Frameworks, principles and Te Ao Māori

SAFEGUARDING RESPONSE

Maintaining strong professional boundaries is essential in safeguarding work because it protects both the disabled people and the professionals who support them. 

  • Professional boundaries help ensure interactions and decisions stay grounded in upholding people’s dignity and rights, working with respect, ensuring legal obligations are met, being accountable and, most importantly, achieving safety.  

  • Benefits for professionals include helping to prevent role confusion, operating ethically, accessing professional support on a timely basis, and reducing the risk of vicarious trauma. 

Clear boundaries help establish and uphold the trust needed to work effectively with tāngata whaikaha Māori, disabled people, their family and whānau, as well as iwi and communities.  

Professional boundaries also create the consistency and accountability required when navigating situations involving violence, abuse, or neglect. 

Foundational frameworks for professional boundaries  

Professional boundaries in New Zealand’s disability sector are shaped by several key frameworks

  • Ensures every disabled person receives services that respect their dignity, independence, and support needs. The HDC also investigates boundary violations and provides guidance on safe practice. 

    Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights.

  • Sets long-term priorities for equitable health and well-being outcomes for disabled people, emphasising safety, autonomy, and partnership with disabled communities and whānau. 

    Health of Disabled People Strategy.

  • Outlines expectations for safe, high-quality disability supports, including staff behaviour, safeguarding responsibilities, and shared accountability for preventing abuse and neglect.

    Quality and Safeguarding - DSS.

     And specifically: 

    Expected behaviours for DSS staff and providers - DSS.

  • Provides detailed expectations for maintaining boundaries, managing dual relationships, and avoiding over-involvement, including guidance specific to working with Māori and whānau. 

    Guidelines: Professional Boundaries Booklet.

Principles underpinning professional boundaries 

Many organisations have a set of principles that underpin their professional boundaries. 

Sample principles: 

Manaakitanga

1

Upholding dignity, respect, and care without overstepping into personal or intimate involvement.  

Autonomy and self-determination 

2

Supporting disabled people to make their own decisions.  

 See supported decision-making.

Transparency

3

Clear communication about roles, expectations, and limits.  

Consistency

4

Predictable, reliable behaviour that builds trust.  

 Learn why consistent and predictable service is so important

Preventing harm, exploitation, or dependency.  

 Read about Risk Factors that impact disabled people.

5

Safety

Know your limits    

Practitioners must seek support or escalate if:

  • You feel unsure what to do.

  • The situation of concern is escalating.

  • There is potential serious harm.

  • The person's needs exceed the boundaries of your role.

6

For your action: 

If you’re developing or refreshing your own professional boundaries, or those of your organisation: 

  • Consider what principles you want to guide your mahi (work). 

  • Consider how you’re going to set clear guidelines for yourself (or your team) when you’re providing support to disabled people and to Adults at Risk (see guidance from the Ann Craft Trust). 

  • Use these principles to guide your practice, and discuss these with your clinical supervisor, as well as engaging in regular self-reflection. 

  • Track your learning, noting what went well for you in each set of interactions, and what didn’t go so well, so you can keep learning and can create tools and tips to help in future situations. 

Te Ao Māori practices, to help honour boundaries 

Working in a way that honours Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Te Ao Māori values strengthens professional boundaries by grounding relationships in respect, trust, partnership, and cultural safety.  

Key Practices that support Tikanga Māori 

  • Building relationships through shared understanding, while keeping the relationship professional and purpose-driven.  

  • Ensuring interactions uplift the person’s mana rather than create dependency or diminish autonomy.  

  • Supporting disabled people to lead decisions about their own lives, with whānau involvement where appropriate. 

    See also supported decision-making.

  • Recognising the sacredness of personal boundaries and ensuring interactions do not cross into spaces that compromise safety or wellbeing.  

  • Respecting collective decision-making while ensuring the disabled person’s voice remains central and has the final, informed decision. 

VisAble offers interactive training to help you develop a deeper understanding of ethical decision-making and professional boundaries. 

 The training enables you to apply the information at your place, with your staff (kaimahi) and in your services, to help you develop policies, guidance and practices in both ethical decision-making and professional boundaries, to support effective safeguarding practices. 

 We can also provide training for tāngata whaikaha Māori, disabled people, families and whānau in understanding your rights, and what to expect from service providers, caregivers and support workers in terms of ethical decision-making and professional boundaries. 

Find out more about our training and resources.

Or contact us at info@visable.co.nz

Frameworks, principles and Te Ao Māori
Establishing and embedding professional boundaries