This is a state of care report for Aotearoa (New Zealand). It’s about what’s going well, what’s not, and what needs to change for children and youth in care in 2025.
Even though there are already many other reports about what’s going on in the care system, this one is different. For starters, it’s not really about the care system. It’s about whether children and youth feel cared for. Most reports about care focus on problems to be solved, standards to be monitored, risks to be managed, improvements to be made. Often in other reports, children and youth in care are reduced to small parts of a very big picture – parts of a system. But that system is their childhood. These are their lives. So this is the state of care according to the children and youth who live it. This report is theirs.
Whakarongo Mai (VOYCE) is dedicated to amplifying the voices of those children and youth. Co-written with care-experienced youth, and drawing on the experiences of hundreds of others, this report is about what matters to them. It’s filled with their words, their experiences, their questions and demands for accountability, their solutions, and hopes for the future.