Enhancing the implementation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle: policy and practice considerations

Overview The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle ("the Principle") was developed in recognition of the devastating effects of forced separation of Indigenous children from families, communities and culture. The Principle exists in legislation and policy in all Australian jurisdictions, and while its importance is recognised in many boards of inquiry and reviews into child protection and justice systems, there are significant concerns about the implementation of the Principle. Recent estimates suggest the Principle has been fully applied in as few as 13% of child protection cases involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. The purpose of this paper is to explore the contemporary understanding of the Principle, and review the multiple and complex barriers at the policy and practice levels which are impeding its implementation. Promising approaches that might address these barriers are also examined. Key messages The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle was developed in response to the trauma experienced by individuals, families and communities from government policies that involved the widespread removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. „ The fundamental goal of the Principle is to enhance and preserve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children’s connection to family and community, and sense of identity and culture. „ The Principle is often conceptualised as the “placement hierarchy”, in which placement choices for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children start with family and kin networks, then Indigenous non-related carers in the child’s community, then carers in another Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community. If no other suitable placement with Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander carers can be sought, children are placed with non-Indigenous carers as a last resort, provided they are able to maintain the child’s connections to their family, community and cultural identity

Bringing them Home The Power of Story as Public Discourse

This article discusses the response to the stories of Aboriginal suffering in the Bringing them Home report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families

Supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Families to Stay Together from the Start (SAFeST Start): Urgent call to action to address crisis in infant removals

Reducing the rate of over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care (OOHC) is a key Closing the Gap target committed to by all Australian governments. Current strategies are failing. The “gap” is widening, with the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in OOHC at 30 June 2020 being 11 times that of non-Indigenous children. Approximately, one in five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children entering OOHC each year are younger than one year. These figures represent compounding intergenerational trauma and institutional harm to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities. This article outlines systemic failures to address the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents during pregnancy and following birth, causing cumulative harm and trauma to families, communities and cultures. Major reform to child and family notification and service systems, and significant investment to address this crisis, is urgently needed. The Family Matters Building Blocks and five elements of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (Prevention, Participation, Partnerships, Placement and Connection) provide a transformative foundation to address historical, institutional, well-being and socioeconomic drivers of current catastrophic trajectories. The time for action is now

Defining the Indefinable: Descriptors of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Cultures and their Links to Health and Wellbeing

This report was funded by the Lowitja Institute and is part of the development of Mayi Kuwayu: The National Study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Wellbeing; a national longitudinal study exploring the relationship between Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander wellbeing and culture. This review was conducted to explore what cultural factors are important to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and gain an understanding of how these factors relate to health and wellbeing. We examined the Australian literature as well as publications from countries that have experienced similar colonisation events; primarily Aotearoa (New Zealand), Canada and the United States. Our main findings from this synthesis determined six main domains used to describe culture for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. These domains were: Connection to Country; Cultural Beliefs and Knowledge; Language; Family, Kinship and Community; Expression and Cultural Continuity; and Self-determination and Leadership.The Lowitja Institute Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Cooperative Research Centre funded this review under project 16-SDH-05-03

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health plan 2013-2023

In 2008 Australian Governments committed to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on an incredibly important task - to achieve equality in health status and life expectancy between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous Australians by the year 2031. The commitment – in the form of the Close the Gap Statement of Intent – creates the platform for this National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan, which has been developed in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their representatives. This Health Plan provides a long-term, evidence-based policy framework as part of the overarching Council of Australian Governments’ (COAG) approach to Closing the Gap in Indigenous disadvantage, which has been set out in the National Indigenous Reform Agreement (NIRA) signed in 2008. The NIRA has established a framework of national targets and policy building blocks. Two of the Closing the Gap targets, to halve the gap in child mortality by 2018 and close the life expectancy gap by 2031, go directly to health outcomes, while others address social determinants of health such as education and employment. The Health Plan builds on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It adopts a strengths-based approach to ensure policies and programs improve health, social and emotional wellbeing, and resilience and promote positive health behaviours. It emphasises the centrality of culture in the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the rights of individuals to a safe, healthy and empowered life. The Health Plan also builds on existing strategies and planning approaches to improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health,

Experiences of Kinship and Connection to Family for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Young Men with Histories of Incarceration

Epidemiological approaches have brought important attention to the issues surrounding the over-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, and the enormous health and socio-economic disparities they face. An implicit discourse often exists within the construction of this “knowledge”, however, that situates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in deficit terms. Using narrative inquiry, a methodological approach congruent with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and ways of knowing, we aim to challenge this dominant discourse, via an examination of the narratives of eight Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander young men (aged 19-24 years) involved in the criminal justice system. Our analysis is embedded in understandings of the core role of family and kin in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. Experiences of family removal and dislocation were common, as were narratives of striving, often against all odds, to preserve and nurture family connections and kinship ties. We reveal how experiences of ongoing trauma and loss (impacted by the intergenerational effects of colonisation) harmed young men’s ties to kinship systems and family and in doing so deprived them of the very systems needed to sustain a sense of value, purpose and belonging. A commitment by governments to adequately fund and resource solutions that honour and respect the important role family and kin represents in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture is urgently needed, as are sustainable solutions that address the over-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people that are self-determining and led by their people

