ANZASW Response To Reviews Into Death Of Malachi Subecz

Thursday, 1 December 2022, 1:02 pm
Press Release: Aotearoa NZ Association of Social Workers

Moe mai rā e te taonga, Malachi. Our thoughts and condolences are with Malachi’s whānau at this incredibly challenging time. The findings from the reviews released today show Malachi and his whānau were let down by the numerous systems that should have protected him.

Our tamariki/children are taonga/precious treasures. We need to do better by them as a country. No single Government department or person can be solely responsible for the safety and wellbeing of our tamariki. It truly takes a village. We welcome the reports released today.

Every person, organisation, and Government department in Aotearoa have a responsibility to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our tamariki. This means working together collaboratively. We are hopeful these reviews will spark a new dialogue and sense of urgency to bring about a new way of working in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Child protection social work is incredibly complex. Social workers work incredibly hard every day with whānau, making decisions based on limited information and need to be fully supported in their mahi. We welcome the acknowledgement of Oranga Tamariki that they did not provide an environment where quality social work practice can occur. We are committed to continuing to work with Oranga Tamariki to ensure social workers are fully supported in this incredibly challenging mahi.

We welcome the recommendation to accelerate collaborative decision-making to enable iwi, communities, and agencies to partner together to ensure the safety and wellbeing of tamariki. This must be a priority and must be approached with a clear strategy in place.

We need to ensure there is support available to tamariki and their whānau. There is an urgent need for the Government to increase building the capability and capacity of iwi and community organisations to provide preventative and supportive services.

In recent months, Oranga Tamariki has reduced funding for some key preventative services, for example social workers in schools. We call on the Government to urgently increase the funding for Oranga Tamariki to enable the building of capacity of these necessary community-based preventative and supportive services.

The Oranga Tamariki practice review highlights key enablers to support quality practice were not present in this case. Oranga Tamariki social workers need to have quality support, including caseloads that are manageable, access to timely training and development, and quality social work supervision. We are committed to partnering with Oranga Tamariki to work on these issues.

There are significant numbers of social work vacancies across the sector, including in Oranga Tamariki. There is a need to build and ensure the retention of our social work workforce, and a need for greater Government investment in social work training, including support for social work students.

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