Cultural Support Planning with Aboriginal

Children and Young People

Legal Aid NSW Care and Protection Conference – 22 August 2014

Wendy Hermeston, Senior Policy Officer, AbSec

Cultural Support Planning

• Links between past history (Stolen Generations) and current over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people

• In the best interests of the child? Cultural identity and its importance to Aboriginal children and young people in care

• Cultural Support Planning explained - in minutes!• Your role as solicitors – where and when to

pounce

Most of us girls were thinking white in the head but were feeling black inside. We weren’t black or white. We were a very lonely, lost and sad displaced group of people . . . We didn’t know anything about our culture.We were… brainwashed to think only like a white person. When they went to mix in white society, they found they were not accepted, [as] they were Aboriginal. When they went and mixed with Aborigines, some found they couldn’t identify with them either, because they had too much white ways in them. So that they were neither black nor white. They were simply a lost generation of children. I know. I was one of them.”HREOC. Bringing them home. Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families. Canberra: AGPS 1997 http://www.hreoc.gov.au/social_justice/bth_report/report/index.html

Children and young people’s rights and our obligations:

• UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC), 1990 – Articles 8, 9, 20 and 30

• UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007

• s13 Aboriginal Child Placement Principles (next slide)

• s78A Permanency Planning (3)  A permanency plan for an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child or young person must address how the plan has complied with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child and Young Person Placement Principles in section 13

(6)  If a child /young person to whom subsection (4) applies:

(a)  is placed with a person who is not within an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander family or community, arrangements must be made to ensure that the child/ young person has the opportunity for continuing contact with his or her Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander family, community and culture, or(b)  is placed with a person who is within an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander family or community, arrangements must be made to ensure that the child or young person has the opportunity for continuing contact with his or her non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander family, community and culture.

s13  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child and Young Person Placement

Principles

Cultural Support• Focus on our children’s right to culture • Protective and a source of resilience

and wellbeing – culture as indivisible from an Aboriginal child’s best interests

• Child viewed in the context of the whole family and the whole community – not separate

• Day to day – embedded• Enables connections, helps Aboriginal

children/young people feel a part of their culture and not a stranger to it, to know their own identity, where they fit, where they belong

• Spending time with mob through contact specialist identity counselling

Cultural Support planning template• Child or young person’s cultural identity, kinship

groups, community of belonging, language, totem, thoughts on what’s important in their cultural development

• Child or young person’s parents, siblings• Extended family, kin or community people with

a role in supporting child or young person• Participation in cultural activities, events and

programs are experiences, classes, sessions or other measures that allow Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children or young people to actively participate in, be immersed in and grow up with, their own culture

• Aboriginal organisations or services with a role in supporting child’s cultural and other needs

• Consultation – who was consulted, relevance to child, how they were consulted and by whom, what their views were

The role of solicitors – short term gain for long term gain

Care plan filed

Final Orders Ask for s82 re

cultural support for Aboriginal kids!!

s82 AffidavitADR

Cultural support inadequate ?

Cultural Support Resources

http://www.snaicc.org.au/projects/dsp-default-c.cfm?loadref=284

http://www.absec.org.au/images/pdf/Aboriginal%20Consultation%20Guide.pdf

Cultural Support Resources AbSec CONSULTATION Guide

Thank YouThe Children’s Court of NSW

Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) LtdFaCS’ Aboriginal Services Branch and Legal Branch

AbSec colleagues – staff and Aboriginal OOHC agencies

Further details available at: www.absec.org.au ORhttp://

www.absec.org.au/images/pdf/Aboriginal%20Consultation%20Guide.pdf

Contact Wendy: research@absec.org.au

02 9559 5299

Cultural Support Resources• AbSec: www.absec.org.au • Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency:

www.vacca.org/ • Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

Child Protection Peak: www.qatsicpp.com.au • Secretariat of National Aboriginal Islander Child

Care: www.snaicc.org.au• AIATSIS: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and

Torres Straight Islander Studies: www.aiatsis.gov.au (‘Little Red Yellow and Black Book’)

• UNICEF – CROC Factsheet: http://www.unicef.org/crc/files/Rights_overview.pdf

• Health Info Net – Resources pages: www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au

• Bamblett and Lewis (2007). Detoxifying the Child and Family Welfare System for Australian Indigenous Peoples: Self-determination, Rights and Culture as the Critical Tools; First Peoples Child and Family Review, p49