Although significant, the ACPP operates within a broader context of government welfare activities which have not been able to accommodate Indigenous perspectives and needs.
... this year, in 1996, I was told by one district officer that an Aboriginal family was `socially impoverished'. What the hell does that mean? No talk about how kind they are to grandkids. It's white values being placed on Aboriginal families once again, without even thinking about it. It's no wonder the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal continues to widen. You would think that we would have progressed more than this, but in our experience that's not the case (quoted by Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 on page 179). The FACS [SA] came to check my grand-kids. If they have muscles they are deemed O.K. The FACS check on the kids' skins, muscles, if they tremble. They said they were O.K. and they left us. We don't like Welfare. We don't want to give our kids to Welfare. I only see FACS come, but they don't help Anangu. We want the FACS visitor to advise women's Council of when and why they are coming in, so that the whole of AP [the Anangu Pitjantjatjara peoples] can consider the future of kids in question. The entire extended family (Harrison 1991 pages 25-29).
In Aboriginal communities responsibility for children generally resides with an extended kinship network and the community as a whole. Children are important for the future of the culture and their community has a right to their contribution. Raising children in Aboriginal communities commonly involves children living with kin and the extended family taking responsibility for them.
Children are the responsibility of the entire family rather than the biological parents alone. Many Aboriginal people have been `grown up' by members of the family other than their biological mother and father and this practice of growing up children is still very widespread today ... As a result of the children being encouraged to think and have responsibility at a very early age, they have a large degree of autonomy (Daylight and Johnstone 1986 page 27).
The involvement of extended kin networks, close supervision of very young children, a high level of autonomy among older children and an emphasis on providing comfort and affection rather than discipline are features of Aboriginal child-rearing that are widely recognised in communities in different geographic locations and living different lifestyles. Yolgnu children in the Northern Territory from the age of three begin to transfer their physical and emotional dependence from their mother to their camp group and that between the ages of five and fifteen years they have a great deal of independence (Healy et al 1985). Among the Maran people of the Western Desert `children are free to do very much as they like most of the time and are given very few explicit instructions by adults' (Tonkinson quoted by Thorpe 1994 on page 161; see also Hamilton 1981, Sansom and Baines 1987).
There is, therefore, a conflict of values. In Western societies a child's absence from the nuclear family over a period of time or regularly is considered abnormal and indicative of a problem within the family. An assessment of Aboriginal children's welfare files created in Victoria in 1980 and 1990 found that while there was a greater willingness to use extended family foster carers in 1990 there was still a lack of understanding and lack of acceptance of extended Aboriginal family relations (Thomas 1994). `[T]he functioning of the extended family within an Aboriginal cultural context is seen as pathological or dysfunctional' (page 43). One 1990 file note recorded,
Concerns were expressed around the number of people who may attend the home while the children are present [for Christmas]. Mrs A agreed to request that all extended family members other than her mother, will be asked to leave while the children are there (quoted by Thomas 1994 on page 43).
Thomas concluded from her review of the 1990 files,
Extended family contact is construed as the source of potential conflict and abuse, and as such must be tightly controlled by the Department. In contrast with Aboriginal demands which label state practices isolating children from their families as abusive, Departmental concerns lie with the extended family itself (Thomas 1994 page 42).
`Normal' Aboriginal practice signals a problem to many welfare workers. The files created in 1990 continued to demonstrate welfare workers' perception of Aboriginality as a cause of delinquency and problems. Behaviour in both periods was frequently stereotyped in a racist way.
Potential foster mother can already sense that she may already have Aboriginal tendencies, as she can be happily playing in the school ground with the other children and all of a sudden cut off and `go walkabout'. I think failure as human beings may be an issue which will come up as that is a common experience with Aboriginal people (Thomas 1994 page 38).
Attitudes in 1990 were contradictory. In some files the child's Aboriginality and relationship with the community are seen as central and in others they are ignored. While recognition of the child's Aboriginality had improved by 1990, there was a continuing failure to contextualise the child's needs. There was also a failure to address racism in the education system, housing problems, lack of family relations where placement with a non-Indigenous family had broken down and more generally poverty and structural factors resulting in interventions.
A study of 335 children's case files in WA found that the exercise of discretion by welfare officers affects Indigenous children in an adverse manner (Thorpe 1994 page 170). Definitions of neglect are more subjective and culturally particular than definitions of abuse. This may contribute to the large number of Indigenous children found to be neglected. There has been no specific research into whether cultural bias contributes to the high percentage of substantiated neglect cases. However, cultural bias within welfare departments suggests that this is likely. A further factor is the high level of poverty in Indigenous communities.
