Evaluation of the Court Support Service for children and young people

Oranga Tamariki manages the Court Support Service for tamariki and rangatahi. Between April and July 2025, we contracted 11 providers to develop and deliver these services. This complements an existing service for adults managed by the Ministry of Social Development.

Court Support Service | Ministry of Social Development

Budget 2023 included new funding for the Service as well as for an evaluation.

We contracted Tiria to evaluate the Court Support Services for children and young people in 2025.

The review includes a document review, regional hui and interviews. Participants include:

• providers of the service
• government agencies
• staff and managers from Court Support Service providers
• a small number of victim-survivors and whānau.

Insights from the evaluation help us to know whether programme activities are being used as intended.

The evaluation found that victim-survivors and their whānau appreciate the Service because:

• it helps to reduce distress and anxiety
• provides reassurance and makes them feel like they have a say in what happens
• integrating court support services with other support gives them access to assistance with essential needs. These supports include social work, counselling, mentoring, youth therapy and school-based support.

Part of the Service is having an assigned Court Support Worker to act as an advocate and help them to navigate the court system. This is well received by victims and their whānau because they:

• are effective advocates and act in their best interests
• work with parents, caregivers and siblings, to acknowledge their need for support and healing
• provide important communication and information about the court system. This also reduces the administrative load on police and court staff.

Other findings from the evaluation show that providers:

• make use of trauma-informed therapies and Kaupapa Māori and Pacific-focused practices to support the victim-survivor and their whānau
• offer age appropriate and culturally appropriate information and materials to explain the legal process and court system
• feel there’s a need to improve training across the broader justice sector. This includes areas such as child development, messaging and communications.

We will use the evaluation to support and inform our work with the Ministry of Social Development on how we provide these services going forward. This work aims to align commissioning processes for the child and adult Sexual Harm Support Services.

We will also use the evaluation to identify what can be improved. This will focus on how we can improve delivery of services and support, and what investment might be needed.