47. A large proportion of children and young people entered into faith-based care settings through voluntary placement from their families, particularly for faith-based welfare residential care, faith-based education and pastoral care. The Inquiry heard from approximately 811 registered survivors whose first entries into care were faith-based settings. Of those survivors, 50 percent reported first experiencing and entering care through faith-based schools or pastoral care.[31]

48. Entries into faith-based schools and pastoral care were often voluntary – either of a person’s own accord or of their whānau, and were often influenced by whānau, religious background and societal factors. For example, at Gloriavale Christian Community, the pathway into care was a result of being born into, or having your family join the church.

49. In the welfare space, faith-based residential care by the Anglican, Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian churches and The Salvation Army predominantly focused on running orphanages. These types of facilities were residential and funded by the State, independently or a combination of both. Children and young people were placed there either voluntarily by their families, faith intervention or by the State.

50. Despite sometimes being called orphanages, few children and young people who lived in these faith-based care settings had lost both parents. By the 1970s, orphanages had largely been renamed children’s homes to reflect this. Children and young people were placed in a faith-based children’s home either temporarily (in what is known today as respite care) or permanently due to family hardships such as parental illness or relationship breakdowns.[32]NZ European survivor Michael Ellis, who was at St Joseph’s Girls’ Orphanage in Te Awa Kairangi ki Uta Upper Hutt (Catholic), said:

“I think most of the kids there were children of sole parents … either a parent who had abandoned the other parent or had died. There weren’t any true orphans there. From memory, I think it was all a case of one parent who couldn’t cope and so you were placed into the convent for a period of time.’’.[33]

51. Between 1984 and 1985, 104 children and young people were admitted to The Salvation Army residential children’s homes. Seventy-two percent were admitted for reasons related to parents, rather than the child, with most referrals coming either from the family itself or from doctors involved with the family.[34]

52. The use of faith-based welfare residential care began to decline in the second half of the 20th century. A 1982 Government review noted that since the 1950s, faithbased organisations had “little by little” withdrawn from providing welfare residential facilities to care for children and young people, in favour of social work services and aged care.[35]

53. As care provided by faith-based children’s homes declined, faith-based foster care became more prominent. Social service agencies associated with the Anglican, Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian churches and The Salvation Army organised and facilitated foster care placements.

54. The pathway into foster care in many respects mirrored the circumstances of placement in faith-based children’s homes and other faith-based welfare residential care settings. These included single parent families requiring support to look after their children, for reasons such as poor health or financial hardship.

55. Whānau voluntarily placed their children and young people into faith-based institutions as a form of respite, due to distress and financial difficulties and placed their children into faith-based schools in the hopes they would receive higher quality education.

56. For survivors who spoke to the Inquiry, faith-based education was the most common pathway into the faith-based care where they suffered abuse. [36] Children and young people were often sent to faith-based schools because of their families’ religion or because their parents believed these schools provided a higher standard of education than State schools.

57. The Catholic Church was most prominent in the provision of private schooling, particularly early in the Inquiry period, before many of their schools became State integrated. Statistics show that in 1975 11 percent of primary and secondary aged students were enrolled in private schools, and 78 percent of that group were at Catholic schools.[37]

58. Dilworth School, which is affiliated to the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand, was specifically established under philanthropist James Dilworth’s will and offered what was considered to be a ‘premier’ education at full scholarship. Boys were typically enrolled at a very young age, usually 8 or 9 years old. Many came to the school following family trauma or dysfunction, a serious accident or illness suffered by a parent or, due to the death, separation or divorce of parents. Most boys did not have a father.[38]

59. Pastoral care was provided by the Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian and Plymouth Brethren churches and Gloriavale Christian Community. The pathway to pastoral care was often through the religious affiliation of survivors’ families and the inherent trust, conferral of authority and status given to those in positions of authority. Where a pastoral relationship is related to the faith-based institution’s work or is enabled through the institution’s conferral of authority, a child, young person or adult in care may be said to be in the care of the faith-based institution.[39]Children, young people and adults in care formed pastoral care relationships with faith leaders who had authority and / or power, and whose relationship with the children, young person or adult in care, related to the institution’s work or enabled through the faith’s conferral of authority.

