The mistakes, inaccuracies and unchecked claims that led to Oranga Tamariki permanently uplifting a child from her grandmother

Anna's granddaughter was taken from her by Oranga Tamariki in a matter of minutes. The Chief Ombudsman - who found the uplift should never have happened - says Anna's case is far from unique.

Anna* is busy packing for a weekend away at Hanmer Springs with her whānau when she spots two police officers and two social workers walking up the driveway.

At the door, they hand her a piece of paper.

"All I remember seeing was a comment that I was not allowing the children to go to school. My moko was terrified. We were all terrified."

The social workers have a without-notice uplift order giving Oranga Tamariki (then called Child Youth and Family) the power to remove Anna's seven-year-old granddaughter, Moana*, from her care.

Anna has been Moana's legal custodian since she was two. The child clings to Anna's legs as the police officers approach.

Anna remembers shouting at the police officers but says she did not physically fight them.

"They end up peeling her off me," she says.

Then they throw Anna on the couch and handcuff her, she claims.

In a matter of minutes Moana is gone, but it takes years for Anna to be vindicated and nearly a decade for those responsible to be held to account.

Because Moana's uplift should never have happened.

The affidavit that changed everything

The trouble starts in 2015 when Anna invites a relative, Steve* and his family, who are homeless at the time, to live with her while she recovers from surgery.

The Ministry for Children is in contact with Steve and his younger son while they are staying at Anna's place, because his teenage son has schizophrenia and is in hospital getting treatment under the Mental Health Act.

Three days before the uplift, an Oranga Tamariki social worker and two police officers drop by Anna's home to see Steve.

"They said they just wanted to check in with the family and support them," Anna says.

It's lunchtime so she offers them tea and toasted sandwiches while they chat. She remembers the atmosphere being cordial as they discuss a plan for when the older boy can return home.

She says the family even invite the visitors back for a proper meal if any future concerns arise.

"The social worker never mentioned any concerns [about me and Moana], she never asked me any questions. She seemed to imply all was well."

It comes as a total surprise then, when Moana is ripped from her arms that sunny May morning a few days later.

It is not until months later, when Anna gets hold of her file from the ministry under the Privacy Act that she is able to discover the reasons why.

The court granted the ministry a warrant allowing Moana's uplift - and later her permanent removal from Anna's care - based on an affidavit from a social worker she has never met, or even spoken to.

That affidavit raises concerns about Steve's mental health, contains claims he "fed" cannabis to the children and that he follows a "sharman" [sic] belief system the social worker believed was "cultish".

It also claims there has been "inappropriate sexualised behaviour by father and son", that there are constant parties at Anna's house and that Moana is not attending school because she is being "isolated and brainwashed".

Anna is not given a chance to dispute the claims because OT never puts them to her, and she is not even made aware of the court orders until they are granted.

As a result, for the next few years Anna is only allowed to have supervised access to her granddaughter, which has serious consequences for them both.

The uplift leaves Anna with complex post-traumatic stress disorder - something she still struggles with today - and her moko goes on to experience anxiety and depression.

Vindication - but too late

Anna spends the next few years dealing with Oranga Tamariki's internal complaints process, but unhappy with their responses, she asks the Ombudsman to investigate.

In November 2020, five years after the uplift, Anna is finally vindicated.

Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier finds a litany of errors, unverified allegations and poor social work led to Moana wrongly being removed from Anna's care.

The Ministry "acted unreasonably" and the uplift was based on "highly damaging unverified allegations" made by one social worker who failed to carry out due diligence, he finds.

He adds that there is no proof the children were given cannabis or that there were "cultish" and "shaman" belief systems impacting on them.

"It is not even clear what the social worker means by the reference to a 'shaman' belief system," he writes in his decision.

This story is part of an RNZ investigative series into Oranga Tamariki. Visit rnz.co.nz later this week to read part two, about the consequences for another family after the agency once again acted on unverified information.

There is also no evidence or records of concerns about inappropriate sexualised behaviour from Steve and his son, and claims Moana had missed an excessive amount of school are also incorrect.

"There was no evidence from the school to indicate that [the moko] was being held back from school due to brainwashing and/or cultish beliefs, however this is repeated throughout the file after the initial report of concern."

The claims were "extraordinary and unusual", yet no steps were ever taken to raise them with Anna or check if they were true, Boshier finds.

Poor record-keeping in OT's case management system and backdating of case notes contributed to the poor social work that led to Moana's removal.

