Pillars Ka Pou Whakahou, a children’s charity supporting positive futures for the tamariki and whānau of people in prison, are calling for urgent legislative action and policy requiring the implementation of care plans for children of people in prison and on community sentences. To make the policy and plans meaningful and workable, a Whānau Outreach Liaison role (beyond Family Court Navigators) needs to be established in every court throughout Aotearoa.

The Whānau Outreach Liaison role is to engage and consult with whānau to co-design their children’s care plan. This would be an automatic process that occurs through the courts. The Whānau Outreach Liaison would then refer whānau to the most appropriate local service providers based upon each child’s unique care plan. To futureproof this legislation, we are also seeking bipartisan agreement on Children’s Care Plans, to place children’s safety and wellbeing before political populism.

Children with a parent in prison are an often-forgotten cohort who themselves serve an invisible sentence of adversity, trauma, and intergenerational harm. Instability, financial hardship; emotional distress; long-term negative health and education outcomes; and high risk of intergenerational offending mean that NZ children with a parent in prison are significantly more likely to go to prison themselves.

The evidence is clear; for every child whose parent is sentenced, there is a resounding impact upon them, yet they receive little to no support. Lacking, is any effective framework or policy to ensure someone follows up on dependent children after court. For Malachi Subecz, this lack of protective framework allowed for the worst possible tragedy to occur. This lack of care and protection is compounding the intergenerational harm of the justice system.

These recommendations are an echo of Aotearoa’s own experts and researchers, not to mention our current justice model strategy Hokai Rangi (2019), which is based upon harm reduction through holistic wellbeing.

A Children’s Care Plan would be a wraparound plan regarding the care, supports, and positive pathways needed for every child with a sentenced parent. Each plan would be unique to the needs of every child and would be written in consultation with whānau from a child-centred lens. These plans would cover acute needs like ensuring every child has a safe and supported place to live, through to mid and long-term needs like counselling, healthcare, education supports or pathways to employment.

As a frontline organisation at the coalface of how incarceration impacts children and whānau; Pillars Ka Pou Whakahou are amplifying decades of research, evidence, and the lived experience of the communities.

JustSpeak, a youth-powered movement for transformational change of criminal justice towards a fair, just and flourishing Aotearoa, are co-signers of the Open Letter sent by Pillars Ka Pou Whakahou to government.

This follows feedback from Pillars Youth Advisory Panel, who is comprised entirely of Pillars youth aged 15 to 23. They are children of people in prison with lived experience of the justice system. Feedback from the panel includes “Our hardship is real. Please- look at us, listen to us” which underlines necessary action that needs to be taken place to ensure the safety of our children.

Find out more about Pillars Ka Pou Whakahou: www.pillars.org.nz

Find out more about JustSpeak: www.justspeak.org.nz

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