisation of the Thesis 
The Researcher 

1 

5 
9 

Chapter Two 

Chapter Three 

The Historical, Cultural and Social 
Context of Kinship Care 11 

Introduction 1 1 
The History of Child Protection Law in New Zealand 12 
Social Attitudes and the Legal Response 13 
Towards a New Act 17 
State Control versus Family Rights 20 
The Influence of the Economy 22 
The New Zealand Family in Reality 24 
Family Responsibility - Concepts and Constructs of the 
1989 Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act 29 
Summary 31 

A Review of the Literature 32 

Introduction 32 
Sent to Live with Strangers: The Foster Care Literature 33 

- Lack of stability 33 
- Abuse in Care 34 
- Return to Biological Parents 35 
- The Importance of Family to Children in Care 35 

Sent to Live with Aunty: The Kinship Care Literature 38 
- Early Studies 39 
- More Recent Studies 40 
- Stability of Placement 42 
- Contact with Biological Parents 43 
- Characteristics of Children in Kinship care 44 
-Characteristics of Caregivers 45 
-Support 47 
- Formal and Informal Support 48 
- Financial Support 49 
- Practice Issues 50 
- Assessment and Training of Kin Caregivers 50 
- Permanency Planning and Legal Status 52 

Summary 53 



Chapter Four 

Chapter Five 

An Ecological and Feminist Integration 

Introduction 
An Ecological Analysis of Kinship Care 

- Ontogenic Influences 
- Microsystem Influences 
- Mesosystem influences 
- Exosystem Influences 
- Macrosystem Influences 

A Feminist Analysis of Kinship Care 
-Women's Work 
- Women and Welfare 
-Women, Power, Money and Class 
-Is There a Caregiving Crisis? 

Summary 

Methodology • Hearing the Voices Tell 
the Stories 

Introduction - The Research Question 
The Role of Feminist Methodology 
The Participants 
Data Collection 
The Interview Process 
Data Analysis 
Validity and Reliability 
Ethical Issues 
Summary 

Chapter Six Within the Microsystem and Mesosystem -
Family Matters 

Introduction 
Relationships witin the Extended Family 
and the Route to Care giving 
Making the Decision to Care 
Profiles of the Children 
Contact with Parents and Siblings 
The School Environment 
Moving within the Extended Family 
Moving back to Foster Care 
The Caregiving Families and the Personal Cost 
Lifestyle Changes 
The Physical Cost 
The Emotional Cost 
The Cost to Family Relationships 
Support within the Micro/Mesosystem 
Family support 
Friends and Neighbours 
Mutual Support 
Summary 

55 

55 
57 
59 
60 
62 
63 
66 

67 
70 
71 
73 
75 
76 

79 

79 
80 
81 
83 
84 
87 
88 
89 
91 

93 

93 

94 
96 

100 
104 
108 
110 
112 
113 
114 
116 
118 
121 
123 
124 
127 
129 
129 



Chapter Seven Exosystem Influences 131 

Introduction 131 
Exosystem Supports and Risks 132 
The Children and Young Persons Service 134 
Family Assessments and Preparation for the Task 137 
Caring for Abused Children - The Risk 139 
Kinship Care and the Law - Issues of Permanency 140 
The Financial Cost 142 
Caring and Working 149 
Housing 152 
Macrosystem Risks 154 
Summary 154 

Chapter Eight Implications for Policy and Practice 156 

Introduction 156 
A Theory of False Consciousness 158 
A Theory of Crisis 161 
A Theory of Education 164 
A Theory of Transformative Action 167 
Recommendations for Policy 168 
Recommemdations for Practice 171 
Alternative Models of Kinship Care 175 
Limitations of the Study 176 
Future Research Needs 176 
Conclusion 178 

Appendices 1. Glossary 180 
2. Letter to Caregivers 182 
3. Information Sheet 183 
4. Consent Form 184 
5. Interview Guide 185 
6. Standards of Approval for Kinship Caregivers 187 

Bibliography 189 



Table 1. 

Table 2. 

Figure 1. 

Figure 2. 

List of Tables 

Proportion of Children with Mothers working 
Full or Part-time- Two Parent families, 1991 

Comparative Table of Unsupported Child 
and Foster Care Allowances 

List of Figures 

Ecological Multi-level Analysis of Influences Impacting 

on Kinship care for Pakeha Families. 

Kinship Care Stressors. 

vi 

26 

143 

58 

179 



CHAPTER ONE 

LOCATING THE STUDY 

My sister was dead. We had to consider what was going to happen to 
the children ..... The police dropped them off at my brother's in the 
middle of the night, so the family automatically congregated 
there .... We were just trying to cope with what had happened. ... I took 
three ... while my brother and sister-in-law considered and decided they 
would have one, the baby, and the baby went to them ... I ended up 
with four after the court case. Then one went back to my sister 

(Maryanne ).1 

The eldest one we had. .. just turned fifteen now ... he actually went back 
to his mother's at Christmas, and I knew it was a bad thing to do, but I 
really didn't know what else to do and he went back and within weeks 
he was an intravenous drug user and a skinhead. And now I can't have 
him living here -I signed him over to Social Welfare for a while, but 
they didn't do anything effective .... He's staying with my mother 
now .... He hasn't been going to school much this year , my mother 
won't send him .... My mother is nearly seventy with a bad heart. She's 
also got the oldest one, seventeen, and they fight, boy do they fight. So 
it's hell. I know it's going to end up killing Mum, but there's nowhere 
else to tum, I've been everywhere (Helen). 

There
1 

has been a major shift from conventional foster care for children and young 

persons in need of 'care and protection' 2 to placement with extended family. Section 13 

of the 1989 Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act3 makes it clear that the 

primary role in caring for children and young persons lies with the family, whanau, hapu 

and iwi, and family group4 who should be given all assistance necessary to do this. This 

change in child welfare policy represents a significant value shift that invests the family, 
in its widest sense, with responsibility that was previously held by the State. 

Several factors influenced the philosophy of family empowerment that underpins the 
1989 CYPF Act. First, research evidence from the previous two decades showed that 

1 Pseudonyms are used throughout for those interviewed for this thesis. 

2 See glossary 

3 The Children Young Persons and their Families Act will be referred to altematively as the CYPF 
Act. 
4 See glossary 



2 

children in foster care did not experience the stability and security they needed, and that 
Maori children were particularly disadvantaged (Stirling,1972; Prasad, 1975, 1988a; 

McKay 1981; Puao-Te-Ata-Tu 19865). Second, the disproportionate number of Maori 

children in the care of the State provoked Maori leaders to call for a Maori perspective in 
the institutional arrangements of New Zealand. The Report of the Ministerial Advisory 
Committee on a Maori Perspective for the Department of Social Welfare (1986), 'Puao­
Te-Ata-Tu', had a central influence on the philosophy and intention of the 1989 CYPF 
Act. Third, the 1984 Labour Government began a process of economic and social 
reform, carried on by successive governments, that has led to a down-sizing of the 
Welfare State. I argue that kinship care is ideologically driven and can be placed in the 
context of a progressive lessening of State responsibility for the dependent members of 
New Zealand society and an increase in the placement of responsibility on families. 

This thesis examines the reality of kinship care for five Pakeha women and their families. 
In particular, it seeks to question political ideologies and definitions of family, and 
assumptions about how contemporary New Zealand families are structured and function. 
It seeks to identify the effects of recent economic reforms on the caregiving families and 
those for whom they care. Gender is a critical issue in kinship care, and this thesis 
questions ideologies that assume it is the role and duty of women to be caregivers of their 
kin children. The value placed on that role, in terms of its economic worth, is also 
discussed. 

The invisibility of kinship care has been made apparent as I have undertaken this 
research. This is the first qualitative study undertaken in New Zealand and overseas 
material is sparse. A further objective of the study, therefore, is to make visible the true 
nature of the task, and portray the effect of caring for a traumatised child on both the 
caregivers and the whole family ecosystem. It also seeks to test the belief that kinship 
care will offer the child a greater chance of stability than that afforded by foster care. 
Finally, it seeks to examine the policies and practices that determine how kinship care is 
experienced, and offers suggestions for reform. 

Both ecological and feminist analyses inform this thesis. Women's unpaid caregiving 
supports, like an infrastructure, the current financial stringencies of state social service 
provision for those in need of care. Opie (1992) discussed the effect of caregiving on 
women and stated that any study of caregivers must take cognisance of both the 
assumptions about the role of women embedded in social policies and the gendered, 
economic, and political environment in which that everyday care is performed (Opie 

5 The Report of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on a Maori Perspective for the Department of Social 
Welfare, (1986) hereafter referred to as ' Puao-Te-Ata-Tu' 



3 

1992:1). Baines, Evans and Neysmith (199:29) suggested that the relative invisibility of 
womens' caring; the implicit assumption that it is natural for women to care; the lack of 
attention paid to the complexities involved in caring and the contradictions caring poses 
for women must all be considered if we are truly to understand what that means for the 
women concerned. 