"While Oranga Tamariki has acknowledged that it would manage the situation differently if it occurred today, it also stated that social work staff remain comfortable that the removal of [Anna's moko] was the correct course of action.

"Given the deficient process outlined above, I cannot see how this could be the case," Boshier writes.

"Oranga Tamariki has acknowledged that more consistent and up-to-date documentation is an essential part of their service, and that it would have helped to ensure accuracy and document thinking behind social work decisions," he concludes.

'Deeply frustrating' failures

Anna's story is not unique.

As well as investigating Anna's complaint, the Ombudsman also recounted her case in a damning report, Children in Care Complaints 2019-2023, published in February.

That report identified poor record-keeping, failing to act on reports of concerns, providing inaccurate and biased information to the courts, and failing to act on verified information as concerning themes at OT.

Boshier found that even when OT admitted its mistakes, its apologies were "inadequate or unreasonable".

The ministry has a legal obligation under the Public Records Act to keep accurate records and Boshier's report noted that it has since updated its policies and procedures to ensure court documents are accurate and balanced, and reviewed its complaints and ex-gratia complaints policy.

Yet despite these efforts, there appears to be little change at the ministry, Boshier tells RNZ.

In October, Boshier slammed OT yet again for more record-keeping failures and not properly investigating multiple reports of concern about assaults and violence against very young children in one family, in a case that also included inaccurate filing of information to the courts.

He recommended OT apologise to the Family Court and correct the information wrongly provided, which it has done.

The repeated cycle of promises of change and repeated failures are "deeply frustrating", Boshier says.

Perhaps more worrying, Boshier says he has noticed biased information still being filed by OT with the Family Court.

"From our case work of complaints we've detected that in order for Oranga Tamariki to get an order from a judge, they gave information which was incomplete and biased in order to achieve the result, that I assume a social worker or a supervisor wanted to achieve.

"Instead of impartial records of exactly what had occurred, there was a fairly demonstrated selectivity to best obtain the order that the person wanted."

For Boshier, a former principal Family Court Judge, it is a serious issue.

"As a judge who did much of this work, you are working at real speed and must rely on the accuracy of information.

"If it's not accurate, there is injustice, and I fear that's what happens as a result of poor flow of information and poor record-keeping," he says.

"A judge can, with a stroke of a pen, move care of a child from one parent to another and it's enforced coercively.

"You cannot get a more serious situation than that, and if you're doing it on unreliable information, frankly, that is unforgivable."

Oranga Tamariki rejects Boshier's claim that it is intentionally providing inaccurate information to the court.

"We strongly reject any suggestion that this is routine or systemic practice within Oranga Tamariki," chief social worker and deputy chief executive of professional practice Nicolette Dickson says in a statement after declining to be interviewed.

"Any suggestion that the court has been misled, whether intentional or not, is a matter we take extremely seriously.

"Oranga Tamariki make hundreds of applications to the Family Court every year and these applications are based on information carefully gathered by our social workers, robustly tested and guided by the purposes and principles of the Oranga Tamariki Act.

"Our social workers interact with complex family situations daily, gathering sensitive information in order to ensure the right decisions are made to keep children safe. Ensuring this information is recorded and presented in a factual, balanced and appropriate way is a core part of their role and professional obligations."

As chief social worker, she speaks to social workers every day.

"[They] are acutely aware of the responsibility they carry in their statutory role and the need to carefully weigh and assess all information in order to make safe decisions for children.

"Social workers do not work in isolation. They have the support of their supervisors and other senior staff including solicitors. We do not have any evidence to suggest the concerns found in these cases investigated by the Ombudsman are widespread across our practice with the Family Court."

The ministry notes that of the 2142 complaints received by the Ombudsman between 2019-2023, Bosher found deficiencies in OT's practices in 61 cases.

"The report notes that in some of these cases, he found that information provided to the Family Court was inaccurate, outdated, incomplete or biased," Dickson says.

"We acknowledge that in a very small number of these investigations there has been a finding that the information provided by Oranga Tamariki to the court was inaccurate or did not present a full and balanced picture.

"We are always looking to improve and strengthen the resources available to support our social workers in the challenging decisions they are faced with making. This includes guidance, training and practice tools.

"To date we have strengthened guidance about providing information to the court, introduced stronger legal training for new social workers and are in the process of introducing new practice tools to support good assessment and decision making," Dickson said.

Case management system 'old and difficult to use'

Numerous reports have also found OT's case management system, CYRAS, is not up to scratch.

Dickson admits it is "old and difficult to use". A $62.5 million upgrade is under way, but will take about six years to complete.

