Evaluation of Kōkihi ngā Rito

Background#

This evaluation is the first in Aotearoa New Zealand to draw primarily on feedback from children themselves about how individualised family violence advocacy makes them safer. It evaluates the effectiveness of the National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges’ (NCIWR) child advocacy pilot - Kōkihi ngā Rito (KNR). The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) funded a specialist child advocate (Kaiārahi Tamariki, or KT) in six Women’s Refuge sites across the motu to work alongside tamariki aged 5 – 12 years old who have experienced family violence.

Aim#

The evaluation sought to identify whether, how, and to what extent children are safer as a result of participating in KNR.

Research approach and method#

Women’s Refuge is a specialist family violence organisation, set up by women and for women (and their children). KNR, in subtle contrast, was set up for tamariki (and their Mums) – a subtle but significant shift in whose safety is prioritised and by whose input safety-related advocacy gets prioritised.

The first objective in the design of this evaluation was  to maintain the integrity of this subtle but significant shift in both method and focus of inquiry. The research  prioritised the safety and visibility of children in two ways. First, a child-led research approach was designed that encompassed multiple adult gatekeeper roles to ensure that genuine, ongoing, and confident consent underpinned children’s participation, and that they participated in ways that worked best for them as children. The interview process utilised tools such as board-game style questioning and fun challenges and was supported by relational and cultural safety. Second, although starting from the core assumption that emerging ‘outcomes’ of KNR would relate to safety, the analysis privileged the ways tamariki themselves conceptualised safety and pivotal relationships, advocacy, and experiences of the pilot. A qualitative-dominant, mixed-method research approach was used, informed by feminist and anti-oppressive perspectives that account for the subjective, relational, and structurally-situated ways tamariki experience family violence, safety, and support.

Experiences of family violence are invariably structurally derived and imbued with feelings of powerlessness. To avoid replicating children’s feelings of powerlessness or silencing, the contributions of tamariki were positioned as the principal focus of inquiry and analysis, with the experiences of Refuge kaimahi as a secondary and supplementary focus. Accordingly, most attention was given to the qualitative data, which enabled greater conceptual complexity than the conclusions inferred by the descriptive statistics collected alongside the qualitative data. Ten tamariki (four Māori, four Pākehā, and two Pasifika) were interviewed,  as well as their five Māmā, and two Kaiārahi Tamariki. Additional focus groups were also carried out, which included six Kaiārahi Tamariki, six Managers, and three other Refuge kaimahi. The data from these interviews and focus groups were triangulated using a deep dive case analysis of 18 further tamariki (three per pilot Refuge). Interview and focus group recordings were transcribed and used as the basis for qualitative thematic analysis, supplemented by descriptive statistics drawn from outcomes information held on the files of KNR tamariki.

Findings#

From 1 August 2021 to 1 April 2023, 126 tamariki (aged four to 141 ) came into KNR because they were (and are) victims of family violence, perpetrated by a father or father figure. Many referred to the violence they experienced, saying “I like him at jail because he hurt Mum,” “he is not a safe person to me,” and “he was mean and hurt mum, he was mean to me sometimes.” They stayed in service for an average of five months, with the longest-supported tamaiti in service for 580 days.

Sustained, intensive, and individualised support was identifiable for tamariki of each age within the pilot. Tamariki involved in KNR showed markedly higher rates of lethality indicators in comparison to tamariki involved with Refuges generally. In addition, in contrast to other tamariki involved with Refuges, KNR tamariki were almost always put at risk by biological fathers who utilised statutory mechanisms to retain access to them, and who as a result had continuous opportunities to use violence against them and their Mums. Yet as a result of their engagement with KNR, they were kept safe from homicide, and, in the main, from further direct assaults. In addition, their feedback showed that KNR meant they suffered fewer losses, less psychological abuse, and less harm than they would have without KNR.

These snapshots of reduced risk show the following:

• Unlike children who are direct victims of family violence but do not receive long-term, individualised support, KNR kids received professional support that explored, documented, and addressed the harms and risks of family violence in their lives
• The nature of Kaiārahi Tamariki relationships with tamariki enabled them to disclose many risks that would otherwise remain unknown to their Mums and to services
• KNR tamariki had safety plans that were tailored to them, involved professionals as well as individual actions, and were effective at safeguarding them from further harm
• KNR tamariki were better heard and understood by other parts of the systems they interacted with, so their experiences of violence could be voiced and inform safer decision-making and organisational accountability within schools, courts, and other services
• Both tamariki and their Mums were able to access a much wider range of support and resources at the times they most needed them, as a result of long-term involvement with KNR
• Tamariki and their Mums experienced reciprocal benefits to their relationships and the functioning of their mutual home lives because of the recovery- and capacity-generating efforts of KNR. Tamariki said plainly and consistently that Kōkihi ngā Rito made them safer and made their lives better.

Safety outcomes are reflected in every dataset that was utilised: in the words of tamariki themselves, in the accounts given by their Mums, in the ratings tamariki assigned on their outcomes instrument, in their Recordbase files, and in Kaiārahi Tamariki reflections of KNR.

Read the full evaluation report