Cousins' gathering a model for pilot program for Aboriginal children in care
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Version 0 of 1. Lowana Moore first met her young cousins at her uncle’s deathbed. They had been ushered into the hospital room by various arms of Victoria’s child protection agency, the oldest in residential care, the youngest, still a baby, in kinship care. Her uncle had five children. Some of them were crying, some were not. Some did not know their father well enough to cry. “His funeral was the first time that I realised that they had never returned to country,” Moore told Guardian Australia. “That in itself is a horrible thing, it’s a horrible thing to return to country in such a sad time, and none of them really knew their family. That’s when I thought, ‘I need to get involved.’” That was three years ago. Since then the children have returned a number of times to their traditional country as members of the Wamba Wamba nation in Swan Hill, four hours’ drive north of Melbourne on the Murray river, and they haven’t been alone. Meeting one lot of cousins inspired Moore to follow other family threads and find more young cousins, second cousins and third cousins who had become wrapped up in the child protection system, culminating in a annual family reunion. The idea saw Moore recognised with a Robin Clark protecting children award in 2016. On Wednesday, the Andrews government announced an 18-month pilot program to support cultural and family connection for Aboriginal children in out-of-home care in Gippsland, based on Moore’s model in Swan Hill. Moore found 42 members of her family in the system: three in residential care, 13 in out-of-home care, 13 in permanent placements and 13 in kinship care. “I started to feel a little bit overwhelmed … it was about, ‘Wow, can I support them all, and also meet my initial commitment to my uncle’s five children and take them back to country?” With another adult cousin she organised the reunion in Swan Hill and invited all 42 children and their foster carers. “It was so emotional, we were all crying, everyone was crying,” she said. “My aunties and uncles all got to see their brothers’ kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, the aunties got to sit with the kids and tell them stories of what it was like when they were growing up.” The annual event in Swan Hill (“We just take over the caravan park,” Moore said) serves to connect children to their family and to country through activities including painting, fishing and storytelling. In the months in between the gatherings, the cousins now communicate on Facebook and video chat. “The reality is, none of my family is able to take them all on,” Moore said. “It’s so important that their carers are able to bring the kids and be included in what we do.” Announcing the Victorian government initiative on Wednesday, the children and families minister, Jenny Mikakos, said: “Maintaining children’s connection to culture is absolutely essential for Aboriginal children and young people, and we know more must be done to help every individual. “Aboriginal communities are best placed to understand the cultural needs of Aboriginal children and young people, and our government is working to make a difference in the lives of these children.” In 2014-15 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were 6.7 times more likely to be the subject of substantiated child protection reports than non-Indigenous children, and 9.5 times more likely to be placed in out-of-home care, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care increased from 6,497 in 2006 to 15,455 by 30 June 2015, making up 35% of all children in out-of-home care in Australia. The numbers have risen so sharply that a number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders have called it a “second stolen generation”, a point echoed last month by the former prime minister Kevin Rudd. Moore said a lot of Aboriginal families felt helpless about the number of young people in their extended family in out-of-home care, so it was important to provide other opportunities to connect. The healing effect of being on country was difficult to describe to non-Indigenous people, she said, but it would provide respite and strength that could help young people like her cousins recover from the traumatic circumstances that saw them placed in out-of-home care, and the trauma of being in care itself. “Yes, the best thing is that they are with family, but you don’t have to take them on if you don’t have the capacity to take them on, but this is the sort of stuff that you can do with them,” she said. |