Lay summary
Similar to the situation for Indigenous children and young people worldwide, mokopuna Māori experience unjust incarceration on a mass scale in New Zealand. Improving community re-entry wellbeing is a critical step toward advancing decarceration of mokopuna from youth justice residences and prisons. Developed with our community-based rangatahi Māori research partners, this Kaupapa Māori mixed-methods research is inspired by the whakataukī, “E hoki koe ki ō maunga kia purea koe e ngā hau o Tāwhirimātea”. ‘Ngā Hau o Tāwhiri’ is a metaphor for fresh, new mokopuna Māori-led solutions that focus on community re-entry wellbeing. We will use routinely collected government data to understand community re-entry pathways for mokopuna aged 10–19 years, and factors influencing wellbeing outcomes. We will undertake ethical co-designing with mokopuna with lived experience of incarceration, supporting the development of mokopuna to become skilled researchers in the design of strategies for self-determined pathways supporting positive community re-entry wellbeing.