Request for Proposals - Research into Māori involvement in the State Care System 1950 - 2000

Details

The Crown Secretariat requires an experienced, capable, kaupapa Māori research provider (potentially a small team or consortium) to help government agencies who are responding to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions (the Royal Commission).

Agencies want to better understand how Māori were involved in the State care system, including both the causes and impacts of Māori overrepresentation and how services and systems changed after the implementation of Puao Te Ata Tu and the 1989 Children, Young Persons and their Families Act

The research will examine the nature of Māori (including children, parents, whānau, hapū, iwi and communities) involvement with the care system from 1950 to 1999, in particular:
• the level, and causes, of over-representation of tamariki Māori in the State care system;
• any changes over time, taking into account the historical context, and legislative and policy changes, in particular the response to Puao Te Ata Tu and the implementation of the 1989 Act;
• any documented differentiation in how tamariki Māori, whānau and communities were treated by the State care system; and
• the experiences of Māori in the State care system.

We are looking for research that is as strongly grounded in documentary evidence as possible, while bearing in mind the limitations of the existing data, complemented with interviews and focus groups where appropriate. We want to know: what happened, why it happened, how it happened, and what were the impacts.

The Crown Secretariat is working with all the government agencies involved in the state care system and its day-to-day work programme is overseen by an Interagency Group made up of representatives from the five agencies named above, and the Ministry of Justice, New Zealand Police, Department of Corrections, Archives New Zealand, Te Puni Kōkiri, and the State Services Commission.