Youth advocate Ihorangi Reweti-Peters has a message for Oranga Tamariki following the gruesome acts by two young boys in Parklands which has shocked and angered the community.

A family was traumatised after the boys broke into their home on Friday, beheading their pet fish.

The two children, aged six and nine, from the local neighbourhood, entered their property causing extensive damage.

Youth advocate, 17-year-old Ihorangi Reweti-Peters was uplifted from his parents at 6 months old and has been through 21 different placements across the country since entering state care age 10.

He told Chris Lynch “what really struck me was these young people are obviously not having their needs met within the home and Oranga Tamariki was not stepping up and intervening.”

Reweti-Peters said with these people now going out into the community and vandalising and beheading animals, Oranga Tamariki needed ‘to step up their game and intervene with this family to make sure that firstly, these young people are safe, and that the community and society, in general, are comfortable with these kids being in the community.”

Reweti-Peters said Oranga Tamariki is a Government department, and if it’s in the best interests of the family and the children, then an uplift should take place.

“But Oranga Tamariki is probably scared of bad publicity, but they’re a government department again, so they should learn to handle that.

They going to face bad publicity out in the public domain. And that’s just a thing that all government departments have to deal with.”

Reweti-Peters said “we need to restart the conversation – we need to look at what is happening in homes, so that could be providing wraparound support to that the mother to support her and her needs, but also then getting community’s advice on what actually needs to happen.”

Oranga Tamarki has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

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