Published March 2022

From April 2017, changes in the New Zealand Care and Protection system included the increase of the eligibility age at which rangatahi can remain (or return to) placement for an additional year, to 18 years of age. Reasons for Raising the Age of Care (or RAC) included the aligning the age in which rangatahi exit care with other laws and norms in New Zealand that required individuals to be at least aged 18 (voting, signing tendency agreement, etc.), with New Zealand’s obligations to the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child (which sets the age of adulthood at 18), and with cognitive findings suggesting that that the process of brain maturation took longer than previously thought (Gluckman & Hayne, 2011).

This analysis examines the effects RAC had on the outcomes of rangatahi, both during that additional year (i.e., from ages 17-18), as well as between the ages of 18 and 20. The analysis focuses on a cohort of rangatahi who turned 17 between April 2017 and March 2018 (i.e., in the first year of RAC), and recorded C&P placements at the ages of 15 and 16. This cohort was selected for this analysis due to the fact
that since the introduction of RAC, (effectively) all rangatahi who remained in placement after the age of 17 were also recorded placement at some point between the ages of 15 and 16. In addition, large shares (nearly 60%) of this cohort recorded placements during their 17th year. (From the Executive summary). Record #7594