Better IT systems may not be enough to stop history repeating, Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers chief executive Nathan Chong-Nee says.

"Record keeping is an essential part of maintaining social work integrity. While we acknowledge that Oranga Tamariki seeks to improve its IT systems, these need to be matched with proper training and resources for social workers.

"The reality is that quality practice is often hindered by high workloads and under-resourced environments."

Chong-Nee says Oranga Tamariki social workers are already overburdened and under-resourced.

"Job losses, even in 'back-office' roles, are going to greatly reduce the capacity of social workers to meaningfully support tamariki."

Chong-Nee is concerned about the recent restructuring at OT, which saw 419 jobs disestablished, including the role of chief social worker, which is now absorbed into Dickson's role.

An earlier proposal to cut six dedicated record-keeping roles was reversed.

"Without strong social work leadership, Oranga Tamariki social workers will struggle to maintain a culture of critical reflection and continuous improvement - which has been a central goal in recent years," Chong-Nee says.

"Our focus remains on ensuring social workers have the necessary training, resources, and manageable workloads to maintain high standards of practice and record keeping."

Mana Mokopuna Children's and Young Person's Commissioner, Claire Achmad, is worried by the length of time it takes to get complaints about OT resolved, something also identified by the Ombudsman.

"I continue to call for Oranga Tamariki to focus on getting the basics right. Right now, Oranga Tamariki is too far away from that," she says.

"When it comes to record-keeping, we know that it requires good practice from those who are working directly with children and young people, but it also requires the right systems and processes to be happening in the background."

Nine years on, some resolution

Nine years after her moko was taken from her, Anna has finally had some resolution.

In October, more than three years after she laid a complaint, the Social Work Registration Board's Professional Conduct Committee recommended the social worker who filed the court affidavit based on unverified allegations be formally censured, put under supervision and apologise to Anna.

The PCC found the social worker had breached professional standards after she "misrepresented certain unverified allegations as facts", and her definition of Moana's situation "became the accepted version and recorded as fact, which resulted in long-term negative consequences for both [Moana and Anna]".

While the social worker did not knowingly try to deceive the Family Court, there was a lack of recorded evidence about what had taken place, the PCC found.

"Recording is a cornerstone of professional social work and its absence affected the integrity of subsequent decisions concerning [Moana's] care and her access with her grandmother."

There was no meaningful communication with Anna before or after the uplift, and she was not given the opportunity to address the allegations in the affidavit, it found.

"The PCC was disheartened to see the powerlessness of [Anna] once the allegations were made and [Moana] was removed from her care, and the lack of respect she received."

OT has also apologised to Anna for its failings, and earlier this year, offered her an ex-gratia payment of $4000, which she has refused to accept, calling it "a joke".

She has spent more than that on counselling for the complex PTSD she has had as a result of the uplift, she says. Her requests to have the ex-gratia payment re-assessed by OT have been declined.

But it is not about the money, she says.

What she really wants is a face-to-face meeting with the social workers who were involved in her case and the uplift.

While the ministry has been promising this will happen since Anna laid her first complaint in 2017, it still has not happened.

"We have tried to make this happen in a manner that meets the complainant's expectations but for several reasons we have not been able to," Dickson says.

The Ombudsman's findings are now attached to Anna's file, and the ministry wants to work with her to correct the records that are inaccurate, Dickson says.

OT takes complaints about inaccurate or incomplete record keeping seriously, she says. "If inaccuracies are identified and verified, Oranga Tamariki will correct them."

Boshier has recommended that OT develop guidance and training for staff working with people who needed to correct errors in their records "in a trauma-informed manner", which OT says it is doing.

But Anna says the process offered to her to date has been "triggering".

"They suggested I go through it with post-it notes. There was just so much incorrect information. It was very triggering. I just couldn't do it."

Anna laments the years, the sheer effort and time it has taken to get OT to be held accountable.

Nine years is a long time to keep fighting, but she says she kept going so other families do not have to go through what happened to her.

Despite finally getting a resolution in her case, she is sceptical about whether there will be lasting improvements to the system.

"It takes such a long time to get complaints resolved and because of this, staff are never held accountable. This is why things never change," she says.

The ripples of the uplift continue to affect her and Moana, who is now 17, even today.

"I've had to watch her go through some stuff. She tried to take her own life last year as all this stuff comes out now. What's happened to her has been devastating. My moko has suffered and my relationships have suffered.

"It's too late for my moko to come back into my care now, but why does this have to keep happening?"

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