This can be attributed to Brigid Kean, Deputy National Commissioner:

Corrections welcomes the release of the independent Corrections Inspectorate’s thematic report on managing pregnant women and mothers of infants in prison. It’s pleasing to see that the Inspectorate noted that all three women’s prisons provide warm and comfortable environments for mothers, and that women spoke warmly about the support they received from staff.

However, we acknowledge there is always more for us to do. The report makes seven recommendations, and Corrections has accepted six and partially accepted the seventh. The recommendations are consistent with many areas for improvement we have identified ourselves and align with work we already have underway.

One significant step we have already taken is the introduction of First Night Centres at some of our sites – Te Waharoa Whakatautangata at Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility and the Kōrero Awhi at Arohata Prison. These are receiving units dedicated to identifying the immediate needs of women who come into custody at the earliest opportunity, including needs around pregnancy or children, so we can put all the appropriate support in place to meet those needs.

We are conscious of the need to do better when it comes to collecting information on women arriving in prison who have children under two years old and there has already been work done in this area by our health team, in conjunction with Oranga Tamariki. This is a complex area, and we need to consider privacy considerations around the storage of information for children who are not in Corrections’ care, and how to manage situations where women choose not to disclose information. Cross-agency work is progressing in response to the report, ‘Joint Review into the Children’s Sector: Identification and response to suspected abuse’, which was released in late 2022. This work will help strengthen information collection and sharing across agencies and will guide how we can respond to this recommendation.

We know how important contact with friends and family is to people in prison, particularly pregnant women and women with children in the community. Since the onset of COVID-19 we have been providing free calls to all prisoners, originally through the provision of phone cards and this has progressed into a network-wide upgrade to the prison payphone system.  

While family visits have been impacted by COVID-19 and staffing pressures in recent years, currently 17 of our 18 prisons are open for visits, including all three women’s prisons. Since October 2022 Christchurch Women’s Prison has provided regular child-centred visits in conjunction with Storytime Foundation. These have been received well by women and their families, supporting not just the maintenance of relationships with children but also assisting in building stronger relationships. We are also working on implementing the Kea Project, which creates a safe and welcoming environment for children visiting a parent in prison, at Auckland Region Women's Corrections Facility. You can find out more about the Kea Project on our website.

We acknowledge that miscarriage, termination of a pregnancy or giving birth to a child who remains in the community when the mother returns to prison is a traumatic time for women and we are committed to making improvements in how we support them. We will be looking at how we can ensure staff are better equipped to identify signs of need, know what support is available, and organise referrals for specialist care.

Corrections Officers are hired to work as custodial staff within a variety of units and there are other specialist roles specifically recruited to support mothers and babies in our prisons, such as social workers.  Expressions of interest are utilised to seek out custodial staff who are particularly interested in working within Mothers with Babies units. It is important custodial staff in these units are suitable for this specific work, but also working across different environments to meet roster requirements, particularly in light of current staffing pressures. We are currently developing a training package for staff who support women in the Mothers with Babies units, and our service providers in the units already provide informal training and support for staff.

As part of our Women’s Strategy, work is already underway on an assurance framework to provide confidence in the systems and processes involved in managing women in prison. We completed our Pregnancy Care Plan in November 2021 and this includes a checklist of all the things sites need to do for pregnant women.

The Inspectorate also made a recommendation that we should consider how children’s visits are managed by similar overseas jurisdictions and incorporate that into our processes. We already look at what we can learn from our colleagues working in international jurisdictions and will continue to do so, however we are also conscious of recognising, in particular, a Te Ao Māori world view, which is an important consideration to many of the women we manage.

The recommendation to develop a Practice Centre was partially accepted because we believe this could be an overly prescriptive approach that does not account for the importance of tailoring our support and management to the individual needs of pregnant women and mothers. We have committed to developing guidance, which we feel is more appropriate to support the personal circumstances of each woman.

Notes:

As of Wednesday 27 September, there are nine women and six babies in our three Mothers with Babies units. Three of the mothers are pregnant.

You can see more about our women’s strategy here: https://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/strategic_reports/wahine_e_rere_ana_ki_te_pae_hou_womens_strategy

Also please see information provided to women on the Mothers with Babies units here:  https://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/information_brochures/mothers_with_babies_unit

This link is to a recent 1 News story about a visit to the Mothers with Babies unit at Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility - the video that is available features a woman in prison talking about her experience: https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/05/16/mothers-day-in-prison-with-my-baby-im-learning-and-im-growing/