From August to November 2024, FRSA revisited presentations from the FRSA National Conference 2024 via a webinar series.

The presentations we showcased were delivered by or in partnership with First Nations peoples. The six presentations are from the Children at the Centre, Across the lifecourse and Schooling years streams. Watch the recordings of the webinars below:

Developing Cultural Competence and Cultural Safety in Katherine, NT

Wednesday, 27 November 2024 | 12:30PM-1:15PM (AEDT) | Presenter: Eugenie Collyer, The Smith Family

The Smith Family is a non-Indigenous organisation working in Katherine and the Big Rivers Region (NT), a location with a significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population.

The service sector in Katherine has a high turnover of staff. Frequently, recruitment results in bringing new staff from out of town or interstate. This often leads to vulnerable communities being serviced by people who are unfamiliar with the region and the local community. This can mean staff have inadequate knowledge of cultural protocols to service the Big Rivers communities appropriately, leading to a lack of cultural safety and consequent disengagement of target groups from services. It can also lead to ‘burn out’ if new staff are inadequately supported or trained, which exacerbates the high turnover of staff. And so the cycle continues.

To address this identified gap, we have used several methodologies to build cultural competence.

This presentation will describe how The Smith Family have explicitly and consciously ensured the inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content and participation in delivery of community events, increased access to cultural awareness professional development opportunities, included Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices in service sector professional development conversations, and produced resources in Kriol, the main Aboriginal language spoken in the Big Rivers Region.

Aboriginal Community Education Officer Engagement

Wednesday, 13 November 2024 | 12:30PM-1:15PM (AEDT) | Presenters: Lorelle Bennett & Jayde Milburn, Anglicare SA

School engagement and attendance for First Nations Children has been identified as a significant challenge in the Playford region. To address this within community, Communities for Children Playford determined that the focus should be with key stakeholders, in this situation, the Aboriginal Community Engagement Officers (AECO) within Education, as they are a key influential factor in engaging First Nations children in school settings.

This presentation will discuss the importance of connection with the ACEOs, the provision of training and the dissemination of information to ACEOs and by extension, families, and children.

Family-Led Decision Making driving child protection reform in South Australia

Wednesday, 30 October 2024 | 12:30PM-1:15PM (AEDT) | Presenter: Megan Waters, Relationships Australia South Australia

This presentation will demostrate Relationships Australia SA’s outcomes following the implementation of attachment-based tools, together with Restorative Practice and Family-Led Decision Making (FLDM) in our child protection programs – Intensive Family Support services and Family Group Conferencing. We’ll present our findings and data that highlight promising trends towards keeping children safe and well with their families.

The presentation primarily focused on:

1. Transformative power of Aboriginal Leadership in mainstream child protection practices; demonstrating how culture is protective not just for families, but also for the systems around them.
2. The application and use of evidence-based attachment tools to orient practitioners to being safety organised over risk aversion, and tailor child protection case management to the needs of parent-child dyad and increase caregiving sensitivity.
3. The implementation of Family-Led Decision Making by way of Family Group Conferencing with high fidelity in statutory child protection to create sustained change.

Message Stick Action Research Project

Wednesday, 16 October 2024 | 12:30PM-1:15PM (AEDT) | Presenters: Jack Archibald & Lachlan Skinner, Interrelate

The Message Stick program is rooted in the First Nations students’ own cultural and community values, using definitional ceremonies and narrative principles as a foundation for supports during school transition. The program connects students with cultural Elders and utilises cultural practices to assist with the transition from Primary to High School in a culturally safe way.

The message stick is a form of visual communication traditionally used by First Nations people to carry messages over long distances. Styles vary but it is generally a length of wood with phrases, story art or topics expressed in language. In the program, young people were given the opportunity to buddy up with a high school student to create a message stick that traverses the movement between two symbolic spaces – in this case the ‘distance’ between primary and high school. The message stick would help the student carry their story and knowledge into this new stage of life.

This presentation describes the extensive consultation process that preceded and continues throughout program design, delivery, and evaluation. It highlights the importance of deep collaboration in understanding the drivers of successful transition for our First Nations students. It will describe the use of the narrative framework in program design and outline preliminary findings from the pilot program which indicate potential benefits to academic engagement, attendance, cultural connection, and well-being.

Review of the Family Relationships Services Program (FRSP) – findings and next steps

Thursday, 3 October 2024 | 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM (AEDT)

In the wake of the release of the review report – Support for Separating Families – FRSA hosted representatives from the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) and the Attorney-General’s Department to present to a FRSA Members-only webinar on the technical findings underpinning the review report and the department’s next steps for consulting on the review recommendations.

The Attorney-General announced the independent review of the FRSP on 5 September 2023. Mr Andrew Metcalf AO led the review with technical/research support from AIFS. The independent review report was released on 11 September 2024 and the government is now considering its response to the review recommendations. To help inform its response, the Attorney-General’s Department will consult with the sector over the coming few months and Rebecca Mills spoke to this consultation process as well as providing a snapshot of Mr Metcalf’s recommendations. Dr Rachel Carson and John De Maio, AIFS, spoke to the findings of AIFS review research, providing context for those recommendations.

FRSA Members can log into the Members Only page to watch the webinar on demand or to get a copy of the presentation slides. Please contact us at contact@frsa.org.au if you require the Member Password.

Cultural Supervision – Safe Yarning

Thursday, 19 September 2024 | 12:30PM-1:15PM (AEST) | Presenters: Tara Farmer & Dwayne Hayden, Centrecare

This presentation explores how Cultural Supervision has been implemented within Centrecare’s organisation to help develop, promote and embed cultural safety and understanding. With Cultural Lead positions established to support supervision for staff in identified programs across the Perth metro and regional areas including the Goldfields and South-West region of Western Australia.

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Leadership is best practice in Child ProtectionWednesday, 14 August 2024 | 12:30PM-1:15PM (AEST) | Presenter: Sarah Decrea, Relationships Australia South Australia

This presentation focuses on the transformative power of Aboriginal leadership in child protection reform. By embracing Indigenous expertise in using Restorative Practice to embed the practice of “high challenge high support” in both our work with families and between each other as sector professionals, we are seeing an innovative way forward that offers hope for sustained change.

This presentation shares the journey taken by RASA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, together with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues working across the Government, Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations, Non-Government and Community sectors to create bridges between these sectors to champion a collective approach that saw the reduction of removals at birth of Aboriginal babies, and genuine multi-agency partnership. This partnership provided an environment that increased efforts of statutory child protection workers to undertake appropriate family scoping, cultural consultation, referrals to intensive family support services and family group conferencing ahead of defaulting to guardianship orders. Feedback from child protection social workers and families show increased trust with one another, greater ability to communicate and understand the concerns, and a partnership to address danger for children – ultimately demonstrating how cultural practices serve as a protective factor for families, and the practitioners within the child protection system.

The key learning will be how we can pave the way for a more equitable and culturally responsive child welfare system and serves as a testament to the resilience and wisdom of Aboriginal communities, offering valuable lessons for child protection reform nationally.