Submissions to the Inquiry reflected communities' grave concerns about social breakdown and its consequences, including alcohol, petrol and other substance abuse, domestic violence, poor nutrition, child abuse and other consequent problems. The primary reason for welfare intervention in Indigenous communities is neglect. Social inequality is the most direct cause of neglect. Adequate family assistance could make major inroads.
Welfare departments in all jurisdictions continue to fail Indigenous children. Although they recognise the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle, they fail to consult adequately, if at all, with Indigenous families and communities and their organisations. Welfare departments frequently fail to acknowledge anything of value which Indigenous families could offer children and fail to address children's well-being on Indigenous terms.
Aboriginal families continue to be seen as the `problem', and Aboriginal children continue to be seen as potentially `savable' if they can be separated from the `dysfunctional' or `culturally deprived' environments of their families and communities. Non-Aboriginals continue to feel that Aboriginal adults are `hopeless' and cannot be changed, but Aboriginal children `have a chance' (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 page 85).
The needs of Indigenous families and communities are neglected while Indigenous children continue to be disproportionately involved with `The Welfare' and juvenile justice. Evidence to the Inquiry repeatedly indicated a community perception that the problems which result in removals need to be addressed in terms of community development. However, welfare departments continue to pathologise and individualise protection needs of Indigenous children. At the same time, recognition of past failures, under-resourcing and, in some instances, racist attitudes frequently result in a failure to intervene until the family crisis is of such proportions that separation is the most likely or even only possible course.
Indigenous communities throughout Australia gave evidence to the Inquiry of their need for programs and assistance to ensure the well-being of their children. Not a single submission to the Inquiry from Indigenous organisations saw intervention from welfare departments as an effective way of dealing with Indigenous child protection needs. Departments recognise that they need to provide culturally appropriate services but they fail to develop them.
Despite changes of names from Department of Community Welfare to the Department of Community Development to the Department of Family and Children's Services (FCS) [WA] many Aboriginal people feel that the Department has remained a welfare institution reminiscent of Native Welfare. FCS still wields statutory control over families struggling to survive. Decisions which affect the lives of children are frequently made by staff without discussion with Aboriginal families. Many people facing crises with their families will often not seek assistance from the department because of their association with `Welfare' who took the children away (Kimberley Land Council submission 345 page 28). It is not surprising, given the experiences of present and earlier welfare policy and practices, that Aboriginal perceptions of the current role of DCS [NSW] remain overwhelmingly negative. Despite the employment of Aboriginal field workers most interviewees expressed suspicion of and antipathy towards, DCS. Despite changes to policy and legislation, DCS practice remains, in the opinion of those interviewed, culturally inappropriate (Learning From the Past 1994 page 58) Families are concerned that any contact with FACS [SA] may result in their children being removed. Hence for programs involving the well-being of Aboriginal children to be successful, they need to be managed by and operated from Aboriginal organisations (SA ACCA submission 347 page 37).
Evidence to the Inquiry confirms that Indigenous families perceive any contact with welfare departments as threatening the removal of their child. Families are reluctant to approach welfare departments when they need assistance. Where Indigenous services are available they are much more likely to be used.
Failure to address serious problems within communities has been identified as being `fuelled' by systemic problems with the provision of child welfare services to Aboriginal communities (Atkinson and Memaduma 1996). Cultural distortion together with incapacity to cope with the extent of the problems has led to Aboriginal children remaining in abusive situations which non-Aboriginal children would not be left in. Further it has prevented a constructive approach being taken to addressing `crisis' situations.
... too frequently in the area of child abuse, and similarly in the area of domestic violence there is a covert ideology that because these concerns are so significant among Aboriginal communities, their existence is presumed to be culturally sanctioned. This form of cultural reductionism, acts as a form of cultural apology, perpetuating and exacerbating the crises of child abuse in Aboriginal communities. Such a view has several critical attitudinal consequences amongst workers in their service understanding and intervention response. The cultural apologist position enables planners and workers to adopt a position of inevitable resignation over the problem of child abuse in Aboriginal communities, `what else can you expect, that's the way Aboriginal people go on - you cannot expect any better'. Such an approach is clearly, an extreme form of cultural determinism, where child abuse is seen as a function of Aboriginal culture and not a consequence of the structural context of Aboriginal life in this country (pages 13-14).
Welfare officers may feel uncertain about when it is appropriate to intervene in an Indigenous family in crisis. The Sydney Aboriginal Mental Health Unit complained of intervention occurring too late.
