In the year to July, Oranga Tamariki had registered almost 200 open cases of sexual assault against children in the Bay of Plenty.

Organisations like sexual harm support service Tautoko Mai say they are under-resourced for dealing with the number of reports they receive of sexual assault.

The organisation has successfully launched a pilot programme, with help from Tauranga City Council, designed to protect 3 to 5-year-old children against sexual assault, as well as help parents and loved ones identify grooming behaviour when they see it.

Aleyna Martinez attended a session to find out more.

“We can’t keep burying our head in the sand when it comes to sexual assault against children,” says Julie Sach, chief executive of sexual harm support service Tautoko Mai.

“This does happen to young children and giving children resources early is really important,” Sach told the Bay of Plenty Times.

For the first time in Tauranga, We Can Keep Safe, a prevention programme to protect children from sexual harm has been rolled out to early childhood education centres with support from Tauranga City Council.

The session

The children as young as 3 sitting on the mat together at Elm Tree were unaware they were being delivered a sexual harm prevention programme because of the expertise behind it, said Helen Nijssen, a lead specialist in child protection at Tautoko Mai.

Children took part eagerly and unembarrassed with trained Tautoko Mai contractor and teacher Tiffany Matthews.

Dressed as a farmer for the first module, she asked the children what they do after they’ve been outside and got dirty, taking them through a bathtime scenario.

She engaged kids by asking them to name her male and female cardboard cut-out dolls for the exercise.

The group named them “Donna” for the girl and “Son” for the boy.

‘My mum has a vagina!’ Some children called out when it was time to name their private parts.

‘My dad has a penis!’ they said when it came to Son’s private parts.

‘And are we allowed to touch other people’s private parts?’

“No!” They all called out.

As the main driver of getting the pilot programme started in Tauranga, Nijssen endorsed the knowledge behind its presentation.

She valued the 30 years’ worth of the programme’s delivery in Auckland and the refinement it had undergone with proven outcomes for children.

“There’s a lot of research behind this programme that shows when we use anatomically correct names children have better body awareness and better body autonomy, and they can identify ‘yes feelings’ and ‘no feelings’.

“We know when children use the anatomically correct names, such as penis and testicles and vulva and vagina they’re more able to tell us where they are feeling unwell or sick or sore, or at times when they might have been inappropriately touched.

“Children who use that language are less targeted - it’s been proven in research,” Nijssen said.

Nicola Brown, early childhood education specialist and centre manager at Elm Tree in Tauranga’s CBD, said in her 19 years of teaching early childhood, this was the first time she had seen a prevention programme like this in the Bay of Plenty.

Specialising as a child protection lead, Brown said she had worked in the past with children who presented with worrying behaviour at ECE centres and had elevated cases to Oranga Tamariki.

In her experience, children needed to feel safe before they told others they’d been touched inappropriately.

Tautoko Mai contractor and teacher Tiffany Matthews delivers the first of five sessions to children at Elm Tree in Tauranga. Photo / Aleyna Martinez

“It’s about doing the right thing by the child. They don’t usually tell you directly so it might come out in other ways like role play and art, or their behaviour changes.”

In 2019 Tautoko Mai went through an internal strategy change, led by staff who work with victims of sexual assault regularly.

Sach said staff held multiple meetings to implement the approach, saying they no longer wanted to serve as “the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff”.

Nijssen said the programme was an ideal vehicle for delivering the difficult subject and leaving behind old ideas about modesty, which she said was a factor in children being ignored when seeking a confidant.

“In the past sometimes we used pet or cutesy names for our private parts. And when children have gone to tell, they have been not heard or the adult in their life hasn’t been able to understand what they’re saying - so those children haven’t been responded to.

“They’ve missed those disclosures that children are making - there are lots of reasons why we want children to have some really good knowledge about their body parts and body awareness,” Nijssen said.

She said when children were harmed once, they became susceptible to being sexually assaulted again.

“Unfortunately, we’re seeing children that are being harmed maybe up to three times by the time they are 16, sexually harmed and violated by people, three different people in their lives - they become vulnerable in that space,” Nijssen said.

She was proud that Tautoko Mai was the first service to bring the programme to the Bay of Plenty.

So far most parents welcomed the programme while only a few felt worried it would introduce new ideas they didn’t have before. Nijssen wanted to gain more local support for the We Can Keep Safe programme and said funding was a barrier.

Last year ACC cut funding to the programme which was “unfortunate”, Nijssen said.

She felt government agencies should be supporting We Can Keep Safe and Tautoko Mai would keep appealing to the Bay of Plenty philanthropic community for support.

Nijssen said she was grateful for the $36,400 provided for the delivery of a six-session pilot programme across 10 Tauranga preschools given by the Tauranga City Council.

Children take part in five 40-minute sessions and a book is given for kids to take home to their parents, serving as a log for what they learned.

What the council says

Paula Naude, manager of community development and emergency management at Tauranga City Council, said the We Can Keep Safe programme was in line with their Safer Communities Action and Investment Plan 2023-2033 and she backed it.

“We are an advocate to organisations whose goal is to improve personal safety and decrease family harm.”

Naude said the programme is valuable for the city because it would teach parents how to support children so they are less likely to be targeted and give them tools on what to do if they suspect abuse or a child discloses abuse.

“Part of our vision for Tauranga is a city where we foster and grow our communities, and lift up those who are vulnerable.

“We all have a role to play in creating a safe city,” Naude said.

Funds came from community-led development funding, Naude said.

What the police say 

Bay of Plenty Detective Senior Sergeant John Wilson said local police had a longstanding relationship with Tautoko Mai and were proud of the work the service was doing.

“We have worked closely to keep people safe in our community for a number of years.

“The We Can Keep Safe programme delivered by Tautoko Mai will provide valuable education to the young people of our community and their families,” Wilson said.

The numbers

In the year to July, Oranga Tamariki had registered almost 200 open cases of sexual assault against children in the Bay of Plenty. The Rotorua area had the highest number of open cases at 45.

Police data shows that in the same period Bay of Plenty Police had 691 reports of sexual assault and related offences. Of that number 373 victims were aged 19 and under.

Of those cases, 13 offenders were strangers, eight offenders were family members of victims, 10 offences were committed by a parent and four cases involved investigating a victim’s sibling.

One-hundred and sixty-three cases were under investigation, and nine of those were for victims aged 9 and under.

Ministry of Justice data from 2023 shows that of sexual violence victimisations reported in 2021, 56% of the victims were aged under 18 at the time of the assault.

Oranga Tamariki data did not include cases where a report was made but social workers were “unable to substantiate it with sufficient confidence to make a finding”.

Prevention the Priority 

Sach said taking the prevention approach would take time, but the organisation was willing to invest in children because it would decrease child sexual harm statistics in the future.

She said resources were allocated to help parents of children who had been sexually assaulted or abused but resources aimed at children themselves were sparse.

“A lot of our focus has been on working with our teenagers and adolescents, we’re now able to offer that to younger children, with us bringing on some child-centred play therapy.”

Prevention is their priority. She said her staff had a goal at mahi, which was to put themselves out of a job.

“We want to stop it happening in the first place, so we’re not needed,” Sach said.