Whanganui woman accepted into Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity programme

Whanganui woman Jo Voice has been accepted into the Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity. Photo / Bevan Conley

Jo Voice wants whānau caregivers to be given the same support as Government agency caregivers.

And the Whanganui woman will get to spend a year looking at the issue after being selected for the prestigious Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity programme, based at the University of Melbourne.

In her foundation year in 2023, Voice will get to work towards a postgraduate qualification in social change leadership.

She will design a service or resource for extended whānau caregivers so they can make informed decisions about providing care, with a commitment to ongoing support, so children can thrive outside of state care.

“When a child comes to the attention of child protection services and they are not able to safely remain in their parents’ care, extended whānau are often asked to make the decision to provide care in emotionally charged time-pressured circumstances with little information or offer of ongoing support,” Voice said.

She said this happened before a child was in the custody of a statutory agency.

“When a child is in the custody of a statutory agency, they have a caregiver who comes under the umbrella of the agencies, who receives training, resources and support to care for the child through the agency.”

She said whānau caregivers were not entitled to the same support that agency caregivers were entitled to, but were still being asked to care for children who had similar experiences as those with statutory agency caregivers.

She said her project was about ensuring the same support was available for whānau caregivers.

“There’s a real push to reduce the number of children in care and to have social workers intervene less in their lives.

“And from working in that space, I could see the number of children coming into care was reducing, but I knew the number of children who were at-risk or unsafe wasn’t reducing.”

She said that was because many children were often going into the care of extended whānau caregivers.

Voice said the pendulum had swung, but the funding and resources hadn’t followed yet.

“It’s not a criticism, because the agencies are responsible for the state caregivers, but there’s no-one specifically responsible for the whānau caregivers.”

From her experience talking with extended whānau caregivers, often they didn’t know what it was going to be like or what help they were entitled to, Voice said.

She said she doesn’t know what the final project will look like yet, but it would be determined by having conversations with family caregivers and understanding what support they needed.

The foundation year is funded, with ongoing support opportunities available for projects.

She said the whānau caregivers had to be taken care of because they were the closest to the children.

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gosling.”

The fellowship was formed in 2016 with funding from Atlantic Philanthropies, a foundation established by American humanitarian Chuck Feeney.

Voice is one of 18 new fellows chosen for next year.

When they complete a foundation year of full-time study, fellows become part of a global community of over 900 Atlantic Fellows across six programmes to bring international visibility to their local communities, social change projects and advocacy.

“The benefit is being in an international community of like-minded people who basically want to change the world,” she said.