Kawa haumaru: a mātauranga Māori approach to child safety in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Enduring health inequities exist between Māori and non-Māori children within child injury prevention in Aotearoa. These inequities reflect broader patterns of health inequity experienced by Indigenous peoples globally and in Aotearoa. We assert their existence is the result of the ongoing impacts of colonisation and the dominant Pākehā framing by which injury prevention messages and interventions in Aotearoa have largely been developed. We argue the need for a strengths-based approach, grounded in mātauranga Māori (traditional Māori knowledge) and te ao Māori (traditional Māori worldview) perspectives, to form the basis of more effective child injury prevention messaging and interventions. In this viewpoint, we detail foundational elements of mātauranga Māori, tikanga (customs), kawa (practices) and mātāpono (values) that underlie Māori culture and contain protective elements and safety principles that can be readily applied to injury prevention messaging. We present two values-based child-rearing practices: (1) tuakana (older sibling/s) and teina (younger sibling/s) relationships and (2) kotahitanga (collective), which are determined by mātāpono that illustrate the value of a Māori framework. Incorporating a kaupapa Māori (Māori perspective/s) approach to injury prevention is necessary to reduce health inequities between Māori and non-Māori. Moreover, it offers a culturally safe approach that is responsive to Māori and enables tamariki (children) and whānau (families) to flourish.