60. For other survivors, such as Pacific survivors, their kainga were part of a much wider community where religion was part of their everyday life and culture. This contributed to survivors entering into and accessing faith-based care. Pacific survivors spoke about how religion and culture were so interwoven that families would willingly open their homes to members of the church and clergy and enrol their children in religious schools.[40]

61. This was a similar case for tamariki and rangatahi Māori who were voluntarily placed into faith-based boarding schools for Māori. Many were placed into boarding schools in the hopes that they would have access to their culture. Some also had familial and intergenerational ties to a particular faith and school. Scholarships were also available for Māori and Pacific children and young people to enter into specific faith-based schools, contributing to entries – these were provided by the State, faiths and iwi to students that met certain criteria to ensure they received secondary education that otherwise would be denied to them.

62. In other cases, children and young people were required by the State to enter into faith-based care, such as faith-based welfare residential care and faith-based education. Many State wards were placed into faith-based care, especially foster care, due to over-crowding in State-based social welfare care options. Similarly, the State also placed Māori State wards into faith-based boarding schools for Māori in response to the limited capacity of social welfare institutions.

63. The number of children and young people who entered for this reason increased significantly from the 1960s.[41] By 1977, around a quarter of children in faith-based children’s homes were State wards.[42] Some infant or child residents of faith-based homes became wards of the State once they were too old to be in care.[43]

64. Given the over-representation of tamariki and rangatahi Māori in social welfare care settings, Māori were likely disproportionately affected by the State’s tendency to shift State wards from overflowing social welfare care settings to faith-based care settings, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s.[44]

65. Faith-based care for people with disabilities was limited over the Inquiry period. There was however a small number of faith-based institutions, including social welfare residential care, and schools that provided care for disabled children, young people and adults. The Inquiry’s interim report Stolen Lives, Marked Souls: The inquiry into the Order of the Brothers of St John of God at Marylands School and Hebron Trust is a case study into abuse and neglect of disabled children and young people in faithbased care.[45]

Footnotes

[31]DOT Loves Data, Analysis of pathways into care counts (Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, 2023).

[32]Department of Education, Child welfare: State care of children, special schools, and infant-life protection report (1958, page 16); Craig, T & Mills, M, Care and control: The role of institutions in New Zealand (New Zealand Planning Council, 1987, page 38).

[33]Private session transcript of Michael Ellis (2 March 2020, page 7).

[34]Craig, T & Mills, M, Care and control: The role of institutions in New Zealand (New Zealand Planning Council, 1987, page 38).

[35] Carson, R, New horizons: A review of the residential services of the Department of Social Welfare (Department of Social Welfare, 1982,
page 121).

[36] Te Rōpū Tautoko, Table of reports of abuse in the care of the Catholic Church (17 December 2021).

[37] Note: 65,046 primary and secondary (or college) students were enrolled at Catholic schools in 1975 (See Submission filed on behalf of Catholic Bishops and Congregational Leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand in response to Notice to Produce No 1 (5 May 2020, page 19, Table 3); In 1975, there were a total of 745,077 primary and secondary students in Aotearoa New Zealand, with 82,549 enrolled across all private schools (See Department of Education, Report of the Department of Education for the period ended 31 March 1977 (1977, page 42, Table 1) which lists the roll numbers at educational institutions at 1 July 1977).

[38] Dilworth Independent Inquiry, An independent inquiry into abuse at Dilworth School (2023, page 3).

[39]Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, Minute 16: Faith-based care (31 January 2022, paras 15–16).

[40]Tamasese, T, Parsons, T, King, P & Waldegrave, C, A qualitative investigation into Pacific families, communities and organisations social and economic contribution to Pacific migrant settlement outcomes in New Zealand (Family Centre Pacific Section and the Social Policy Research Unit, n.d., pages 68–69); For examples of survivor voice see Witness statements of Ms CU (10 June 2021, para 16) and Rūpene Amato (16 July 2021, pages 5–6).

[41]Tennant, M, The fabric of welfare: Voluntary organisations, government, and welfare in New Zealand 1840–2005 (Bridget William Books,
2007, page 107).

[42]Tennant, M, The fabric of welfare: Voluntary organisations, government, and welfare in New Zealand 1840–2005 (Bridget William Books,
2007, page 107).

[43]Dalley, B, Family matters: Child welfare in twentieth-century New Zealand (Auckland University Press, 1998, page 235); Stanley, E, The road to hell: State violence against children in postwar New Zealand (Auckland University Press, 2016, page 2).

[44]Tennant, M, The fabric of welfare: Voluntary organisations, government, and welfare in New Zealand 1840–2005 (Bridget William Books, 2007, page 107).

[45]45 Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, Stolen Lives, Marked Souls: The inquiry into the Order of the Brothers of St John of God at Marylands School and Hebron Trust (2023).