Name Skyler Quinn
Hometown Ōtautahi Christchurch
Age when entered care 8 years old
Year of birth 2003
Time in care 2011–2014
Type of care facility Foster homes – various; residential family homes in Spencerville and Oxford
Ethnicity European, Māori
Whānau background Skyler has an older half-sister, who was taken into care before Skyler was born.
Currently Skyler lives in Ōtautahi Christchurch.

I’m aware that Child, Youth and Family (CYFS) was involved with my mother before I was born, and that my older half-sister was taken from my mother. My mum was sterilised when I was born, so she couldn’t have any more children. Dad says that CYFS told her she had to have the operation or I would get taken away as well. He says it affected my mother’s mental health, and their relationship as well.

My parents separated when I was about 18 months old. I lived with my mother, then my parents lived together for a while – co-parenting in the same house. Later, my mother moved out and was living with a guy who had been accused of having sex with a minor. I went into my father’s care because of that, for about a year and a half.

When I was 6 years old, there was an incident while we were camping where I broke my arm. I just remember that I tried to get out of the car door, and my father grabbed me and I got hurt. It was recorded that I told the doctors that my father hurt me on purpose, but I never said that. After that, I had to live with my uncle and aunt in Swannanoa. I was there for about a year before I got sent away.

I was 8 years old when I went into foster care. The first six homes I went to were so close together, they’re all muddled. At times, I was only at one place for one night, and then a week or two weeks. I started having panic attacks. I would wake up thinking really fast and I couldn’t stop it. I told my social worker at the time and I know that she tried to get help, but nothing happened.

I remember really liking some of the carers. Mostly though, I ran away from the homes. At one place, there were two boys about a year or two younger than me. Some things happened there, like those childish games you play, like ‘doctor, doctor’ and all that. I can’t explain what happened, because I felt like it was my fault, but I didn’t know. I remember crawling out the window and running away with one of the boys.

I don’t really remember much about the others that I ran away from. I was either running away because of where I was, because of the way I was treated or because of the place. I was having problems and I couldn’t handle it. Sometimes I ran away with some of the other kids and we would get into trouble.

I went to 18 different foster homes in a short period of time, before I went back to my uncle’s home for about a year when I was 9 years old. They’re not all documented, but I believe I was placed in 30 different homes overall, not including the times I went back to places. I also went to almost as many different schools. No-one ever told me why I was leaving any of my foster homes, except one.

I also lived in residential homes – I think there were two that I went to. When I was about 8 years old, I went to one in Spencerville. That was when I first started developing my personalities. All of a sudden, I would have this burst of anger that I had never had before. I have a scar from breaking a window with my hand one time.

There were three boys and four girls living there at that time, but all older than me – 13 to 16 years old. Once I woke up with a bloody nose as one of the older girls had punched me. That was also around the same time I first self-harmed. For whatever reason, I was removed from this home, then I was in and out of foster homes again.

I went back to the Spencerville home when I was 10 years old and I was assaulted again by some of the older girls. I was still the youngest – the others were all teenagers. I woke up to girls punching and kicking me, and I got dragged out of bed by my hair. I hid in the bathroom curled up in a ball. The worker in the home found me and the girls were locked outside to protect me. I had to make a statement about what happened, and I had an x-ray on my jaw. One of the bones is dislodged and is still uncomfortable.

The next year, I was also sexually assaulted multiple times at a residential family home out in the country, near Oxford. I stayed at this home on four occasions. The last two times, a boy who was staying in the home assaulted me. The first stay with him was not as bad, but it was more severe the next time. It happened almost every night I was there.

On one occasion, I woke up not being able to breathe. I was on my period and I told him to fuck off. He wouldn’t listen. Then I blacked out. I woke up naked and bloody because of my period. It still carried on after that. I didn’t tell anybody what was happening at the time because I was scared and I knew I would get blamed for it.

When my social worker first mentioned the idea of going to Australia, I said yes. My mum’s sister and her husband lived there, and I wanted to be with family. I was 11 years old when I went to live with my aunt and uncle in Toowoomba. I stayed there for almost four years.

They were sweet and nice to begin with, but then by halfway through year six, stuff started going downhill. The verbal abuse in the house from my uncle was bad. There was also an incident with my uncle near the end of that year, where he pulled me from one room into another by my hair because I didn’t clean my room properly.

At around the same time, a boy at school started forcing me to do certain things. It was constant and, because of everything that had happened to me, I just shut up about it. I didn’t know how to say no or stop it happening.

Another incident with my uncle ended with me leaving. He got angry after collecting me from an event, and I was crying a little in the car, sniffling. He threw his phone at me and asked if I wanted something to cry about. He grabbed my hair and pushed me down to the seat, then straight up so my head hit the ceiling of the car.

After school the next day, I went to the house of the boy I was dating at the time and told his mother everything. They took me to the police and I filed a report. I ended up in the Australian foster care system and went to emergency housing in Ipswich.

My aunt and uncle went to court because of what happened. The outcome was that I had suffered emotional and physical harm as a result of neglect from them. After everything that happened with my uncle and the boy, I spiralled. I abused alcohol and drugs. I ended up pregnant twice and miscarried both times.

My first suicide attempt was in mid-2013, when I was 10 years old. I started to drink some bleach, but my sister turned up and saved my life. By the time I left Australia when I was 15 years old, I had been in hospital six times for suicide prevention, six times for self-harm prevention and twice because I nearly died because I cut myself so deep on my legs.

During those difficult times, I had a ‘second mum’ who helped me get back to New Zealand. I wanted to see my mum and they said that if I was free of self-harm for a month and no drugs in the system, then I could go. I returned to New Zealand in 2018.

I live with multiple personalities and severe depression. At times, my mental health is not good and I have been in Hillmorton Hospital. I have anxiety related tics, borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder.

You should be able to feel safe as a child. My parents were in care as children and then it happened to me. It has lifelong effects and I can’t see that I will ever be able to work.

I haven’t had good help around me to support me with my trauma, mental health and disabilities. I think there should be more support and help for people that suffered abuse in care.[274]