The number of families caring for kin children in New Zealand is not known. Data 
about placement outcomes for children who have been the subjects of a formally 

arranged Family Group Conference6 (FGC) has not systematically been collected by the 

Children and Young Persons Service. While the more serious care and protection 
notifications are responded to by holding an FGC, many cases are resolved without 
progressing to a Family Group Conference and children are placed with extended family 

as a result of an informal family/whanau meeting7 (Department of Social Welfare 

1995:77). In some instances, extended families resolve their own care and protection 
issues and the Children and Young Persons Service is not involved. Figures gathered in 
1990, in regard to Family group conference outcomes, showed that 23% of the children 

who had a change of caregiver post conference were placed with extended family 
(Maxwell and Robertson, 1991:19, 20). Maxwell and Robertson (1991) noted that many 
childen were removed from the original caregiver and placed with extended family before 
the conference, so it was highly probable that the actual numbers were considerably 
higher. Goodnow and Pateman (1985:15) stated that data on frequency are often critical 
both to our understanding of events and to the development of policies. While the extent 
of kinship care remains invisible it is not likely to be given priority attention by politicians 
or their policy makers. 

The move toward placing children in need of care and protection with kin is an 

international trend. In the United States for example there has been an exponential rise in 
the number of children in out-of-home placement and in the majority of States kinship 
care is the preferred option. In New York, within a brief time span, the number of 
children has increased from 151 in April 1985 to 24,228 in 1992, surpassing those in 

unrelated care (Child Welfare League of America,s 1994). In Philadelphia, Chicago and 

Michigan, kinship care is well in excess of 65% of all cases and increasing daily. The 
Child Welfare League of America (1994) stated that this has caught many child welfare 
agencies off guard, with no substantive knowledge base, or policy, programme and 
practice guidelines to assist them in developing and implementing quality kinship 

6 Hereafter referred to as FGC (See Gbssary). 
7 See glossary . 
8 Hereafter referred to as CWLA 



4 

programmes. The Task Force on Permanency Planning9 for foster children (1991) 

stated that if relatives were not available, there would be insufficient foster homes for all 
the children currently needing care in the United States (TFOPP 1990:2). 

It is likely that the numbers of children in formal kin-based care in New Zealand will also 
increase in the foreseeable future for the following reasons: the numbers of children 

requiring alternative care are increasing as levels of substantiated abuse and neglect 

rise;IO the practice is enshrined in the 1989 Children, Young Persons, and their Families 

Act; the practice is seen as 'cost effective' and therefore likely to continue to be 

supported, and many agencies are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain 

'traditional' foster parents. II These same reasons have been cited to explain the rise in 

kinship care in the United States (Takas 1991; McFadden,1993; Dubowitz et al 1993; 

Dubowitz,1994; CWLA, 1994 ). It seems timely, therefore, to gain an understanding of 

the dynamics of extended family caregiving in New Zealand and the power structures that 

determine how it is experienced. 

Kinship care has been described as a 'double edged dilemma' (lFOPP, 1990). While it 

has been argued that the use of kin usually affords the least disruptive environment for the 

child, overseas commentators have identified several risk factors that may affect 

placement stability and safety. Major concerns stated were: a lack of permanency 

planning for children placed with extended family; a slower rate of reunification with birth 

parents, a lack of both caregiver family screening and standards setting, and 

substantially less support and monitoring of kinship homes (Dubowitz et al 1993, 
Dubowitz, 1994). Placement of a child in the same family that reared a parent who had 

now been deemed incapable of parenting was also questioned (Takas 1991; McFadden 

1993; Dubowitz et al1993; CWLA 1994; Dubowitz, 1994 ). As previously stated, there 

has not been any in depth qualitative study undertaken in New Zealand of kinship care 

but anecdotal evidence shows that many of the same concerns are being voiced in 

this country. 

A comparison is drawn in this thesis between the policies and practice principles in regard 

to placing a child in foster care with strangers and those existing for extended family care. 

9 Hereafter referred to as 1FOPP 

1 0 In 1988 there were 10,600 notifications of child abuse; in 199112 fiscal year there were 24,800 
notifications. In West Auckland an increase of 49% was noted when comparing 1992 and 1993 
monthly notifications. 28,756 notifications were received in 1993, and 30,552 in 1994. Newly 
defmed intake categories resulted in a seeming decrease in 1995 to 24,290. 4,944 FGCs and 3602 
Family/wbanau meetings were held in 1994 (DSW Annual Report. 1995:77) 

11 Information sought personally from Child and Family Support Services for the purpose of this 
study. 



5 

Some commentators believe that children placed in foster care and children placed with 
extended family care are two distinct populations and therefore cannot be compared in 
terms of outcomes (Dubowitz; Feigelman and Zuravin,1993:154). Having now 
completed the study, I conclude that such a dichotomy is not convincing. Research 
evidence, including that from this study, showed that, in terms of the trauma the children 
experienced prior to placement, there was no difference (1FOPP 1990; Dubowitz 1994: 
554). It could be argued that the current practice of widely seeking extended family, 
stated in the 1989 CYPF Act, further lessens difference between the two populations 
because children could be placed with kin they do not know and who are virtual 
strangers. I argue that ideologies in regard to family and family responsibility have 
resulted in a different set of values dictating the conditions for kinship care, when many 
of the same risk factors exist for the children and the families concerned. 

This qualitative study reflects 'the view from below', that is the perspective of those 
who are the targets of policy rather than those who make it - a critical and questioning 
perspective (Finch, 1986b). In each case in the study, the children had come to the 
notice of the Children and Young Persons Service and a care and protection issue 
existed. The families tell of the difficulty of caring for a traumatised child in the current 
social, economic and political contexts. The lack of attention given by policy makers 
and service providers to the special difficulties of caring for a child who has experienced 
abuse and/or neglect, and the consequent impact of this on the caregiving family is an 
issue raised by both overseas commentators and this research. 

The caregivers' stories form the essence of this thesis - stories of conflict, pain, love and 
commitment. Stories in themselves are powerful research tools. Witherell and 
Noddings (1986:280) stated that the indifference often generated by samples, treatments 
and faceless subjects is banished by pictures of real people in real situations, struggling 
with real problems. 

Stories invite us to speculate on what might be changed and with what 
effect ... and remind us of our persistent fallibility. Most importantly, 
they invite us to remember that we are in the business of teaching, 
learning and researching to improve the human condition. Telling and 
listening to stories can be a powerful sign of regard - of caring for one 
another (Witherell and Noddings 1986:280). 

Organisation of the thesis. 
Kinship care in New Zealand is placed in context in Chapter Two. The historical, 
cultural, political and economic factors that contributed to policies for children in need of 



6 

care and protection since 1840 are discussed. Changes in social attitudes toward these 
children and their extended family/whanau are traced. The philosophical and legal shift 
from State control of children to family empowerment is discussed. The structure of the 
contemporary New Zealand family is examined and the question of how much 
responsibility Pakeha families feel for other family members is raised in relation to the 
expectations of the 1989 Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act. In order to 
locate the political underpinnings of the 1989 Children, Young Persons, and their 
Families Act, contemporary ideologies in regard to relationships between State and 
family are examined. 

The literature on the placement of children who need care and protection is reviewed in 
Chapter Three. While the practice of foster care with strangers is well researched, there is 
a paucity of data in regard to the placement of children with relatives. The first section 
reviews the foster care research literature, in particular, those issues relevant to children 
placed away from parents, whether it be with strangers or kin. Stability of placements, 
abuse in care, relationships with biological parents and siblings, relationships between 
caregivers and biological parents, and return to parental custody are some of the pertinent 
issues. Kinship care research is reviewed more fully, and both early and recent studies 
are examined. Differences in attitude and practice between stranger foster care and 
kinship care are discussed, and current concerns raised. 

The two theoretical strands that inform this thesis are discussed in Chapter Four. 
Ecological theory moves away from explanations of individual pathology, focusing 
instead on the person in the total environment and the reactive and adaptive consequences 
of that interaction. The ecological perspective provides a framework for systematically 
examining the various levels of influence in a manner which ensures no connection goes 
unnoticed. 

Feminist theory offers an explanation of the gendered nature of caregiving and how 
ideologies about family and the role of women conspire to constrain women's lives. In 
particular, a socialist feminist perspective draws attention to the market value of women's 
caregiving and the reasons for the invisibility of kinship care. The two theoretical 
perspectives, ecological and feminist, together highlight risk factors for the continued 
well-being of children and their kin caregivers, and offer a basis for reconstruction. The 
reconstructive intent of this thesis also lends itself to critical theory. Fay ( 1987) has made 
a systematic attempt to understand the circumstances in which social science can 
contribute to the critical assessment and transformation of social institutions. This is 
briefly discussed in preparation for the reconstruction offered in the final chapter. 



7 

Chapter Five describes the purpose of the study and the methodology used to 'illuminate 
the lived experience' of the caregivers (Minkler and Roe, 1993:15). 

Since qualitative researchers deal with multiple socially constructed 
realities or qualities that are complex and indivisible into discrete 
variables, they regard research as coming to understand how the 
various participants in a social setting construct the world around them. 
To make their interpretations, the researchers must gain access to the 
multiple perspectives of the participants (Glesne and Peshkin, 1992:6). 

The way in which these perspectives were accessed and the difficulties and dilemmas of 
the process are discussed in this chapter, as is the epistemology of qualitative feminist 
methodology. The ideals of feminism were inculcated in the research process - a 
feminist analysis that allowed risks, roles and relationships of power to be brought into 
focus and made transparent. Fumow and Cook (1991:2,3) have suggested that four 
interpretive themes structure feminist research: an emphasis on researcher and textual 
reflexivity; an action and praxis orientation; an attention to the affective, emotional 
components of research and concrete grounding in immediate situations (Fumow and 
Cook, 1991 in Denzin and Lincoln 1994). These themes are present in this thesis. 

