Year of birth: 1999
Type of care facility: Foster homes
Ethnicity: Māori (Ngāpuhi)
Whānau background: Karah is one of eight siblings who all grew up in care, but spent time living with their mother as well. Her siblings have different fathers to her. Her mother also grew up in care.
Currently: Karah had an up and down relationship with her mother, who has now passed away. She doesn’t have a relationship with her father. Karah works in youth advocacy. Her relationship to Te Ao Māori is important to her.

My mum had been in care in the 70s and was abused by her caregivers. In comparison, my experience was more neglect than abuse. From my mum’s generation, her and all her siblings went into care. It’s the same for my generation of siblings and first cousins, except one person that I know of.

We all ended up in care because Mum had no support and she had a lot of mental illness so she couldn’t be there for us. She started having babies in her 20s and CYFS was involved from the start. I don’t think she or my dad were capable of understanding how to be a parent.

I went into care in 2000 when I was a 1 year old. I went into a couple of houses in Hawke’s Bay and then a long-term one in Auckland. It’s a bit patchy.

My main placement was with a family member on my mum’s side. I guess she was the only family available at the time – it was pretty rough. She told us that our mum didn’t want us, so we didn’t have a relationship with Mum growing up. At first, me and one of my older sisters, and some of our cousins, all lived with her. But it would have been better to be with family that cared about us. It was very hierarchical there. I didn’t feel like there was really any other option, like anywhere else to be.

I had a social worker. They’d do home visits, but but beforehand we’d get told: “You can’t talk about this shit.”

In the end, there were nine of us living with her. Four of them weren’t through CYFS, it was just whāngai and their parents lived close by. One of the kids had a disability so she would look after them and the rest of the siblings just ended up over there too.

I don’t feel like it was like severely abusive, to be fair. We were taught to fight each other, so there was always violence in the home. We were really unsupported and it was really shit.

We were told there was nowhere else to go, and if CYFS were to get involved again then we might all get separated. I’m so grateful for my her, because she did keep us together, but it’s a really twisted dynamic.

School was my happy place. It was where I got away. I mentioned it at school once, and they tried to put me into counselling. Then I got hidings for that because you need your parents’ or caregivers’ permission to go into counselling. I think that was the only time I ever said anything about it.

She died when I was 13. Some of my family went over to Australia, and me and my younger siblings went down with my mum to Hawke’s Bay. But because me and my mum didn’t have a relationship I just ended up house-hopping and I was pretty much homeless until I was 16. CYFS knew about this, but they wouldn’t get involved because I was nearing the age you could get out of care, and they didn’t want to do anything.

I had a really tough time in my teenage years. I’d stay at partners’ houses or friends’ places or in empty houses – there were a lot around, because they weren’t earthquake safe. There was one social worker who got a bit more involved when I was 15 years old, but they didn’t do anything, they just came round more and checked in.

I was going to school when I could. I feel like a lot of people did try to offer something – teachers at school said I could live with them. One teacher took me up to Auckland with her for a couple of weeks to give me space from the stuff I was involved with, which was really cool, but I think I made it quite hard for people to get involved.

I don’t think I knew how to cope with anything. I had really bad mental health and I was grieving over my grandma’s death. She had been the only form of caretaker I knew. I got really involved with drugs and stuff. But I realised that everyone older than me in my family had been through the same kind of journey and felt like there was no hope, that that was where we were destined to go in life. I didn’t want my siblings to see me like that and it sorted me out pretty quick.

I kept up a good academic record, so teachers gave me a chance. I started going back to school regularly when I was about 16 years old. I went on the independent circumstances benefit and then started flatting. It was good, it was safe and stable. That wasn’t something I’d really had, which was a big thing.

I finished school, went to uni, but dropped out in my last semester because it was just another thing I was doing to show my siblings that it was an option.

As a child I didn’t understand the care system. It was portrayed to me as the best we were going to get. With CYFS, I think they wanted to keep children with family, but the family options that were there weren’t good. But CYFS weren’t willing to look outside of that, so ignored it when things got bad. I always felt like they were hesitant to involve themselves in our lives, even though we were already involved with them. CYFS didn’t see this ongoing need for support, it was just a one and done approach. But they’re supposed to be there for the welfare of children.

Oranga Tamariki should not be a thing. Renaming something, giving it a Māori name but then not being able to show up for our Māori families is not acceptable.

Instead of putting all of these funds and resources into Oranga Tamariki, put the same amount into community-based support systems so families have the support and resources available to them before there has to be an uplift or an intervention. That would decrease a lot of the problems that children experience.

At this point, it’s a disservice to our country to keep a system like this.

Source

Private session transcript of Karah Mackie (21 February 2023).