Keynote Address
Creating Pathways to Safety: Prevention, Partnership and Purpose
Abstract:
In this keynote, Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter sets out a clear and grounded vision for keeping children safe, supported and connected long before they reach crisis points in child protection or youth justice systems.
Drawing on evidence, lived experience, and the legislated purpose of the new National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People, the address makes the case for early intervention, prevention, and community-led responses as essential to improving outcomes, particularly for First Nations children.
The Commissioner acknowledges the vital role of Family and Relationship Services in strengthening families early, reducing stigma, and supporting children to stay connected to community, culture and kin. She explores how mainstream organisations and Aboriginal community-controlled organisations can work together through respectful partnerships that genuinely shift power and resources to where they are most effective.
This address challenges the sector to build on what works, back community leadership, and hold systems to account, so more children grow up safe, heard and supported.
Biography
Sue-Anne Hunter is the inaugural National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People, and a Wurundjeri and Ngurai Illum Wurrung woman. She is known for her work as Deputy Chair and Commissioner in Victoria’s Yoorrook Justice Commission, Australia’s first formal First Peoples truth-telling inquiry. Sue-Anne is also a member of the National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth, and Justice Advisory Board, an Adjunct Professor of Global Engagement at Federation University and a PhD candidate at Monash University.
With a background in child and family services practice, Sue-Anne has over two decades’ clinical experience responding to developmental, transgenerational and community trauma. She is widely recognised for developing rights-based, transformative practice responses that empower Aboriginal people to heal from the continuing effects and processes of colonisation.