Chapters Six and Seven discuss the research findings and these are located within the 
ecological framework of analysis. Chapter Six describes the experiences of the 
caregiving families. The stories begin at the innermost setting, the microsystem - that 
network of activities, roles and relationships in which the family is embedded. The 
relationships within the extended families, the factors that precipitated the need for care 
and the decision making process about who should provide care are discussed. The 
caregivers describe the children and their behavioural, emotional and physical problems. 
Parental contact and the incidence of placement disruption is discussed. The women tell 
of the physical and emotional cost of caregiving to themselves and their families. The 
changes in their lives since assuming care are described - changes in health, family 
relationships, work, marriage and leisure. The caregiving literature emphasised the 
relationship between the availability of quality support networks and how the caregiving 
role is experienced (Minkler and Roe, 1993; Opie, 1992). There is an implicit 
assumption in the 1989 Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act that extended 
families will collectively ensure the well-being of their kin children. The amount of 
support given to the caregivers from the extended family is examined in order to test that 
assumption. 



8 

Chapter Seven examines influences external to the immediate actors: work, exosystem 
institutions, policies and the macrosystem ideologies that underpinned these. The effect 

of current cost cutting economic policies on the lives of the caregivers and their families 
can be seen, and they have described how such cutbacks have affected their ability to 

care. The economics of caregiving are discussed and the wide variation in financial 

support given to the families is highlighted. The expected role of the Children and Young 
Persons Service in regard to children placed with kin, social work practice, and pressure 
on caregivers to assume formal legal status is discussed from the view point of the 

caregivers. Dual standards in welfare policies and practice existed for foster care and 
kinship care and women and their families were often penalised financially for being 
related to the children they were struggling to raise. This exploitation is not peculiar to 
New Zealand but has been noted by international commentators (Task Force on 
Permanency Planning 1990; Dubowitz et al 1993; Minkler and Roe, 1993). 

In a society that assumes families have a duty to care for their own, they 

[kinship caregivers] are penalised for being related to the children in their 

care, and denied the very supports and adequate financial aid that would 

assist them in fulfilling this often difficult and demanding role (Minkler 
and Roe,1993:3). 

Macrosystem influences, those widely held ideologies and beliefs about families and the 
role of women, State dependency and individualism have underpinned the expectation 
that extended families will care, and this expectation is held by the families themselves. 

The fmal chapter, brings together the multiple factors that impact on kinship care and the 

way in which it is experienced in New Zealand. Critical theory is used to assist in the 

interpretation of the social and political reality, bringing to light the power structures that 

support oppression. Brian Fay (1987) has constructed a critical theory framework and 

this is used together with knowledge from research, ecological and feminist theories, and 

evidence from this study, to offer an ideological critique.The nature of the current 
care giving crisis is explained and a pathway of transformative action is mapped. Advice 

to policy makers and social work practitioners from the caregivers themselves is given 
and as the researcher, I outline recommendations for policy and practice and indicate 
future research needs. Theory and practice are synthesised to offer an emancipatory 

reconstruction. 



9 

The Researcher 
It can be argued that it is essential to 'place oneself in the text' in any piece of research in 

order that the social, cultural and political bias may be exposed and the experience and 

bias of the writer be placed in context (Kondo,1990). Kondo writes of the Eye/1 and the 

historical and 'cultural specificity of selfhood' that impacts on the research process 

(Kondo: 1990:37). The impact of one's own socio/political context on the interpretation of 
what one sees and hears must be recognised. The self, however, is not static and I have 

recognised the effect of the research process on how I now view that context. The 

hearing of other people's stories has helped me to make sense of my own. Mary 
Belenky, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger and Jill Tarule found that hearing the stories 

of women during their research 'drew us back into a kind of knowing that had all too 

often been silenced by the institutions in which we grew up and of which we were a part. 

In the end we found that in our attempt to bring forth the ordinary voice, that voice had 

educated us' ( Belenky et al, 1986:20). 

Extended families caring for kin children is not a new phenomenon, existing across time 

and across cultures. When a child's parents are unable to offer care and nurture, it is the 

extended family or kin group that most often takes responsibility (Bahr: 1994 ). Laird 

(1981) identified the sense of kin responsibility as coming from a human need to maintain 

genealogical continuity. 

Extended family caregiving is a natural phenomenon that has existed 
since time began. Human beings are profoundly affected by the family 

systems of which they are a part. Kin ties are powerful and 
compelling, and the individual's sense of identity and continuity is 

formed not only by the significant attachments in his intimate 

environment, but also is deeply rooted in the biological family - in the 

genetic link that reaches back into the past, and ahead into the future 

(Laird, 198:98). 

I am a Pakeha woman, and my interest in kinship care arises from several life experiences 

that influence my perspective. My own experience of having my mother die at my birth 

and being raised by extended family allows me to know the effect of that on the self and 

the wider family circle, realising this is particular to time and circumstance. I have 

observed the importance of biological family to children in care, irrespective of 

surrounding circumstance, from the vantage point of both foster parent and social 

worker. I have felt frustration, sorrow, and ethical compromise at the inadequacies of a 

system that in the past has disregarded family and culture, and in the process, has 

alienated children from their roots and those who would understand them best. As a 



10 

social worker, I have placed children with extended family caregivers and observed that 
in some circumstances children thrive and in some circumstances caregivers are put 
under intolerable strain. Serving on the Executive of the New Zealand Family and 
Foster Care Federation brought into sharp focus the effect of too few resources on 
both caregiving families and the children for whom they care. 

Drawing on the work of Paulo Freire ( 1970), participatory researchers regard research as 
praxis, or reflection plus action. The ideals that guide the process are to develop the 
critical consciousness of those concerned, and to transform societal structures and 
relationships (Glesne and Peshkin 1992:11,12). My hope is that these stories will be a 
small window into the phenomenon of kinship care that will identify the need for more 
comprehensive research and stimulate a commitment to collaborative policy review. It is 
with this intent the thesis is written. 



11 

CHAPTER TWO 

THE HISTORICAL, CULTURAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT 
OF KINSHIP CARE 

Introduction 
The Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act came into effect in November 
1989, representing a major shift in legislation, policy and practice. The general 

principles of the Act (Section 5a) state that families/whanau should participate in 

decision making about the welfare of their own children who are in need of care and 
protection. Section 13 makes it clear that the primary role in caring for children lies 

with the family/whanau; hapu; iwi who should be given all assistance necessary to do 

this. Under previous legislation, the power of decision making lay firmly with the 
professionals, and children who could not safely live with their biological parents 
were usually placed in foster care with strangers. The law has traditionally defmed the 
family as a patriarchal nuclear unit, in which the rights and responsibilities for 
children were vested in the parents. Now, it is economically expedient to widen both 

the definition, and the incumbent responsibilities to extended family/whanau 
(Henagan and Tapp, 1992). 

This chapter traces the historical, cultural, political and economic factors that 

contributed both to laws and policies for children in need of care and protection since 
1840, culminating in the passing of the 1989 Act. In order to set the 1989 Children, 
Young Persons, and their Families Act in context, the English bias of previous laws, 

and the effect of that on the tangata whenua is first discussed. The current prescription 
of family responsibility now found in the Act is, in part, a response to concerns 

voiced by Maori in regard to the numbers of their children in foster care with Pak:eha, 

and the blatant disregard of whanau structures and traditional Maori child welfare 

concepts. This is followed by a discussion on how child protection laws, at any time, 

reflect the social perspective on how children are viewed. Judgemental attitudes 

toward all families of children requiring care stood in the way of placement with kin, 
irrespective of race. 

The concept of family in the 1989 CYPF Act, paying respect to a wider Maori 
definition, has embraced kith and kin. It is to the family, thus defined, that the State 
has now turned for care provision. The extent to which Pak:eha extended family 

constructs can meet the expectations of the Act has not been researched, but is a 
question I address in this chapter. The structure of the contemporary New Zealand 

family is examined, in terms of marriage, employment and child rearing patterns, to 

gain a better understanding of the capacity to care for kin children. The chapter 
concludes with a discussion about State intrusion into the lives of families, when 



12 

children are in need of care and protection. This has always been contentious and 
now is further complicated by how 'family' is politically defined. 

The History of Child Protection Law in New Zealand 
The role of the State in the provision of care for dependent and neglected children has 

reflected, until recently, the Pakeha monocultural philosophy undergirding the law 

and welfare services in New Zealand. At no time were Maori people involved in the 
establishment of the child welfare system, and in no way were the cultural values or 
social needs of Maori respected (Walker,l990:67). There was a failure to recognise 

social systems and institutions that were integral to the structure of Maori society. As 
stated in Puao-Te-Ata-Tu (1986), 

... the central State's chosen administrators supplant traditional 

leaders; the State's agents impose new structure; legal-judicial 

processes replace the traditional tribal law; and most significantly, 

permanent government forces enforce the new rules .... Weaving a 
fine bureaucratic net about traditional society, they impose 

regulations, restrictions and obligations upon the people .... For the 
Maori, political modernisation resulted in a systematic and 
unrelenting assault on their traditional society (Puao-Te-Ata-Tu 

1986:7 ,8). 

Traditional Maori society was based on the organic solidarity of kinship and tribal 

autonomy. The whanaul was the most basic of kinship levels and was responsible 

for the support, education and rearing of its members. A child was seen, not as the 

child of its biological parents, but as a child of the whanau - a communal 

responsibility. Jackson (1988) described the strength of the whanau system, 

The kinship ties of the large family unit implied a sharing of support, 
discipline and comfort for all members of the whanau. Its structure 
provided young people with their feeling of well-being, their 
security and their sense of a group good greater than their own. It 
provided them with a sense of their place in the scheme of things and 
ensured rules of behaviour and cultural transmission was 
maintained (Jackson,1988:76). 

