Child protection, education and health services have failed to promote healing and recovery for First Nations children who have experienced domestic and family violence, a new report has revealed. Source: National Indigenous Times.
The “You Can’t Pour from an Empty Cup” report is an initiative of Queensland’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection Peak in partnership with Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) and Australian Catholic University. It found First Nations voices have been “sidelined from decision-making, with devastating effects”.
The first of its kind in Australia, the research project engaged eight Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community research teams in regional and remote Queensland and was led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander chief investigators, in a collaborative process to “elevate First Nations voices and find community-led solutions for healing and recovery”.
The community-led research project resulted in the creation of the “Healing our children and young people framework”, a “culturally safe, place-based, trauma-aware, healing-informed, children-centred approach” to engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children experiencing family and domestic violence.
ANROWS chief executive Padma Raman encouraged policy makers and practitioners across the system to consider the report’s findings and adopt the Healing our children and young people framework “as a matter of urgency”.
The director of ACU’s Institute of Child Protection Studies, Professor Daryl Higgins, said culturally-sensitive, evidence-based practices as outlined in the new framework are needed to stop the intergenerational trauma of domestic and family violence on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.
FULL STORY
Services failing to provide culturally safe responses to First Nations children experiencing family violence, report finds (National Indigenous Times)
RELATED COVERAGE
You can’t pour from an empty cup report (ANROWS)
Failure to protect Indigenous children from violence at home ‘funnels’ them into crime, Queensland report finds (The Guardian)
