Tihei mauriora, tihei mana motuhake: Breathing mauri and mana motuhake into the lives of rangatahi Māori who offend

Māori youth are severely over-represented in the negative youth justice indices, with the youth court appearance rate for Māori young people 8.4 times higher than that of non-Māori. Despite this, there is a dearth of research about the experiences of rangatahi Māori who offend and their experiences of trauma. This presentation will share findings from a multidisciplinary kaupapa Māori research project investigating trauma in the lives of rangatahi Māori classified as serious youth offenders. The research builds on recent PhD findings (Cliffe-Tautari, 2021) which indicated that Māori youth who offend, and their whānau, experience considerable trauma in their lives prior to, and during the times of rangatahi offending; including trauma resulting from state intervention into their lives. This project explores how mātauranga Māori notions of mauri may be more effective from a kaupapa Māori perspective in responding to these issues, rather than western notions of ‘trauma-informed practice’. In this presentation we share what the research has found so far, including from wānanga with Māori youth workers in kaupapa Māori organisations working with these rangatahi and whānau. Wānanga has been used as the primary method for this qualitative research project, to explore the views of those working with these rangatahi in order to determine whether notions of mauri resonate with them as an effective tool for their mahi, and potentially a more effective tool than non-Māori approaches to these issues. Implications of our findings for law and policy reform will also be discussed, such as the fact that our legal framework for youth justice currently makes no mention of trauma, let alone kaupapa Māori approaches to trauma.