When parents were under stress, children were cared for within the extended family, 
often to the mutual advantage of all concerned. Contact with parents was usually 
assured, and placements were usually seen as a temporary arrangement. 'Maori 
children knew many homes but still one whanau' (Puao-te- Ata-Tu, 1986:23). 

1 See Glossary 



When I was a child, I never saw my family as only father, mother, 
brothers and sisters. My childhood experiences involved interactions 
with grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, great uncles and great 
aunts, and so on. These relatives gave me as much attention as my 
own parents gave me .... My parents, like others in the village, expected 
my relatives to have parental responsibility over me. If they failed to 
do so, they were considered 'bad' relatives (Ritchie and Ritchie 1979: 

27,28). 

13 

Walker (1990:86), in her historical review of kinship care in New Zealand, found no 
evidence of policy with regard to placing Maori children in need of care and protection 
within their whanau. She cites early departmental letters that clearly illustrate racist 
practice and little understanding of whanau systems. Although Walker found 
evidence of policy that Maori children should be placed with Maori foster parents, it 
was not always adhered to and, when it was, a lower board rate was paid. It can be 
evidenced that Maori children were taken into care with Pakeha from the beginning of 
State intervention, and were disenfranchised from all that was familiar to them 
(Walker 1990, 71-72). Child protection law was seen as part of the assimilation 
process (Puao-Te-Ata-Tu, 1986). 

Social Attitudes and the Legal Response 
Me Donald (1978) has divided the dominant attitudes to children in New Zealand 
into four separate time periods, namely : the child as chattel, 1840-1899; the child as 
social capital, 1900-1944; the child as psychological being, 1945-1969; the child as 
citizen from 1970. Tapp, Geddis and Taylor (1991:A-12) state 'To this must now be 
added The child as a member of a family, whanau, hapu, iwi and family group, 
1989 - '. New Zealand laws concerned with care and protection of children and 
young persons during these periods reflect these changing views with regard to the 
status of the child and the role of the family. 

The Elizabethan Poor Law Act (1601), which laid responsibility for indigent children 
with families and the church, was the basis of legal response to children in need of 
care and protection in early New Zealand. The Destitute Person's Act (1846) clearly 
stated that responsibility for those who had no means of support lay with 'relatives 
and putative fathers.' English law, on which New Zealand law was founded, 
traditionally classified family relations toward the private end of a private/public 
continuum. A child's welfare was the business of the family (Tapp, et al 
1991:12). 

Until the late 1860s, care for neglected and destitute children was provided by the 
churches and private schools, with some financial assistance from the provincial 
governments of the time. There was, however, public concern about children who 



were deemed to be out of parental control. 

There are a number of children running around the streets of 
Dunedin, some possibly without parents, others without the control 
of parents, and others suffering from the vicious example of parents. 

If the government does not take them in hand, I fear they will become 

trained as members of the criminal class. It is of the utmost 
importance that these children should be educated in a proper 
manner, and if they have already fallen into crime, there should be 

some means of reformation in the grasp of the state... (Otago Daily 
Times, 1864, cited in Walker,1990). 

14 

In 1867, the Neglected and Criminal Children Act was passed. This authorised the 
establishment of Industrial Schools and followed British and American models of 
institutionalisation. By 1880, six schools had been established throughout the 
country. Designed to give shelter to children in need of care and protection, no 
discrimination was made between those seen as 'neglected' and those deemed to be 

'criminal'. The 1867 Act also allowed children to be returned to parents, relatives, or 
friends. According to the 1881 Annual Report to Parliament of the Industrial 

Schools, 70 of the 241 children admitted to the schools in 1880 were returned to the 

care of relatives or friends. The report described numerous instances of family and 
friends pleading to have the children returned to them before the term of committal 
expired (Walker 1990 ). Walker asked why the children that were returned were 
admitted in the first place and states that it is a question which has been asked 
many times since. 

In 1882, the 1867 Act was replaced by the Industrial Schools Act, administered by 

the Education Department. Section 55 of this Act empowered school managers to 
place out suitable children with respectable families. In 1885 it was reported to 

Parliament, by the Auckland Medical Officer of Health, that the number of children in 

institutions was very much diminishing and the boarding out system seemed to be 

working well for the children (McKendrick 1983). However, that rosy view was 
denied by other observers who stated that conditions in many foster homes were 

appalling, though few children were removed from their unsavoury surroundings. 
Walker (1990) has observed the pragmatic influence of economy in determining 

policy and practice throughout the history of Child Welfare legislation. Such fiscal 
determination may have been primarily responsible for turning a blind eye to what 
was happening to many children. 

The attitude to 'children of the State' was that while they may not be personally 

responsible for their plight, they undoubtedly came from suspect parental stock -

'hereditary pauper immigrants'- 'degraded creatures from the Home Country', as an 



15 

Industrial Schools Report described them in1875 (McKendrick 1983). Public 
reaction to incidences of severe child abuse and infant deaths, especially those 
associated with the practice of 'baby farming', gave rise to the Infant Life Protection 
Act in 1893. In the early 1900s public opinion was still most judgemental of 
neglectful parents. 

The easier men and women find it to shift their responsibilities as 
parents on to other shoulders the more likely we are to see a spread 
rather than a contraction of the habit. People who neglect their children 
should be made to know that such conduct carries certain risks, not the 
least of which would be enforced labour for the support of the young 
wards of the state (New Zealand Times, 2 October 1909). 

Once in the care of the State, children had little encouragement to see their families, 
whose influence was considered detrimental. The New Zealand Herald of November 
7,1905, poignantly described the relocating of 105 boys from Caversham (Dunedin) 
Industrial school to a new home in Levin. 

More than half the squad are North Islanders, and there were a 
large number of relatives of the youngsters on the railway station 
to speak with them for the little time available. Fathers, mothers, 
brothers and sisters reached their arms through the carriage 
windows to hold for a moment a small member of the family they 
had not seen probably for a couple of years. Faces were held up 
to be kissed, and there were tears from the women. They were all 
poor people, very poor they looked, in ill assorted clothes ( New 
Zealand Herald, Nov.7th, 1905). 

A concern with the health and productivity of the future citizens of New Zealand was 
engendered by the two world wars (Tapp, Geddis and Taylor 1991:A-13). The State 

began to take an investment interest in the health, education and welfare of children, 
and the complete autonomy of parents began to diminish. The Child Welfare Act of 
1925 first reflected this and was an important milestone in the law affecting children 
in need of care and protection. Children's courts were established and children could 
be placed under the guardianship of the Superintendent of Child Welfare, or under the 
supervision of a child welfare officer . An amendment to the Act in 1927 required 
the court to consider 'the child's parentage, environment, history, education, 
mentality, disposition, and any other relevant matters' (Tappet all991 A-13). The 
1925 Child Welfare Act did not have universal approval, however, and in 1930 there 
was much correspondence in the press relating to the separating of both Maori and 
Pakeha children from their families. 



Why do the public and the Government of New Zealand allow the 
Child Welfare officials so much power and scope? Why are they 
allowed to practically ignore the appeals of many parents for the 
return of the children, who are forcibly kept away for such long 
periods? (Auckland Star, 30 October 1930) 

16 

An entirely different attitude prevailed towards parents and families of those children 
who were British evacuees during World War 2. The importance of the children's 
families was stressed to the caregivers, and all attempts to keep constant contact made 
(McKendrick 1983). The venture was deemed to be a success by all concerned, and 

, McKendrick wonders why we did not learn from this practice. 

1943 saw the first moves toward preventive legislation with the introduction of 
"Needy Family Assistance". This, together with the improving economy and full 
employment, saw a rapid decrease in the numbers of children committed on the 
grounds of family poverty. That was true only for the younger children, however, 
for at the same time there was a rise in the number of older youth coming to notice. ­
Child Welfare policy of the 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Bowlby's (1951) 
theories of attachment, stated clearly that efforts should be made to keep children 
within their kin group. Practice frequently did not reflect this. Walker suggested 
that a negative view of parents held by social workers carried over to include the 
wider family network, thus acting against kin-group placements (Walker 1990:3). A 
Welfare Officer who was questioned about the Department's attitude to kin-based 
placements reflected, 

It didn't encourage it - at times I can remember my thoughts were 
that the department sees all the relatives like the ones where the 
breakdown occurred- it didn't differentiate, it classed them all the 
same so there wasn't any encouragement to place them with family 
because it's only 'that bloody lot' - comments like that would be 
made (Walker 1990:104). 

According to Walker, the concept of client confidentiality, combined with the concept 
of client self determination, led to a disregard of kin as caregivers. Families refused 
to let social workers involve the wider family, perhaps for reasons of shame, with 
the result that the wider family was often unaware that the child was in care. Another 
social worker stated, 

I can't remember ever placing children with kin- I think, especially 
with Maori and Pacific Island kids, I would be even more 
aware ... who the kin might have been- because I used to see them 
very much as a family unit just based on who was in the house. 



When I think of some of the families I worked with, they must 
have had extended families in the area and I had no idea - it never 
occurred to me to ask - I never even thought there would be such 
systems operating .... where kids did go to kin it was always 
organised by the families - I never had any part in that (Walker 
1990:105). 