Overview of Australian Indigenous health status 2014

This Overview of Australian Indigenous health status provides information about: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations; the context of Indigenous health; various measures of population health status; selected health conditions; and health risk and protective factors. This Overview of Australian Indigenous health status provides a comprehensive summary of the most recent indicators of the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia (states and territories are: New South Wales (NSW), Victoria (Vic), Queensland (Qld), Western Australia (WA), South Australia (SA), Tasmania (Tas), The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and The Northern Territory (NT)). It draws largely on previously published information, some of which has been re-analysed to provide clearer comparisons between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous people (for more details of statistics and methods, readers should refer to the original sources). Very little information is available separately for Australian Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people. It is often difficult to determine whether original sources that use the term ‘Indigenous\u27 are referring to Aboriginal people only, Torres Strait Islander people only or to both groups. In these instances the terms from the original source are used

'It's been a long hard fight for me': The Stolen Generations and Narratives of Poor Health in Australia 1883-2009

Health, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), can be defined as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.’ Using this definition of health, and others, as guiding principles, this thesis takes a thematic approach in order to demonstrate how nineteenth- and twentieth-century Australian government policies have influenced the health of Indigenous Australians today. The four key themes investigated are alienation, mental illness, alcohol abuse, and crime. By weaving the narratives taken from a number of published oral interviews, testimonies from Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families and Telling Our Story: A Report by the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia (Inc) on the Removal of Aboriginal children from their families in Western Australia, and other edited collections, this thesis argues that from the perspective of numerous members of the Stolen Generations, the forcible removal of Aboriginal children and the subsequent feelings of alienation produced by removal, have had significant and on-going implications for the current state of poor health within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

Overview of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health status 2016

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the most recent indicators of the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Information focuses on: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health various measures of population health status selected health conditions health risk and protective factors. The Overview shows that the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continues to improve slowly and there has been a decline in the death rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and also a significant closing of the gap in death rates between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous people. The infant mortality rate has declined significantly. There have also been improvements in a number of areas contributing to health status such as the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mothers who smoked during pregnancy has decreased. There has been a slight decrease in the proportion of low birth weight babies born to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mothers between 2004 and 2014. Age-standardised death rates for respiratory disease in NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT declined by 26% over the period 1998-2012 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Two new sections are featured in this edition of the Overview. With the 20th anniversary of the Bringing them home report, a section has been dedicated to Healing which highlights the contribution of healing workers and organisations to supporting people, families and communities impacted by the Stolen Generations. Environmental health with its important link to the social determinants of health is also included for the first time in the Overview 2016

Literature review of the interplay between education, employment, health and wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote areas

The availability of timely, comprehensive and good quality data specifically relevant to remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander notions of health and wellbeing has been a significant obstacle to understanding and addressing related disadvantage in a meaningful way. This literature review for the CRC-REP Interplay Between Health, Wellbeing, Education and Employment project explored existing wellbeing frameworks at global and local levels that are relevant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote Australia.Current government frameworks that collect data about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people often produce a narrative that describes deficit, disadvantage and dysfunction. The frameworks include the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework, the Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage Framework, the Australia Bureau of Statistics Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Wellbeing Framework and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey. These frameworks gather statistical information for the purposes of policy analysis and program development and therefore use indicators that are important to policy. Increasingly, government frameworks are including holistic measures of health such as cultural health, governance and the impacts of colonisation.This literature review has identified the need to develop a wellbeing framework that not only accurately represents education, employment, health and wellbeing and the interplay between these and other factors, but that also recognises the strengths and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait people as well as reflecting their worldviews, perspectives and values. For example, a definition of ‘wellbeing’ that highlights the importance of physical, social, emotional, cultural and spiritual influences at the level of the individual and the community has been endorsed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups and governments alike and sustained for over 20 years. Accordingly, this literature review has been organised along these topics.In addition, the literature suggests that optimal wellbeing occurs when there is strong cultural identity in combination with control, achievement and inclusion at a wider societal level, such as through successful engagement in education and employment. Listening to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to learn of their conceptual thinking, knowledge and understanding, and responding to their priorities and ideas are crucial parts of the policy equation to improve outcomes across education, employment, health and wellbeing. The challenges in developing an appropriate wellbeing framework, then, are ensuring the active involvement and participation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.One example of how this has worked is provided by the Community Indicators Victoria Project, which used local-level data to address issues that the local community identified as important. A focus on strengths is also important, and is exemplified in the Social and Emotional Wellbeing Framework of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Council and National Mental Health Working Group. Various existing programs – such as ‘Caring for Country’ – can be adapted to capture data about connection to country, for example, and how that impacts on physical and mental health. Critically, the core domains of education, employment and health need to be extended to include activities and concepts that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people consider important to these areas.Recommendations for the development of a wellbeing framework are proposed here, derived from information available in the literature. Rather than being definitive, these recommendations provide a starting point for consultation and adaption towards establishing a wellbeing framework and operational system for collecting and analysing long-term health and wellbeing data for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote Australia as part of the research conducted by CRC-REP