CORRECTIONS is leading the world in treating child sex offenders, with Cultural Consultant Mate Webb playing a pivotal role in the treatment of offenders at the Te Piriti Special Treatment Unit in Auckland.
Although intensive treatment programmes similar to the ones offered by Te Piriti and the Christchurch-based Kia Marama unit are used elsewhere in the world, Corrections’ groundbreaking treatment of Maori men is making prison psychologists worldwide sit up and take notice. Te Piriti Manager Jim van Rensburg says the unique way in which Maori culture is part of the treatment process has not been replicated anywhere else in the world.
Groundbreaking treatment of child sex offenders: Mate Webb and Jim van Rensberg at Te Piriti.
Specialised treatment of child sex offenders in New Zealand began in 1989 with the opening of Kia Marama - a 60-bed unit at Rolleston Prison in Christchurch. In 1994 the 60-bed Te Piriti unit at Auckland Prison opened to meet the growing need for treatment of North Island men whose support systems, such as whanau, were in the North.
Te Piriti is a medium-security unit which, like its sister unit, Kia Marama, was designed to treat men who have committed sexual offences against children. The primary aim of treatment is to help participants avoid re-offending.
Participants volunteer to enrol in the programme, but to gain admittance, they need to demonstrate a reasonable command of English and ideally they won’t have mental health issues. Most attend Te Piriti for about nine months as part of their sentence, but some stay for 12 months or longer.
Jim says from its inception Te Piriti staff have striven to create a user friendly environment for participants in its treatment programme.
“Essentially, this had been achieved by creating a bi-cultural kawa or way of doing business,” says Jim. “Māori men and visitors to the unit receive a traditional Māori welcome and Māori participants are encouraged to use traditional tikanga practices such as opening meetings or group therapy sessions with a karakia (prayer) and making good use of whanau involvement prior to their release. Māori participants can also consult with a tohunga (healer/spiritual leader) which some do.
“The cultural component of the programme is based on our belief that Māori men connected to their cultural identity are more likely to regain their self-respect and motivation to adopt a more positive lifestyle.”
From a therapeutic point of view, says Jim, the Māori cultural influence in the unit serves a very practical purpose by helping Māori participants feel at home, therefore breaking down their resistance to what could be seen as “Pakeha” therapy.
“There’s no doubt about it. Once they feel more relaxed they’re generally more open to the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) which addresses their sexual abuse and related aspects of their offending.”
Due to its inclusive nature, tikanga practices also help non-Māori participants feel accepted as part of the “whanau” at Te Piriti where they often enrol in typical Māori activities such as kapa haka, carving and waiata.
A comprehensive evaluation completed and published in 2002 reported that Māori and non-Māori men who completed the Te Piriti programme had a 5.47 percent sexual re-offending rate – significantly less than a comparable untreated control group of Māori and non-Māori convicted sex offenders who had a sexual recidivism rate of 21 percent. An interesting aspect of the report was its finding in respect of Māori men in particular. Their sexual reoffending rate (4.41 percent) was shown to be even better than that of their non-Māori counterparts, which was in the order of 6.02 percent.
The report says “that in a generic sense, offending by Māori had been contextualised into a non-Māori paradigm (theoretical framework) meaning that Māori behaviours are continually defined outside of their cultural context and subsequent treatments are often inappropriate and lacking in cultural sensitivity”. Last year, this culturally friendly approach earned the unit an international award from the International Corrections and Prison Association.
Jim says tikanga Māori and Western psychology come from such different perspectives that proponents of both models initially thought it impossible for the two to be brought together for the purpose of treating offenders.
“Part of the problem has been the two approaches not combining effectively. Māori offenders relying on tikanga inputs only would often find themselves re-offending because their offending needs weren’t being addressed. On the other hand some Māori offenders could find typical Western therapeutic methods too direct and focused on only one part of their life, missing the bigger picture or context in which their offending took place.”
Jim says by applying tikanga Māori practices, Te Piriti is focused on developing an intervention that embraces and values every dimension of human life and it’s important that Te Piriti staff do have a good grasp of both Pakeha and Māori worldviews.
Early this year, Te Piriti Cultural Consultant Mate Webb was awarded a post graduate Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) from Massey University. Mate was born and raised at Omaio in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. Of Te Whanau-A-Apanui decent, he acknowledges affiliation to five other iwi.
Following his appointment to Te Piriti in 2003, Mate developed a keen interest in the successes achieved at the unit where the CBT programme was presented in conjunction with tikanga practices. He’s familiar with most aspects of Māori culture and is fluent in te reo Māori. Although he would be the first to acknowledge the distinct differences in the application of tikanga by the various iwi throughout the country, Mate is able to recognise these and to adapt his approach accordingly.
CBT aims to challenge and modify irrational or unhelpful thoughts, feelings and behaviour by focusing on changing the way people think in certain situations and ultimately changing the way they behave. Importantly, it also helps people understand themselves better.
During his practicum year, Mate completed two case studies on Māori clients. Raised in a traditional Māori environment, the first had been diagnosed with chronic depression.
“He was a gang member who was terrified about having to face the gang when released. He’d abused children which is an absolute no-no among gangs. While many gang members consider it OK to sexually abuse women, children are generally not touched,” Mate says.
“I worked closely with the man, impressing on him the importance of his whanau and how fortunate he was to have their support. That was a key part of the cultural component of the treatment. The CBT was used to reduce his depression through role play and thought tracking processes which included showing him how to respond to the gang members when he came face to face with them”.
As Cultural Advisor, Mate is often called on to explain tikanga Māori concepts to programme participants and in particular, to assist Māori participants to understand and embrace the principles of CBT behaviour change in terms of familiar tikanga Māori beliefs. An example of this would be the holistic Māori Tapa Wha model used to explain the critical dimensions of human nature, i.e. an intellectual, spiritual and emotional, social being. These concepts are then translated to reconcile with similar CBT concepts such as thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
Mate says he’s learned to be truly client-centred in his approach. “I’m very aware that no-one can assume that Māori clients will necessarily prefer to be treated along the tikanga approach only. Many Māori from urban backgrounds may prefer a more direct western approach to their problem, rather than the traditional holistic and indirect approach adopted by tikanga practitioners. find it useful to move from one approach to the other depending on the client’s needs.”
Victoria University Senior Psychology Lecturer James Vess supports this approach saying that in recent years, research has begun to demonstrate that properly focused, well structured treatment programmes can effectively reduce the rate of sexual reoffending among those who successfully complete the programme.
“The most effective programmes have been those based on a CBT approach that address the thoughts, feelings and behaviours directly associated with sexual offending,” Dr Vess says.
“However, available evidence suggests that a standardised, one-size-fits-all approach to relapse prevention is not particularly effective. What seems to be needed is the integration of specific elements of CBT into a broader understanding of the factors that allow offenders to live rewarding, offence-free lives.”
Dr Vess says Te Piriti appears to actively embrace this approach to treatment.
“The recognition of cultural and spiritual needs, along with a strong emphasis on family and social relationships, are crucial to helping offenders apply the skills learned in treatment to the context of their individual lives. My experience in the United States was that we could provide rigorous, carefully designed treatment to offenders who would then leave those skills behind at the door when they left the treatment programme. A programme such as that offered at Te Piriti appears to have a much better chance of allowing offenders to integrate and use the gains made in treatment to build meaningful lives for themselves.”
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The Te Piriti programme
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ISSN 1178-8453