17 

A wider analysis may point to the fact that social workers, both within the department 
and without, were usually Pakeha, and frequently did not have specific social work 
qualifications, but were drawn from other professions, such as teaching or nursing. 
Lack of training was commented on as early as 1935 when John Beck, the then 
Officer-in-Charge of the Industrial Schools and Boarding Out division of the 
Education Department, was asked what sort of people were Child Welfare officers. 
He stated that only people of outstanding personality and good education were 
appointed, but asserted that there should be a specific university social work degree 
(McKendrick 1983: 10,11). Lack of training was acutely felt by the social workers 
themselves, who, according to Walker (1990), frequently admitted to 'floundering 
and a strong sense of inadequacy' (Walker 1990 :52). 

Towards a New Act 
The provision of child welfare services during the sixties and seventies was 
influenced by several schools of thought : Bowlby's ideas of the early fifties, which 
stressed the importance of both the quality and continuity of maternal-child 
relationships; the 'discovery' of child abuse in the sixties; and the growing 
appreciation of the influence of environmental stresses on families. The 1974 
Children and Young Persons Act moved towards preventative work with children 
and young persons, promoting the welfare of the family and assisting parents to 
discharge their responsibilities. The 1974 Act clearly stated, however,that the 
interests of the child were to be given 'first and paramount consideration'. Mason, 

Kirby and and Wray (1992)2 concluded that this led to a prevailing attitude that the 

Department of Social Welfare knew best how to look after children without reference 
to family (Mason Report 1992:8). There is no evidence that the family was seen as 
anything other than nuclear, nor is extended family given any mention as being a care 
option for children. 

Research undertaken both overseas and in New Zealand in the mid-seventies began to 
show large deficits in a system designed to provide safety and security for children in 
need of care and protection (Prasad 1975; 1984). Prasad's (1984) review of foster 
care research drew attention to poor communication between social workers; 
insufficient levels of expertise and an absence of both foster parent training and 

2 The Review of the Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act 1989, hereafter referred to as 
'The Mason Report'. 



18 

planning procedures for children in care. From the early seventies, however, foster 
parents and social workers had been critical of the discrepancies that existed between 
the needs of children in care and their families and social work practice. Many foster 
parents denounced cross-cultural placements and networked to restore contact 

between displaced siblings3. 

The Foster Care Federation, formed in 1976, called for the Government to examine 
the practice of foster care and pushed for longitudinal research with regard to 
outcomes for State wards. The results, published in 1981, showed an even worse 
picture than expected. There was a high level of placement breakdown for the total 
foster care population. Children, originally classed as needing short term care, were 
separated from their families for years. Children in the sample had an average of 6.5 
placements over the five year period of the study. There was a lack of planning, little 
work with the families, and little commitment to returning children home 
(McKay,1981). Fifty-three percent of children in care were Maori, when Maori 
represented only 12.3% of the population of 0-14 year olds. Maori children were 
more often than not placed with Pakeha families. Puao-Te-Ata-Tu (1986:23) claimed 
that Departmental foster care was frequently seen as insisting on unrealistically high 
standards, which not only excluded Maori families, but resulted in Maori children 
feeling dissatisfied with their own homes on return. 

Margaret Craig, Education Officer of the New Zealand Foster Care Federation, 
speaking at the National Symposium on Child Abuse stated, 

For many children in care, foster home placement has been a 
miserable soul destroying experience .... When the State takes 
absolute responsibility for the care of children whose parents have 
been deemed 'bad' or 'socially inadequate' then subjects these 
children (albeit unintentionally) to multiple placements with the result 
of an aggravated sense of insecurity and rejection, the problem 
becomes one of institutional abuse, and could be seen as worse than 
the situation from which the children were removed (Craig, 
1982:105,6). 

During the eighties, both overseas and New Zealand research and pressure from the 
Foster Care Federation, impacted on social work policy and practice in this field. In 
1981, influenced by the principles of permanency planning, a policy of planning and 
review for all children in care was introduced. In 1982, 'special purpose' Family 
Homes were established, the purpose being to keep large family groups together. 
In 1984, the New Zealand Foster Care Federation advocated strongly for the 
necessity of specialist training for all individuals working in the field of foster care, 

3 As a foundation member of the Auckland Foster Care Association I was involved in this. 



19 

and a training package for both foster parents and social workers was produced. 

While the findings of research were contributory, the development of the 1989 
CYP&F Act was influenced by a complexity of inter-related factors. First and 
foremost, the heightened voice of the tangata whenua during the 1970s was part of a 
'world-wide phenomenon of ethno-regional politicisation and self determination' 
(Pearson 1984:205). As Maori concerns grew, so there was also a beginning 
willingness for the Pakeha population to listen. Presenters at a national conference of 
Maori leaders in 1981 (Hui Whakatauira) commented on the negative effect of 
urbanisation on whanau kin-based systems, noting among other things, the 
disproportionate number of their young people in the care of the Department of Social 
Welfare who were institutionalised or placed with Pakeha foster parents (Wilcox et al 
1991; Bradley,1994). The Maatua Whangai scheme, established in 1983, was an 
outcome of this partnership- a committed attempt to place Maori children and youth in 
need of care and protection with hapu I iwi. However, by 1985, it had become clear 
that the scheme was not working, one of the primary reasons being that Maori were 
treated as homogeneous, and the genealogical principles of whakapapa were not 
observed (Bradley,1994: 187). 

Along with this, in 1978, a specific allegation of ill-treatment of children in residential 
care of the Department of Social Welfare led to a private investigation by the 
Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination (ACORD). A complaint was 
laid with the Human Rights Commission who upheld the findings. This led, in 1982, 
to a Departmental Commission of enquiry, chaired by Archbishop Johnson. Known 
as The Johnson Report', it identified a lack of recognition of cultural values and set 
forward a list of recommendations to address the issue. In 1984, the Womens' 
Anti-Racist Action group laid claims of institutional racism within the Department of 

Social Welfare and made strong recommendations that this be addressed immediately 
by positive action towards bi-culturalism in policy and practice. It was confirmed by 
the Department's Maori Advisory unit that, indeed, the Department was monocultural 
and therefore institutional racism was inherent in its policy and practice (Wilcox et al 
1991). 

The aforementioned reports received considerable media coverage and underpinned 
the necessity for the Department to examine its own practice. As a consequence, the 
Minister of Social Welfare, Ann Hercus asked for an Advisory committee to 
recommend on a Maori perspective for the Department Chaired by John Rangihau, 
their report, 'Puao-Te-Ata -Tu,' was pivotal in the development of the 1989 
Children, Young Persons and their Families Act and the Family Decision Making 
model of practice. The Maori Advisory Committee strongly stated that no child 
should be placed in a State foster home without a committed search for a suitable 
whanau placement and advocated for a place and status of Maoritanga in institutional 



20 

arrangements (Puao-Te-Ata-Tu, 1986:23) Monoculturalism was not easily 
surrendered however, and the initial drafts of the new Act still had an emphasis on 
professional power and intervention and a disregard of Maori models of kinship and 
community (Barbour,l991). 

State Control versus Family Rights 
The debate that surrounded the proposed reform of child protection and youth justice 
laws during the 70s and 80s was polarised into two camps. On the one hand, there 
were those who favoured a high level of State control and more professional influence 
in the deciding of matters of child abuse and neglect Such opinions were exemplified 

in the report of the 19844 working party charged with reviewing the 1974 Children 

and Young Persons legislation. Recommendations included: Child Protection Teams 
with investigatory and executive functions; case conferences of experts and 
community members; mandatory reporting of suspected abuse; a national register of 
at- risk children, and a National Committee for Child Protection. On the other hand, 
Puao.:fe-Ata-Tu advocated whanau decision making and placement of children within 
the wider family/whanau (Hassan 1994). Hassall sees Puao-Te-Ata-Tu as a reaction 
against the proposed model of professional intervention (Hassan 1994:6). 

The question about how the State should act with regard to the protection of children, 
while at the same time respecting the rights of the family, is an immensely 
complicated one, and is influenced by how the State is viewed (Archard 1993). In a 
society of 'significant structured inequalities' the enforcement of an impartial law 
would be a mistake. This view, Archard (1993) claimed, is particularly espoused by 
both socialists and feminists. Archard described a 'liberal standard' that exists in 
democratic societies, and identified three elements that commonly comprise that 
standard: a commitment to the paramountcy of the best interests of the child; parents 
being entitled to autonomy and privacy to raise their children without unsolicited 
supervision, and a clear understanding of when the State should intervene. This is 
usually upon the complete breakdown of family structures, or the occasioning of 
significant harm, either actual or probable, to the child. 

As previously discussed, the 1925 Child Welfare Act and the 1974 Children and 
Young Persons Act had the protection of children and not preservation of the family 
unit as the main emphasis (Cockburn 1994:87). Child protection legislation has, in 
the past, sought to protect children from abusive, neglectful parents and given the 
State power to take responsibility. Fox (1982) concluded that there were two major 

schools of thought representing two opposing value positions, with regard to child 
protection, namely, 'society as parent protagonists' and 'kinship defenders'. In 
1973, Goldstein, Freud and Solnit (1973), and Kellmer Pringle (1974) argued that 

4 Review of Children and Young Persons Legislation: Public Discussion paper (The Red Book) 
Department of Social Welfare, 1984. 