There is a failure to involve appropriate Aboriginal professionals at an early notification stage, involvement is always later ... The recognition of the shameful legacy of the forced removal of children by government departments has led to a paradox of inaction. Community Services when notified of abuse or neglect frequently do nothing, hence compounding a situation of abuse and neglect. As a result of critical inaction, a child will sometimes suffer for an unnecessarily prolonged period and when action is taken, removal ensues because of the established chronicity. Involvement of appropriate Aboriginal professionals is often not instigated at the early notification phase, when a situation could have been most easily remedied. Hence the initial official neglect compounds the cycle of continued removal of children (submission 60 pages 4-5).
Ineffective responses to structural problems and individual circumstances lead not only to separations through late intervention but to loss of children through suicide, cultural breakdown and social disintegration. This loss is a serious concern to many communities.
A number of submissions to the Inquiry suggested that for many Indigenous children separation from land and kin was an extreme form of abuse and that the threat of children being removed was so frightening that the threat was abusive itself.
In relation to understanding the concept of abuse in Anangu terms, the women were emphatic that the most destructive and harmful form of abuse which could be inflicted on any child was removal from their country and loss of their cultural heritage. This was identified as a form of emotional and mental abuse which could result in physical illness for the child (Harrison 1992 page 11).
The WA Working Party on Guidelines for the Assessment of Aboriginal Caregivers similarly recognised,
Not telling children who their relations and country are is regarded by Aboriginal people as one of the most destructive and harmful forms of abuse (WA Government submission, Attachment 4 page 10).
Indigenous people often see welfare departments as unable to assist them and their communities. They perceive the departments as bureaucracies which require a lot of paperwork, judge Indigenous people's lives and ultimately remove their children. The Inquiry was told repeatedly of the difficulty Indigenous carers encounter in obtaining the financial and other support they need to care for children. Kin care is often placed under stress because of a shortage of food and other necessities. Sometimes assistance which is provided does not go to the person caring for the child. Frequently women found the Department of Social Security inaccessible. They could not handle the paperwork required to obtain assistance. At a community level Aboriginal organisations are often not linked into grant and funding programs and hence miss out on the opportunity to access funds from the range of available sources.
Older Pitjantjatjara women on the AP lands describe their experience of Family and Community Services as one where the department exercises blanket powers, fails to recognise AP protocols and fails to inform families when the department is visiting, why or what is likely to happen. This perception contrasts with the view of the Chief Executive Officer of SA Family and Community Services.
... the challenge for us is to balance the legislative obligations we have and implementing these obligations in a way that gives Aboriginal agencies and people scope to ensure that we are meeting needs in terms that are appropriate for them, and in a way that enables Aboriginal families to make decisions about the future of their own young people, and in a way that enables Aboriginal agencies to play a significant part ... it's entirely consistent with our current legislation that [in] decisions we make that involve Aboriginal families and children, we should be actively seen to have taken the advice of appropriate Aboriginal leaders and agencies (Mr Richard Deyell evidence).
The experience of Indigenous agencies contradicts government rhetoric of enhanced consultation and cultural sensitivity.
... the reality is that child welfare officers who had three months training in some diploma course at TAFE are the ones who are exercising the rights over the ultimate destination of Aboriginal children. They have no understanding of the Aboriginal community. They have no knowledge of the culture of Aborigines. They have no understanding whatsoever in those courses about the disadvantages that Aboriginal people suffer and yet ... they are the people who are exercising the delegated authority of the Director in determining what will happen to those kids (Michael Mansell, Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, evidence 325).
Indigenous children with disabilities are over-represented in all welfare statistics, particularly in non-Indigenous substitute care. In May 1995 Aboriginal children represented 79% of all children with disabilities in care in the NT. Just over one-half (53%) of children in care were Aboriginal and almost half of these children had disabilities. Only 37% of Aboriginal children with disabilities were placed with Aboriginal carers (NT Government interim submission pages 54 and 56).
In August 1995 the first general meeting of people with disabilities, their carers and families took place on AP lands (South Australia). Anangu at the meeting said that disabled people on the lands are `ngaltujara mulapa' - `truly unfortunate' and the most disadvantaged.
Many people spoke about the needs of these children to learn their own culture and language, including `mara wangkani,' Anangu hand signs, instead of Australasian sign or Makston. Anangu also talked about welfare policies sounding good, but not resulting in any action on a community or family level ... There was much discussion about Anangu starting their own welfare service based on the lands (Uwankaraku Meeting Report 1995 page 9).
