I have been fighting the system for 5 years to maintain a connection with my grand daughter only to have Oranga Tamariki intervene and support an unnecessary uplift of my 3 year old grand daughter and her 7 month old sister in favour of the family members who deny they abused the mother of my grand daughter and her siblings.

At the end of March 2020 Oranga Tamariki asked my family and members of the extended family of my now 4 year old grand daughter to attend what they called a 'Whanau Hui'. They said this was to support the young parents and our babies. This meeting was a result of a cry for help as my granddaughter's mother was wanting help to address childhood abuse issues that are still traumatising her. 

OrangaTamariki also promised there would be no uplift.  Instead Oranga Tamariki supported another family member who remains loyal to the abusers to uplift our babies during Covid 19.  This happened while the rest of the family were supporting our pepi and her young parents through a support plan.  On April 9th 2020 my grand daughter and her little sister were uplifted.  The social worker and six policemen arrived to carry out the uplift and our pepi were taken out of the house screaming.  I was supposed to be picking moko up for a sleepover.

The five branches of my grand daughters extended family have not been allowed to see our pepi in person since the day of the uplift and we have been waiting for 12 months for Oranga Tamariki to put things right.  We have been promised and we still wait to see and experience some action from this system 

Disappointed, frustrated and annoyed are emotions that are not even close to what I am experiencing now as this lazy, unprofessional practice is the only reason why our babies did not get to spend Christmas with us.  

We have missed being a part of their first birthday and fourth birthday and they have missed out on participating in family holidays their cousins birthdays and all the days, minutes, hours and seconds in-between.  

How many more children and families need to suffer????  

I am petitioning for Oranga Tamariki social workers, their senior management, legal team and the head of Oranga Tamariki to be held accountable for the abuse and malpractice of tikanga, values, principles, te reo and their own interpretation of quite clear guidelines, values, policies and mission statement.

I am petitioning for the uplift of children under the disguise of Whanau Hui, FGC or any support meeting involving whanau to stop.

I am petitioning for Oranga Tamariki to be quite clear when they say there will be no uplift.....there will be no uplift.

Oranga Tamariki be honest, be kind, show some integrity and get our tikanga right or stop using our language, values and beliefs to abuse and use us.

I am petitioning to bring our babies back to us.