\ 



21 

psychological bonds were, in fact, the most important, and that the biological bond 
was given too much importance. Opposing this view, the.!- kinship defenders' stated 
that biological ties were of primal importance, and that the role of the State should be 

to uphold and support the family in any way possible (Fox 1982:266). The 1989 Act 
represents a shift from one end of this value continuum to the other. A document to 
Children and Young Persons staff concerning the new process of family decision 
making identified the new roles of State and family. 

A central feature of this new Act is the emphasis it places on the role of 
kin in making decisions for children. The kinship group is seen as not 
comprising just the nuclear family, but an extended family group, 
including the child's uncles, aunts and grandparents. The procedures 
established in the Act are based on the belief that, given the resources, 
the information, and the power, a family group will make safe and 
appropriate decisions for children. The role of the professionals such as 
social workers and doctors, should not be to make decisions, but to 
facilitate decision making, by providing information, resources and 
expertise which will assist the family group. Professionals will have a 
crucial role as resource people (Department of Social Welfare Circular 
Memorandum 34; 1989). 

The stated philosophy of kin autonomy to make decisions about the care and 
protection of their relative children that exists in the Act and the subsequent 
withdrawal of State control except in instances of obvious family defection may go 
some way to solving this dilemma of state intrusion versus family autonomy. 

State intrusion into the lives of families when children are in need of care and 
protection occurs on three levels: intervention, support and supervision. How closely 
the State should monitor a child who has been previously neglected or abused, 
when this wider definition of family exists and the child is replaced within it, is 
still open to debate. In the past, family/whanau structures were considerably more 
intimate than they are today. In Polynesian cultures the whanau lived, to all intent and 
purpose, under the same roof and therefore exerted a measure of authority and control 
over its members. Placing the child within an extended Pakeha family usually means 
placing it into another nuclear family, where the extended family are not continually 
present, and where some of the same child rearing norms and imperatives may exist. 

An underlying premise of the 1989 CYPF Act is that the family, in the wider sense, 
collectively knows best what should or should not happen for their kin children and 
will be collectively responsible. It is believed that the long term protection and 
welfare of children and young people is more assured by plans formulated by the 
whole family. Underpinning this belief is a recognition that whilst, paradoxically, 



22 

most abuse of children is intra-familial, families will also protect children when 
charged with doing so (Ryburn 1993). Unless it is clearly stated in the plan, 
extended family placements are not monitored as of right, in the belief that families 
will keep their own children safe. Only if the family requests help, or another care 
and protection issue arises, will the State again intervene. 

Ryburn (1993) claimed that this model recognised the fact that the State had never 
been able to care for and cherish children in ways that, at best, the family could. and 
that the family was likely to have the highest level of commitment. He made the 
point that very often the professional view of the family was a deficit one, based on 
contact with its most problematic members. This view ignored strengths that may 
have existed in the wider family and that what might have been lacking was 

resources. Ryburn(1993) stated that narrow definitions of family can tend to regard 
the whole family as abusive, whereas families do not abuse. individuals within 
families do (Ryburn 1993:4,5). 

Triseliotis (1993) commented on the British Children Act (1989) and its attempt to 
reconcile all these views, by providing for the protection of children with a minimum 
of interference in family life. He stated that such legislation focused on micro­
system issues. and that the responsibility for failure of previous efforts to maintain 
children within their families was due to structural issues of unemployment, 
inadequate housing and insufficient income maintenance. Expecting extended 
families to shoulder the burden of children who are in need of care and protection will 
only work if these structural issues are addressed and families are sufficiently 
resourced to do the task properly. 

The Influence of the Economy 
While both the foster care research and the voice of the tangata whenua can be seen 
as primary determinants of the 1989 Children. Young Persons and their Families Act, 
the economic and political climate was most receptive to any cost-cutting measure. 
The 1984 Labour Government began a process of economic stringency that has been 
followed by National Governments since 1990. There has been a progressive 
lessening of State responsibility for family and child welfare. Previous responses to 
children in need of care and protection have been expensive. The 1989 Parliamentary 
debate papers quoted a figure of $300,000 per annum per child for institutional or 
foster care, a sum the State could ill afford. For several years previous to this, long­
term foster parents had been encouraged to adopt, or assume legal guardianship of the 
children in their care. While research outcomes and principles of permanency 
planning were ostensibly behind such moves, the State was then able to divest 
itself of financial responsibility. 

" ' 



23 

The fact that the 1989 Children, Young Persons and their Families Act and the Public 
Finance Act were passed in the same year has had an inarguable influence on the 
operation of the former. The Mason Report (1992:106) commented on the impact of 
government fiscal policies on the 1989 Act, and warned against a system that 
attempted to quantify social response in dollar terms. Economic constraints with 
regard to the welfare budget and the consequent placing of responsibility on families 
has a similarity to philosophies inherent in the Poor Laws. The Poor Law Act of 
1930 (Section 14), reads, 

.. .it shall be the duty of the father, grandfather, mother, grandmother, 
husband or child, of a poor, old, blind, lame, or impotent person or 
other poor person not able to work, if possessed of sufficient means, 
to relieve and maintain that person (Rustin, 1990:6). 

The 1989 CYPF Act bears remarkable similarity to this in its statements of principles 

S.13b) ... the primary role in caring for and protecting a child or young 
person lies with the ... family, whanau, hapu or family group, and that 
accordingly -
(1) A child's family, whanau, hapu, or family group should be 
supported, assisted and protected as much as possible; and 
(2) Intervention into family life should be the minimum necessary to 
ensure a young person's safety and protection. 

The willingness of the State to support extended family caregivers, in financial and 
social terms, is variable, but most families are penalised by virtue of being related to 

the children for whom they care. This is exemplified by the fact that the financial 
assistance available to extended family caregivers is considerably less than that given 
to unrelated foster carers, although both care for the same category of children - those 
in need of care and protection, and most likely to be traumatised. Differentiating 
between 'deserving' and 'undeserving' populatiOM and developing different policies 
and programmes for different subgroups in the population, according to particular 
categories in which they are placed, has been historically the case for most Western 
nations (Minkler and Roe 1993:192). Extended families, and in particular women, 
are now carrying financial and emotional burdens that in the past have been 
community responsibilities. Families are expected, in effect, to subsidise the State. 
The State, on the other hand, using the widest definition of 'family', rationalises 
such inequities by the belief that families ought to take responsibility for their own, 
irrespective of degree of relatedness. 

The complementary relationship between the State's level of economic health and the 
degree of support it gives to families has drawn comment by social policy analysts 

\ 



24 

and historians. There is evidence that in periods when governments need to keep 
down costs they tend to place responsibility on families. Increasingly, kin are seen as 

the first line of assistance for most people with the State playing a residual role ( 

Finch and Mason 1993:177). Baldock and Cass (1990) drew attention to the 
assumptive nature of such policies, 

Such official emphasis on the family as the provider of a private 
welfare system presumes that all individuals may call upon family 

support, and that all families have equal fmancial capacity to provide 

it ( Baldock and Cass 1990: xi). 

Ryburn (1993) stated that some critics may argue that the family survives most 

significantly as a construct of social policy. Its continued existence is largely as a 

convenient medium, where economic, or public, and social, or private domains meet, 

to transfer expenditure from one to the other. Ryburn stated, 

Definitions of the family do serve different ends in social policy, this is 

not to say that it does not exist independently of them. Narrow 

definitions of family, where family 'failure' can more easily be 
detected, have served for many years to justify the suppression of 

family roles by the State, and the hegemony of the economic over the 

social. Family responsibility does not mean letting families decide, it 
means letting families pay the cost, including the cost of failure, as this 

is decided by the State (Ryburn 1993:7). 

The New Zealand Family in Reality 
' While the family is still deemed to be the single most important institution for the care 

and nurture of children, the concept of family in New Zealand is undergoing major 

strQGtural change (Statistics New Zealand 1994 ). Social and demographic changes 

have transformed the traditional nuclear family from its dominance to a complexity 

of 'family worlds'. The family is now an extraordinarily differentiated concept, 

when all variables are taken into consideration. Households may include 

grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, boarders, step-children, foster children, 

nannies, married children and spouses, and blended families of different parentage. 

The reality of what constitutes family must now be individually defined, because for 

many children the traditional family concept is not the reality (David 1991; Statistics 

New Zealand 1994). Swift (1993) stated that the nuclear family ideal performs the 

ideological function of concealing important features of modem reality. Over the 

last few decades there has been a sharp increase in divorce and remarriage, resulting 
in many children living iti single parent families (Morgan and Righton; 1989). 

Changing social norms in regard to long term relationships, suggest a 
, 



25 

reconceptualisation of the kin group is needed to accommodate those relationships 
not formalised by conventional marriage. The typology that can be constructed is 
most complex in terms of relationships created by marital or extra marital status, 
sexual orientation, biological parenthood, adoption, guardianship, divorce, 
remarriage, and/or reconstitution and now kinship care. When this typology is 
further combined with parameters of race, class and gender, the diversity becomes 
even more obvious. 

A 'snapshot' of the complex and dynamic nature of family in New Zealand has been 
taken by Dayal and Lovell (1994). They observed that family trends in this country 
mirror international trends in similar countries. A review of family types showed that 
families accounted for 73.9% of all households in 1991, compared with 75.2% in 
1986. The stereotypical family - a couple with at least one dependent child -
represented only 38.5% of all families, and 29.1% of all households, in 1991. The 
numbers of couples without any children continued to rise, and 34.8% of families 
consisted of partners only. The traditional two child family (36.3%) has been 
overtaken by the one-child family (39%) as the most common type. One parent 
families accounted for 26.4% of all families, an increase of 5.2% since 1986. This 
increase was particularly evident in the Maori population, with 44% of all Maori 
families with children being one parent families. This compared with 32% of Pacific 
Island families, and 18% of Pakeha families. 