The meeting set guidelines including,
* Compulsory cross-cultural training for non-Aboriginal foster families.
* Make plans for children with disabilities so everyone knows the story with families on top, not foster families and Welfare.
* More funds needed to make this work.
* Disability ngura (supported accommodation) for children with disabilities on the lands.
* Communities and Aboriginal organisations to take over more of the welfare role.
* Welfare needs to help families to visit their children by paying for the trips (Uwankaraku Meeting Report 1995 page 10).
These guidelines reflect the needs of many Indigenous communities, particularly remote communities or communities where disability facilities are not available. The NSW Council for Intellectual Disability pointed out in a submission to the Inquiry the incoherent and confused law, policy and practice affecting children with disabilities which have particularly negative effects on Indigenous children.
Aboriginal children and young people with intellectual disability are in a position of double jeopardy, being devalued not only on the basis of their disability, but also their Aboriginality. Where Aboriginal children and young people with disabilities originate from rural and remote communities they are multiply disadvantaged (submission 848 page 3).
The Council noted the low participation rate of Aboriginal people in disability services and suggested this may lead to inappropriate welfare intervention being the only support available (page 5). The Council also noted that Indigenous children easily disappear into long-term non-Indigenous residential care without being detected. Other matters raised included the failure of services under the Disability Services Act 1993 (NSW) to cater for Aboriginal children. The Act has established service principles which include the requirement to meet the needs of persons with disabilities who experience additional disadvantage including Aboriginal people to `recognise the importance of preserving family relationships and the cultural and linguistic environments of persons with disabilities' and to establish transition plans where these needs are not met. However, the Council has reviewed several hundred of the 850 transition plans developed for specialist disability services and not a single plan addresses reunion of Aboriginal children with their families or takes steps to establish plans for substitute care arrangements for Aboriginal children with their family or community (submission 848 page 10).
In practice the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle appears to have only limited application for Indigenous children with disabilities. This situation urgently needs to be acknowledged and addressed.
Welfare legislation and the language of welfare policy have changed. However, submissions to the Inquiry from Indigenous organisations working with Indigenous families indicate little change in practice. Paternalistic attitudes persist in welfare departments. Indigenous children continue to be severely over-represented within all State and Territory welfare systems. Departmental attempts to provide culturally appropriate welfare services to Indigenous communities have not overcome the weight of Indigenous peoples' historical experience of `The Welfare' or the attitudes and structures entrenched in welfare departments.
Submissions to the Inquiry urged that culturally-appropriate welfare-related services are most effectively provided by Indigenous organisations.
The Department of Community Services [NSW] should be reformed, or they should not have the responsibility of dealing with Aboriginal families. If DOCS is to be reformed then there needs to be drastic changes which ensure that the Aboriginal community is adequately consulted when any decision is made about the placement of an Aboriginal child. For example, a community panel could be created which sits as a consultative body when placement decisions are made. Alternatively a new organisation could be created which serves to empower the Aboriginal communities by providing the Aboriginal community with a real role to play in the management of child welfare within their own community (Western Aboriginal Legal Service (Broken Hill) submission 775 page 27). Real control over the delivery of our citizenship rights needs to be handed over to Aboriginal organisations and legitimate representative groups ... Until this occurs then organisations such as Tangentyere Council will continue to struggle on shoe string budgets to deliver services to, and act as advocates on behalf of Aboriginal families whose lives are still impacted on by futile mainstream services, that use terms such as `culturally appropriate' and have absolutely no idea what this means (Tangentyere Council submission 542 page 2).
All State and Territory governments have recognised the importance of Aboriginal self-determination or self-management in the provision of welfare services to Indigenous peoples. If the gap between intentions and experience is to be narrowed or closed these meanings and implications must be addressed.
For many Indigenous communities the welfare of children is inextricably tied to the well-being of the community and its control of its destiny. Their experience of `The Welfare' has been overwhelmingly one of cultural domination and inappropriate and ineffective servicing, despite attempts by departments to provide accessible services. Past and current legislative and administrative policies together with bureaucratic structures and mainstream cultural presumptions create a matrix of `Welfare' which cannot be reformed by means of departmental policy alone. If welfare services are to address Indigenous children's needs they need to be completely overhauled. Welfare services must be provided in a manner which is accepted by communities.
