The New Zealand Government is planning to establish youth justice military-style academies through legislation. Public critique argues they are essentially boot camps, and research shows that these approaches can negatively impact young people who have experienced trauma. This article shares insights from a project funded by Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga investigating trauma in rangatahi Māori engaged in serious youth offending. This study explored the perspectives of Kaupapa Māori community-based social workers, youth workers and organisational leaders (n = 11) working with rangatahi Māori who appeared in the youth court for offending.

This article describes how the creation of a “Hā habit”—a breathwork practice that is inspired by the whakapapa of the Hā—can alleviate the debilitating effects of trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and generalised anxiety. The article first conducts a literature review that examines the definitions and contributing factors of these disorders and their psychological and physical symptoms. An analysis of Aotearoa New Zealand mental health statistics is then carried out, which is followed by a description of breathwork and its benefits.

Takitoru is a framework developed to support Māori counselling students to understand the impacts of historical intergenerational trauma across generations. The focus of this framework examines unseen contributing factors supporting deficit statistics that continue to dominate Māori communities. Essentially students are invited to participate and interpret personal genealogy in the context of colonisation to explore infl uences and effects. This paper addresses training Indigenous counselling students simultaneously in affirmative Indigenous worldviews, as well as critiquing the impact of colonisation on themselves, their clients and their wider community.