Whānau give back to their community and work on their wellness
In August this year, our Wairau team started to run the award-winning Te Pae Oranga programme with the Police, with successful outcomes in the first month.
Rather than ending up in court or a cell, Te Pae Oranga is an opportunity for people 17 years and over to repair the harm their minor offending has caused their community, and to have health challenges addressed. Te Pae Oranga is credited with bringing an 11.9 percent fall in reoffending among Māori aged 17 to 24.
People who have perhaps shop-lifted, stolen a bike on the street, or driven without a license, meet with an Iwi Community Panel to talk about who they are, where they are from, and why they did it. The panel listens and uncovers any unaddressed issues, before agreeing to appropriate reparation and accessing health services for the offenders.
In its first month, the Wairau Iwi Community Panel worked with 21 people, mostly aged between 18 and 25 years old, with great success. Two examples of reparation for minor offences include a fisherman giving Te Piki Oranga 20 kilograms of fish for whānau in our Wairau community who need food. Another person has committed to assisting a local rugby club with coaching. These are positive outcomes that are appropriate to these people and their offending, and are meaningful to the community.
As well as working through how people would repair the harm they caused, the panel identified a number of undiagnosed or unsupported health problems, such as mental health or drug issues. Links have now been made to appropriate services to help them get better.
Addressing the underlying reasons for offending is an important part of the holistic Te Pau Oranga process, rather than incarceration, after which, the statistics show, it is highly likely that people will reoffend.
Te Piki Oranga has been running Te Pae Oranga for 26 months in Whakatū, with more than 200 people having successfully worked with the local Iwi Community Panel.
