1. This part of the report, consistent with clause 31 (d) of the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference, looks at the circumstances that led individuals to be taken into or placed into State and faith-based care during the Inquiry period, as well as movements between care settings. Where possible, estimates of how many people went into care between 1950 and 1999 are set out, including estimates of entries across settings and groups.

2. Chapter 2 discusses the various pathways and circumstances that led to children and young people being placed or taken into social welfare care settings. Structural and social circumstances are examined, including poverty, families in distress, and abuse and neglect at home. Direct pathways through the courts and voluntary admission are discussed. How racism contributed to Māori and Pacific children and young people being taken into care, including how Māori became the majority of those who entered social welfare settings are also expanded on.

3. Chapter 3 discusses the various pathways and circumstances that led to a person being placed or taken into faith-based settings or accessing faith-based settings, in particular, admissions into faith-based education, children’s homes and foster care, and unmarried mothers’ homes. Access to pastoral care and the shift from the State’s heavy reliance on faith-based care settings to the decline of admissions into these settings from the 1970s, influenced by changing social attitudes are expanded on.

4. Chapter 4 discusses pathways for Deaf people and disabled people into care, including social circumstances. Ableism, the State’s institutionalisation policy, and the shift from large-scale institutional care to community-based living from the 1970s for disabled people are set out.

5. Chapter 5 discusses pathways and circumstances that led to a person being placed or taken into psychiatric and mental health care settings, the legal mechanisms for admissions, the reasons survivors were admitted into care (including for discriminatory reasons) and the shift from large-scale institutions to local hospitals and community services.

6. Chapter 6 discusses pathways and circumstances that led to a person being placed or taken into other types of care within the Inquiry’s scope, specifically adoption, transitional and law enforcement, and health camps. Chapter 7 sets out the Inquiry’s key findings.

7. Throughout this Part the specific circumstances into care for Māori, Pacific Peoples, Deaf, disabled people, tāngata Turi Māori and tāngata Whaikaha Māori are discussed. How these survivors experienced disproportionate entries into care are examined, and how their entries were influenced by structural, systemic, and interpersonal discrimination and inequity. In the Inquiry’s State Institutional Response Hearing, the Crown acknowledged in its closing statement:

“Institutional or structural racism and ableism in legislation, policy and systems have contributed to the disproportionate representation, and discriminatory treatment, of Māori, Pacific people, disabled people, and Deaf people in care.”[1]