He Ture Kia Tika/Let the Law Be Right: informing evidence-based policy through kaupapa Māori and co-production of lived experience

Abstract

Background: Ninety-one per cent of Aotearoa New Zealand prisoners have been diagnosed with either a mental health or substance use disorder within their lifetime. Challenges exist in how to meet their needs. Diverse purakau (stories) of success in whanau ora (wellbeing) and stopping offending are missing from academic and public discourse that should direct law and policy changes.<br/>Aims and objectives: We describe a kaupapa Maori co-production project called He Ture Kia Tika/Let the Law be Right. We highlight how kaumatua (Maori indigenous elders), academics, and practitioners merged their voices with people with lived experiences of mental health, addiction, and incarceration to create justice policy and solutions.<br/>Methods: We focus on the theory and application of our co-production, directed by kaupapa Maori methodology. We describe the work of a co-design group that actively guides the project, from inception towards completion, using rangahau kawa (research protocols) as culturally clear guidelines and ethically safe practices. We then detail our processes involved in the collection of co-created purakau (storytelling) with 40 whanau (family) participants, and describe our continued collaboration to ensure law and policy recommendations are centred on lived experiences.<br/>Findings: Kaupapa Maori informed co-production ensured rangahau kawa (research protocol and guidelines) were created that gave clear direction for an engagement at all levels of the project. We see this as bringing to life co-production, moving beyond theory to the practicalities of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ with each other in safe, ethical ways for all.<br/>Discussions and conclusions: A strong association exists between unmet mental health needs and reoffending. Tackling cultural, health, social and justice issues requires a multi-layered approach from a range of rangatira (leaders including kaumatua/elders) and tohunga, or experts, of their lived experiences to inform future policy and law reform.<br/><br/>Key messages<br/>The rationale for the paper draws on the expertise of those with lived experiences to determine how research can be co-designed and co-produced.<br/><br/>The paper outlines how kaupapa Maori (cultural approach) can direct co-production.<br/><br/>The co-creation of a research kawa (protocol) provided culturally clear guidelines and safe practices.<br/><br/>Kaupapa Maori co-production details the creative processes used in co-creating whanau korero purakau (participant storytelling).

Exploring the value and role of creative practices in research co-production

“…Another contribution adopted a community of practice perspective and a broad social learning frame to co-production (Adelle et al, 2022). Finally, we include an article which draws on a kaupapa Māori (indigenous population of New Zealand) approach to co-production and knowledge sharing (Thom et al, 2022), which is rooted in deep cultural traditions of social gatherings, building and sustaining relationships, sharing of home and hospitality, community dialogue, storytelling and radical shifts in power.…”

“…We start with a research paper (MacGregor et al, 2022) highlighting four key themes within arts-informed approaches. Themes which, alongside others, are illustrated in two articles, one research (Beckett et al, 2022) and one practice (Thom et al, 2022). A third research paper (Grindell et al, 2022) highlights key factors which enable creative co-design to support mobilisation of knowledge into practice in healthcare.…”

“…We can go back to the work of Henderson (1991) to see a fantastic articulation of the boundary-spanning value of drawings and illustrations, and the origins of these modes of sharing knowledge within the design and engineering disciplines. Yet this issue reveals much broader modes of creative expression, with examples in almost every paper from Beckett et al's (2022) use of Forum Theatre, creative writing or haikus used in Phillips et al (2022) or storytelling used by Thom et al (2022) and Adelle et al (2022) to projects that gave co-design partners freedom and variety in the choice of creative media, as in Webber et al (2022). The authors of this editorial had a real sense of the liberation and freedom that came with methods of expression that moved away from the restrictive idiom of words alone, and a sense of the expansion of thought and learning for those expressing and those taking it in.…”

“…Creative practices support individual and collective sense-making. Beckett et al (2022), Grindell et al (2022), Webber et al (2022), andThom et al (2022) all refer to the process of making sense of evidence through creative media. Perhaps importantly, but less explicitly in these articles, is the physicality of the sense making (see theme 8).…”

“…The issue of power is woven throughout the papers and key themes, each of which acts (or intends to) as a mechanism to shift and rebalance power differentials between academics and non-academic stakeholders in collaborative research and innovation. The article that most clearly portrays this is Thom et al (2022), in their practice article reporting their kaupapa Māori approach to co-production. Their disruption of white privilege and of the 'standard' Eurocentric approach to research enabled (often) structurally marginalised voices (so often mis-labelled 'hard-to-reach') to be central in their process, and created a bridge between Māori and Pākehā (Western) 'spaces'.…”