Nothing like the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth
The Ngulluk Moort, Ngulluk Boodja, Ngulluk Wirin (Our Family, Our Country, Our Spirit) Study is working with the leadership and staff at foster care agencies and community members to provide information about cultural connection, and cultural activity and resources for Aboriginal children living in non-Aboriginal care arrangements. In today’s post, Senior Research Fellow from The Kids Research Institute Australia, Dr Sharynne Hamilton, reports on the outcomes of ‘The Truth of Our Stories’ , a cultural training workshop with a focus on truth-telling.
Despite the implementation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle in 2013, 59% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still living in non-Indigenous foster care arrangements or with non-Indigenous relatives. The Ngulluk Moort Ngulluk Boodja Ngulluk Wirin (Our Family Our Country Our Spirit) study is examining the cultural connections that Aboriginal children have when they are living in non-Indigenous care arrangements. Our work is focused on improving culturally secure practice in foster care services.
One key outcome of this work is the lack of high-quality cultural training for foster care organisations. Effective cultural training and consideration for our ways of ‘knowing, being and doing’ is essential for understanding the importance of cultural connection - an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child’s right to develop and maintain connections to family, community, Country and culture. Culture and connection are pivotal determinants of health and are central to the promotion of life-long physical, social, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing for individuals, families and communities. In response to this gap, which was identified by foster care agency staff, we co-designed and implemented a cultural training workshop with a focus on truth-telling, with the study’s Elder Co-Researchers and our Aboriginal advisory groups.
Truth-telling is important to promote healing from colonisation-induced trauma. It is the personal storytelling of lived experience that includes counter-narratives to Eurocentric, dominant worldviews. By developing a shared understanding of history and promoting a mutual form of social responsibility for the future, truth-telling is a powerful vessel that can reclaim cultural identity and self-determination, challenge negative stereotypes, and reforge relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.
We called our workshop “The Truth of Our Stories”. The study’s Elder Co-researchers identified the community storytellers. Three Aboriginal community members told stories of being removed from their families and communities, some as members of the Stolen Generation who shared their experiences of living in missions and of having been removed from their family and taken overseas. Two community members told their stories as parents with recent lived experience of child removal, and two young people who had recently exited the child protection system and returned home, told their stories of living in non-Indigenous foster care and what they thought would help young Aboriginal children currently living in foster care.
The stories were followed by a formal research presentation, designed to assist participants link aspects of historical and contemporary child protection ideologies and practices. The presenter was a senior Aboriginal woman, with lived experience in the 1960s of being removed from their family and growing up in non-Indigenous foster care, as well as extensive experience as a long-term child protection researcher. The presenter weaved together applied research with snapshots from their own welfare files.
This rich tapestry of truth-telling, research and information captured a plethora of intergenerational stories of child removal and child welfare involvement from the 1940s to 2023 that resonated with the colonial intentions of policies developed back in the early 1900s to manage and control Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities.
Sadly, over the 80-year span of the stories, there was little change in the experiences of the child protection system, or health and wellbeing outcomes for all of our truth tellers.
We conducted a pre- and post-evaluation of the Truth of Our Stories, exploring whether there was growth in cultural knowledge and confidence for agency workers and foster carers.
Participants reported moderate to large gains in knowledge and confidence in many aspects of the training, and greater confidence across all elements. The largest gains were related to information provided about Elders, Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations and cultural resources that were available to assist their practice. Participants were more likely to ensure information and resources were relevant, accurate and inclusive.
The training promoted effective, culturally secure practices to work collaboratively and respectfully with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities, which can enable culturally secure care. We hope that by building knowledge, confidence and working in culturally secure ways, the cultural training will contribute to improved social, emotional, health and wellbeing outcomes for our children and families.
‘The Truth of Our Stories’ cultural training, which centred our voices and incorporated truth-telling, was effective for improving knowledge, confidence, and understanding of the historical, cultural and social contexts on contemporary child protection practice. The findings suggest that social workers providing child protection services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families can benefit from having first-hand knowledge through lived-experience stories. The training was transformative in nature, and we recommend that child protection services across Australia consider co-designing cultural training that incorporates truth-telling training, tailored to the unique circumstances of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in which they work.
Author: Dr Sharynne Hamilton is a Senior Research Fellow at The Kids Research Institute Australia and Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra.
Moderator: Ruth Pitt