12. Te Whakapakari Youth Programme (Whakapakari) was established at Mangati Bay on Aotea Great Barrier Island by John da Silva, on his family’s land. He was a wrestling champion of Portuguese, African, English and French Tahitian descent. He was awarded the Queen’s Service Medal including for his work with youth. He died in 2021.

13. Whakapakari was established in 1977 as a survival course to help rangatahi Māori recover from drug and solvent addiction. It was partly funded by the Department of Māori Affairs up until the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989.[14] Until then, the scale of the course was relatively confined. Only John da Silva received a salary, and supervisors were engaged on a voluntary basis.[15] The Inquiry did not receive allegations of abuse from survivors of abuse before 1988.

14. In 1989, after the Department of Māori Affairs was disestablished, John da Silva established the Whakapakari Youth Trust as the legal entity operating Te Whakapakari Youth Programme and broadened the scope of the programme.[16] The Department of Social Welfare funded placements at the programme from at least 1989,[17] but there is evidence that in 1988, four young people from Ōwairaka Boys’ Home, and five female young people from Weymouth and Bollard Girls’ Homes attended Whakapakari for 25 days.[18] Complaints were made of assault in 1989, resulting in a report[19], and a later recommendation that Child, Youth and Family cease referrals of those in State care to Whakapakari.[20] This recommendation was not followed.

15. It was not until 1990 that Te Whakapakari Youth Trust was formally approved as a Child and Family Support Service under section 396 of the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989.[21] Te Whakapakari Youth Trust also received funding from the Department of Health in 1990 and 1991 as part of an interdepartmental venture to fund substance abuse programmes.[22]

16. When the programme was approved by the Department of Social Welfare, the objects of the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act 1989 included establishing and promoting services and facilities within the community to advance the wellbeing of children, young persons, and their families and family groups. Such services were to have regard to the needs, values, and beliefs of particular cultural and ethnic groups. They were to be provided by persons and organisations sensitive to the cultural perspectives and aspirations of different racial groups in the community. In particular such services were to protect children and young persons from harm, ill-treatment, abuse, neglect, and deprivation and to give them the opportunity to develop in responsible, beneficial, and socially acceptable ways.

17. Whakapakari was set in an isolated hilly area of Aotea Great Barrier Island with no roads, power or other people.[23] Access was by boat only.[24] In a brochure advertising the programme, it was promoted for its focus on life and survival skills, fishing, hunting, gardening, gathering firewood and planning and preparing meals.[25]

18. The programme catered for 20 young people aged between 14 years old and 17 years old. The duration of the programme varied from one month in the early 1990s to between three and six months by 1995.[26] John da Silva and his wife Wilhelmina da Silva were responsible for the overall administration of the camp. They lived in a one-room bungalow at Mangati Bay. Four supervisors worked at any one time on the camp for four weeks at a time, then had two weeks off.[27]

19. Although it was open to children and young people from all ethnic groups, Whakapakari purported to be a kaupapa Māori programme.[28] The Inquiry saw no evidence of an assessment of the competence of those who operated Whakapakari to deliver a tikanga Māori programme as part of the initial or subsequent approval of State funding.

20. Some participants enjoyed the Māoritanga focus, which included Māori methods of fishing and food preparation, and the preparation of a pepeha.[29] However, in reality the programme permitted abuse of children in care. For most survivors there was no manaatikanga, only terror.[30]

21. It has not been possible to discern from the evidence how many young people were placed at Whakapakari.[31] Te Whakapakari Youth Trust was funded by the Department of Social Welfare and its successors on the basis of a payment per person, per night. In 1990, a total of 99 children and young people attended the programme, who were referred from 25 separate districts of the Department of Social Welfare.[32] In September 1997, Te Whakapakari Youth Trust sought a commitment to 5,000 nights per year, which would represent 20 young people staying at Whakapakari at any one time.[33] By 1995, the duration of the programme had increased to between three and six months for any individual young person, which renders it impossible to calculate the total number of young people attending per annum from the evidence provided to the Inquiry. Child, Youth and Family paid a total of $2,730,275 to Te Whakapakari Youth Trust between 1998 and 2005, when funding ceased.

22. The programme also utilised Whangara Island, a small island reached by a 10-minute boat ride from the main camp that had no shelter, fresh water or facilities. Young people were left there without supervision by way of punishment.[34] Accordingly, Whangara Island was referred to by staff and young people as ‘Alcatraz’.[35]

23. During the years that Te Whakapakari Youth Programme was in operation the department or agency responsible for the care of children went through multiple name changes and restructures. Up until 1992, care was the responsibility of the Department of Social Welfare. From 1992 to 1996 it was known as the New Zealand Children and Young Persons Service, a business unit within the Department of Social Welfare, before changing its business unit’s name again to the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Service (CYPFS) in 1996. It was briefly renamed the Children, Young Persons and their Families Agency (CYPFA) in 1999, to align its name with the legislation it was administering while remaining a business unit within the Department of Social Welfare. On 1 July 2006, it was amalgamated back into the Ministry of Social Development as a business unit under the name Child, Youth and Family (CYF). In April 2017, CYF was replaced by the Ministry of Vulnerable Children (now renamed Oranga Tamariki – Ministry for Children).

24. Despite allegations of abuse and multiple reviews of the programme throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, children and young people continued to be sent to Te Whakapakari Youth Programme up until 2004. Then, following further allegations of abuse, the organisation’s approval status was suspended in 2004. State funding for the programme was also suspended at this time and all children were removed from the island. The Child, Youth and Family Service severed its contractual relationship with Te Whakapakari Youth Trust in 2006.[36]

Whangara Island, the small island referred to as ‘Alcatraz’[37]

Footnotes

[14] Letter from Whakapakari to Director-General Social Welfare (20 November 1989).