It could be argued that different ideologies exist in Polynesian family structures, and 
just because families have one parent, this does not necessarily mean that they are 
isolated and have no familial supports on which to draw. Children are seen as 
belonging to the extended family/whanau group and this may result in a lesser burden 
of individual responsibility (Ritchie and Ritchie 1979). Statistics do not explain 
family relationships. Dayal and Lovell state that, within the population of solo parent 
families, Maori accounted for 29% and stood out as the most disadvantaged. Never 
married solo parents have increased from 10% of all solo parents in 1976 to 36% in 
1991. Solo fathers account for 16% of this population. More than one in five 
children under fifteen live in one parent households, nearly double the proportion 
of a decade ago. 

One of the greatest differences between one parent and two parent families is the 
level of household income, with the majority of two parent pakeha families earning 
two incomes and only 31% of solo parents in paid employment (Table 1). 



Table One 
Proportion of Children with Mothers Working 

Full- or Part-time • two parent families, 1991. (%) 

Age Maori Pacific Island Pakeha 
Under 1 22 20 28 
1-4 33 31 42 
5-14 49 46 65 
15-19 63 58 77 

Source: Davey, (1993:41) 

26 

Total 
27 
40 
62 
74 

Factors associated with the participation of solo parents in the work force are 
education and age of youngest child. Gender differences in the number of paid hours 
worked are evident in both types of family, related to traditional sex roles and the 
particular difficulties faced by mothers in the labour force, such as lack of affordable 
child care, and occupational segregation. On average, a lower disposable income was 
recorded in all households where children were present 

Today, marriage is less frequent, OCCQ[S later, and is more likely to dissolve than a 
quarter of a century ago. The marriage rate in 1993, (19.4 per 1000 of the unmarried 
population over 16 years) was the lowest since 1965, and less than half of that 
recorded in 1971, when it was 45.3 per thousand. This decrease is indicative of the 
strong trend toward delaying marriage, the increasing numbers of New Zealanders 
remaining single, and the emergence of cohabitation before marriage as an important 
new lifestyle. In 1993, in 35.0% of all marriages, one or other of the partners was 
marrying for the second time (Dayal and Lovell 1994). 

Such data force a reconsideration of stereotypical assumptions about families, gender, 
power and specific categories of kinship relations. This current picture of the family 

in New Zealand suggests that families are less integrated and that kinship networks 
are more complex due to remarriage. The decline in birthrate and the rise of the one 

child family have been linked over the decades to feminism, contraception, the rising 

demand for paid work among wives, women delaying childbearing, and higher 
education costs (Williams, 1993:104). The profile of the New Zealand family as 
drawn here cannot allow the automatic assumption that families are able to undertake 
care of dependent kin children. 

It is assumed that the definition of family in relation to the above data are those in a 
heterosexual relationship as there is no mention of people in homosexual relationships 
being defined as family. Kath Weston (1991:34) took issue with the concept of 

kinship being consanguinally or affinally determined. She claimed that, for many in 



27 

Western society, biology is the defining feature of kinship. It is commonly believed 
that blood ties make certain people kin, regardless of whether those individuals 
display the love and enduring solidarity expected to characterise familial relationships. 
Weston argued that to read biology as a symbol is to approach it as a cultural 
construct and linguistic category, rather than a 'self evident matter of natural fact' 

(Weston 1991:35). The anthropological concept of 'fictive kin' 5 lost favour with the 

advent of symbolic anthropology, and the realisation that all kinship is in some way 
fictional, that is, 'meaningly constituted' rather than being concrete in the positivist 
sense. Weston argued, however, that the term may be very relative for those who 
chose their extended family constructs, such as lesbian and gay extended families. 
Lesbian and gay families may develop the same expectations of relationships and 
responsibilities as those people joined by genes and blood (Weston, 1991: 105-7). 
Definitions of 'kin' therefore should be subjective, and defined by the quality of a 
relationship and the commitment of all parties to it. Cochran, Larner, Riley, 
Gunnarson and Henderson (1990:267) found in their research on the ecology of 
kinship that the breaking down of traditional kin obligations has meant that some kin 
relationships are more like those with unrelated friends. 

The value placed on family and family networks to support and care for each other, 
while being an ideal, is not necessarily a reality. The tangata whenua ideology of 
both children and elderly being a collective responsibility of the wider family is a 
cultural value to be prized. The question that must be asked, however, is whether that 
can hold across all other cultures, and across all families of any culture, when some 
extended family systems have been fractured by time, distance, and a history of 
broken relationships. There does not appear to be any recent New Zealand study 
with regard to the quality and extent of expected reciprocity within extended family 
relationships. I would also question whether families where abuse and/or neglect was 
an issue can be compared, in this regard, to families for whom this was not the case. 
It has been well documented that social isolation was often a factor in families where 
abuse and neglect was evident (Belsky,1980; Kagan and Schlosberg, 1989). It has 
been found that in these families relationships with kin were often inconsistent, 

difficult, and not accessed in times of stress.6 

5 Protagonists of open adoption have also used the concept of 'fictive' when arguing against the 
fiction of adoption. In terms of kinship responsibility and the current law, it may be that adoptive 
extended families do not always feel the same measure of responsibility for those children to whom 
they are not related genetically. I have had experience of instances where an adopted child is in 
need of care and protection, and adoptive kin have not offered care. The original biological family 
has then been approached by the Children and Young Persons Service for care, or even assumed 
joint guardianship. So far, adoption has been exempt from the philosophy of kin responsibility 
residing in the 1989 CYP&F Act, but if it were seen as a care and protection issue, which strictly 
speaking it is, then kin should be involved and given the opportunity of claiming and caring for 

their own kin children. 

6 A fact I have perceived in my experience as a social worker. 



28 

Meyers, Kipnis and Murphy (1994) claimed that, families, more than any other 
social relations, exert a powerful and persistent emotional force. Discussing issues of 
moral contract, they claimed that in our society the family is seen as the prime locus 
of abiding affection and reliable mutual support Family members, who would never 
have elected one another as friends, nevertheless usually love one another and proffer 

aid of a magnitude they would begrudge a stranger (Meyers, et al 1994:14). 
Research undertaken by Finch and Mason (1993) sought to examine contemporary 
perceptions of family responsibility among English families, in order to gain an 

understanding of how significant kin were as a source of practical assistance, and 

whether this differed across degrees of relationship. They found that considerable 
evidence existed which suggested relationships within the wider kin group remained 
an important part of most people's lives. They concluded, however, that there were 

very few matters concerned with kin responsibilities on which there was clear 

agreement among a representative sample of the population. Most families saw 
themselves rallying around in a crisis situation, but a commitment to long term 

responsibility varied according to degree of relatedness and strength of family ties. 
The theory of intergenerational solidarity and norms pertaining to the 
intergenerational exchange of assistance was tested by Lee, Netzer and Coward 
(1993). They concluded that degrees of reciprocity are an important variable, as were 
the state of health, financial status, marital status and educational levels of the 

families. Minkler and Roe (1993:23) concluded that cultural attitudes and beliefs and 

the particular nature of extended family systems strongly impacted on expectations of 
interfamily responsibility, and consequently, the acceptability of intergenerational 

care giving. 

Marilyn Waring (1988) commented that the social exchange of services, that is, the 

giving and receiving of services within social networks of relatives, friends, 

neighbours and acquaintances, is regarded as economically unimportant, and remains 
unacknowledged as a contribution to the economy (Waring, 1988). A socialist 

feminist analysis of kinship care identifies State patriarchy using gendered 

relationships within the family to serve its own economic ends. The invisibility of 
kinship care does not allow its economic contribution to be appreciated. 

The Welfare State assumes a functioning extended family to be not only an ideal, 
but also a reality. Responsibility for care may be laid with the wider family, but the 

actual care is still given in the context of a nuclear family. In Pakeha families, the 

burden of child care lies most predominantly with the mother, no matter whose child 

it is. Finch and Mason (1993:180) asserted that policies that rest on the assumption 

that people have a right to expect assistance from their relatives will not align with the 

realities of modem family life. Commitments are the product of human agency, not 
social structure. 



Family Responsibility • Concepts and Constructs of the 1989 
Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act 

29 

The 1989 CYPF Act is now in its sixth year of operation. It has been described as 
the first serious attempt by a New Zealand Government to take into account the 
cultural values and perspectives of Maori and Pacific Island peoples in trying to deal 
with issues of care and protection or offending (Mason, Kirby and Wray, 1992; 
Cockburn,1994). In simple terms, it seeks to find family solutions to family 
problems (Mason, Kirby, and Wray, 1992:4). Any intervention into family life 
should be the minimum necessary to ensure a child or young person's safety. 

The first response, where a child is deemed to be in need of care and protection, must 
be to provide, where practicable, the necessary assistance and support to enable that 
child to remain within its own family/whanau. A child should only be removed from 
his/her family/whanau if there is serious risk of harm, and all efforts must be made to 
return the child as soon as possible, after ensuring the environment is safe. When the 
child's immediate family/whanau, hapu, iwi cannot offer permanent care, any care 
arrangements must be in the same locality in order that family links can be maintained 
(CYPF Act 1989; S.13 ). Any decisions made must take into account both the 
welfare of the child, and the stability of the family group. 

Statistics gathered in 1990 showed that, in the first eight months of the operation of 
the Act, over 2000 family group conferences were held. Only in one or two cases did 
the Department have to exercise its statutory powers to disagree with the family plan 
because of concern about the safety of the child or young person (Angus, 1991). 
Many more cases than this went to court, however, because either the family could 
not agree as to who should have custody, or could not provide care and protection 

from within family/whanau resources. 

Section Four of the 1974 Children and Young Persons Act made it clear that, except 
for issues of public interest, the child's best interests must be considered first. 
Section 6 of the 1989 Act stated that, where there was perceived conflict between the 
rights of the child and the rights of the family, the rights of the child must be 
paramount. In response to a stated concern that the best interests of the child were 
not given due weight in practice (The Mason Report, 1992), an amendment to the Act 
was passed in November 1994, which clearly states the paramountcy of the interests 
of the child before the interests of the whanau or tribe (Children, Young Persons and 
their Families Amendment Act, 1994). This centrality accorded the child is not in 
keeping with Maori tradition, where 'the childs interests are subsumed under the 
importance attached to the responsibility of the tribal group' (Puao-Te-Ata-Tu 
1986:52). 



30 

Apart from this recent retrenchment, the 1989 Act takes heed of recommendations of 
the tangata whenua. This represents a shift from British models of legislative 
authority to intervene in the lives of families, as contained in both the 1925 Child 
Welfare Act and the 1974 Children and Young Persons Act, to an indigenous cultural 
construct of Family Decision Making. Now families/whanau have the chance to 
reclaim and nurture their own children. Cockburn (1994) described the Act as a 
legislative conceptual product of the cultural and social experiences of New 
Zealanders in the late 1980s. 

Cockburn (1994) stated that the deepest significance of the Act lies at a symbolic 
level. The legislative intention, articulated in the long title, in fact invests the concept 
of family with a cultural and symbolic reverence never previously enacted in New 
Zealand legislation. The inclusion of the words 'children and young persons as 
members of families' in the long title and 'and their families' in the short title of the 
Act releases a depth of meaning in the New Zealand context that may not be apparent 
to outsiders. As cultural symbols, 'children and family' are representative of the 
whole life world, tapping into the basic Maori mode-of-being-in-this-world. 
Cockburn argued that they are not solely legislative or demographic categories 
(Cockburn, 1994: 87). 

Summary 
A review of the history of care provision for children in need of care and protection, 
brings into sharp focus the monocultural Pakeha ideologies which formerly 
underpinned law, policy and practice, and the validity of tangata whenua claims of 
institutional racism. Commentators have noted a pragmatic influence of economic 
determinism in policy and practice over the decades. An historical disregard of the 
importance of family/whanau relationships, not only for the tangata whenua, but for 
all families of children for whom the State assumed guardianship, is seen in 
judgemental attitudes, and misguided principles of confidentiality and self 
determination. The role of the state in intervention, support and supervision of 
families where abuse is identified has shifted from one of state control to one of 
family decision making. Principles of the 1989 CYPF Act reveal a strong ideology 
of the importance of family, and a reluctance of the State to disrupt family 
relationships. These principles apply to all families, Maori, Pakeha, or any other 
ethnicity. Recognition must be taken, however, of demographic changes in the 
profile of the New Zealand family. The strength of Pakeha family structures, and the 
extent to which a commitment or ability to care for members of the extended family 
exists, is untested. 

Although the practice of kinship care has not been widely discussed in child welfare 
literature (Dubowitz,1993), a few studies have been undertaken overseas, and 
common issues of concern have been identified (Dubowitz, 1994). Apart from 



31 

Walker (1990) who has undertaken an historical review of kinship care, it would 
appear that there have been no New Zealand studies at time of writing. Comparisons 
have been drawn between foster care and kinship care by some commentators, 
although others state that these are distinct populations, and therefore cannot be 
compared (Dubowitz 1994). I feel, however, that they are more alike than different, 
particularly when the common denominator is caring for a child who has suffered 
abuse and/or neglect. The outcomes for abused children placed in foster care with 
strangers have been well researched, and clear practice principles have emerged. In 
the next chapter, I briefly review the foster care literature that has particular relevancy 
for kinship care, and then move on to examine the current concerns and debates with 
regard to the practice of placing children with relatives. 



32 

CHAPTER THREE 

A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 

Introduction 
In 1993, a group of women caring for extended family children under the terms of the 
1989 Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act presented a workshop at the 
National Conference of the New Zealand Foster Care Federation. They told the 
conference how the task was unexpectedly difficult. Their kin children were showing l 
extremely disturbed behaviour as a result of previous abuse and neglect, their own 
children were finding that untenable, and some of their marriage relationships were 
affected as a consequence. Relationships within the wider extended family were also 
affected, with members taking sides and relationships with the parents of the children 

-' 

becoming strained. To complicate the issue, they found it difficult to gain assistance 
from the Children and Young Persons Service, who believed that problems were to be 
solved within the family. The women themselves felt they were then being judged as 
incompetent. The stories of the women were remarkably similar to those of other foster 
parents at the conference. It was obvious, however, that both policy and practice for the 
two groups were different, and kin-based care was seen as needing less service 
provision. Overseas researchers have, in the past, also seen the two groups as distinct 
populations and unable to be compared, although more recent research has refuted those 
claims (Dubowitz et al1993; Dubowitz, 1994). 

Over the last two decades we have learned much from the foster care research about the 
special difficulties of caring for children who have suffered neglect and/or abuse and, as 
a consequence, have been separated from their biological parents. This is also the case 
for many children placed with kin under the 1989 Children, Young Persons, and their 
Families Act. I have, therefore, reviewed research from the fields of both foster care and 
kinship care in order to draw from that knowledge. While there is a vast amount of 
literature in the field of foster care, kinship care is less well researched, and qualitative 
studies, in particular, are minimal. The primary issues of concern raised by the foster 
care research were: the child's need for stability and the inability of foster care with 
strangers to guarantee that; the importance of maintaining contact with birth parents, and 
the relationship between parental contact and return home; the difficulties of caring for an 
abused child, and the need for training, assessment and preparation for the task. These 
issues all have relevance for kinship care and are therefore addressed in the review of the 
kinship care literature. 



33 

I have briefly reviewed a number of studies undertaken of the placement of children with 
relatives. Some of the earlier research is from the United Kingdom, while the most 
recent material is from the United States, where kinship care is becoming the most 
common care alternative (CWLA 1994). Although cultural differences must be 
recognised, the issues raised are relevant for Pakeha families caring for kin children in 
New Zealand. I was particularly interested in the quality of care afforded by the extended 
family, and the question of placement stability. The ability of foster families to sustain 
care of abused children is, in my experience, dependent to a large degree on how that 
affects the whole family system, not least the caregivers themselves. In order to gain an 
understanding of how undertaking care affected the whole family system, I have focused 
on the characteristics of children in kinship care; characteristics of the caregivers and their 
families and how caregiving affected their lives; assessment, training and support given 
to the care giving family and the question of legal permanency. 

Sent to Live With Strangers - A Foster Care Literature Review 
The practice of placing children in need of care and protection in foster care has been 
policy since the beginning of this century in Britain, the United States and Europe, where 
large numbers of children have been placed in the care of strangers. Although there 
were both protagonists and antagonists of this practice (Kadushin 1980), it was 20 years 
before any research was undertaken to establish the effect of foster care on its recipients. 
Prasad (1988) comprehensively reviewed the foster care research and extracted the 
practice principles arising from this evidence. He cited follow - up studies of adults 
who had been in care as children that were undertaken by Theis (1924) and Baylor and 
Monaschesi (1939), which showed that the great majority of these children survived the 
experience, growing up to be worthwhile citizens. However, methodological problems 
with both studies have thrown some doubt on the validity of these conclusions (Prasad 
1988). Prasad reviewed later studies that concluded many persons who had been in 
foster care as children had strong negative feelings about their experiences, and did not 
reach their pre-placement developmental potential (Vander Waals 1960; Gi11964; Meier 
1966; Rest and Watson, 1984). Murphy (1964), in Prasad (1988), stressed that, 
although eventual outcomes were influenced by factors external to the placement, 
children were at risk of a deeply felt stigma, an impaired self image, consequent difficulty 
in establishing emotional intimacy and an unresolved sense of loss. This had an effect on 
their own child-rearing ability (Prasad 1988). 

Lack of Stability 
The most common issue of concern isolated by international studies during 1970s and 

1 

1980s was the lack of stability afforded by foster care. These studies all showed that, l 

although initial plans were for return home, children stayed in care and suffered many 



34 

moves. Some studies showed over 50% of all intended long term placements ended 
prematurely (Prasad 1988). New Zealand studies showed a much worse picture. 

.., 

Stirling (1972) and Prasad (1975) found a disruption rate of 87% and 66%, 
respectively. As mentioned in Chapter Two, the large scale study undertaken by the 
Department of Social Welfare showed that, for every five years in care, children 
experienced an average of 6.5 placements. Of those placements intended to be long term, 
24% lasted only three months and 83% less than one year (McKay, 1981). Fanshel and­
Shinn (1978), and Fanshel, Finch and Grundy (1990), claimed that considering most 
children suffered several moves before coming into care, more than two moves in foster 
care were unacceptable. Prasad (1975) showed a relationship between cross-cultural 
placements and breakdown. He