While broad schemes are administratively convenient, communities vary significantly in their aspirations, capacities and awareness of options. Child welfare models should be sufficiently flexible to accommodate these variations. Ultimately, child welfare appropriate to each community and region should be negotiated with those whose children, families and communities are the subjects of the system. Negotiation clearly implies empowerment of Indigenous parties and recognition of their true partnership in the reform process.
1 WELSTAT data are marred by inconsistency and variable quality between jurisdictions and overall are incomplete. All State and Territory welfare departments keep records of children in out-of-home care, whether placed by government or by private agencies. Varying definitions are used for the collection and collation of data. All agencies break down the figures into a range of categories including whether the child is Indigenous. The accuracy of this breakdown is not clear although it is known that a number of children who are Indigenous are not recorded as such. It is particularly difficult to make comparisons between States and Territories on the rate of children under departmental attention, and particularly in out-of-home care, because departments use different definitions and categories in the collection of data.
Nonetheless the data available clearly indicate serious over-representation of Indigenous children in all stages of contact with welfare systems. The level of over-representation increases as the level of intervention increases. Indigenous children are over-represented in all categories. Their over-representation is markedly higher among children removed for neglect compared with abuse. Torres Strait Islander children in Queensland - where the largest Torres Strait Islander population lives - appear to have higher rates of notification and substantiated findings of abuse compared with Aboriginal families.
Lance Dad died when I was about two. My parents were married, but they often lived apart. When I was a little kid, they gave me to an Uncle and Auntie and the police took me away from them and put me in a Home. I have never been with my brothers and sisters at all. They were also put into the same Home. My brothers and sisters did not know that I existed until a nun said, `Come and meet your little brother'. I have some contact with them now. I see them once every six months. To me they are like acquaintances. If I was in a stable Aboriginal family, I wouldn't have the problems I have now - identifying myself as Koori. For ages I despised my parents; how could they just dump me in this Home? I hated them for what they were - Koories. I therefore hated Koories. I hated myself because I was Koori. St Joseph's Home - Sebastopol - is where I grew up. It was run by nuns wearing black habits. The only Aboriginal kids there were just me and another bloke. There were girls there too. I stayed there for seven or eight years. I bloody hated it. I remember going to bed crying every night and wetting the bed every night and every day moping around unhappy. I hated authorities. The nuns were really strict on you. We had a big dormitory where the boys slept. I used to go to bed crying. I remember a nun with a torch saying, `Stop crying'. I hid my head. She came back and hit me on the head with the torch. I still have the scar today. I did not know I had brothers and sisters ... I did not know I had brothers and sisters until I was aged twelve. I thought, `How come I did not know about it? Where were they? How come they did not come and play with me?'. You did not really want to know them and find out Mum and Dad kept them and threw you away. You'd realise your fears were true. Lake Condah Mission is where my parents came from. I suspect they grew up with their parents. My parents moved around heaps, although my mother doesn't now. We have a love/hate relationship. She loves me, but I hate her. I have never had a Birthday Card or Christmas Card. She is just a Mum in that she gave birth to me. At age eight I was adopted out to these white people. They had three children who were a lot older - in their thirties and forties. I get on with them well. They send me Christmas Cards and Birthday Cards. It is good having people like that, but sometimes you know you are not really part of the family. You feel you should not really be there, eg, `Come along Lance we're having a family photo taken'. I have not told them how I feel. They have tried real hard to make me feel part of the family, but it just won't work. I got up to Year 11 at School. I got a lot of flak, `How come your parents are white?'. On Father and Son Day, `Is he the Postman or what?'. It was pretty awkward. It was always awkward. I was always a shy kid, especially among my Father's friends. `Here is my son'. They would look at you. That look. `You're still together?'. I remember waiting for my Mother at her work, which was a bakery. A bloke asked me, `Where is your Mum'? He searched for an Aboriginal lady. I wished God would make me white and these people's son instead of an adopted son. I still call them Mum and Dad. But when I go to my real Mum, I find it real hard to call her my `Mum' because she has just been another lady - OK a special lady. Mum's Mum [ie adoptive mother] because she was there when I took my first push bike ride and went on my first date. After Year 11, I got a couple of jobs. I got into heaps of trouble with the Police - drugs and alcohol. I could get my hands on it and escape and release my frustration. I saw Police ... their fault as well as with me being taken away from my family. Slowly that decreased because a couple of cops came to my place, just to see how I was doing and just to talk to me. You can see the effects of stuff, such as alcohol, so I don't drink anyway. Alcohol took me away from my parents, who are chronic alcoholics. Mum is and Dad was. It took my brother [car accident at 18 years, high blood alcohol reading]. Three years ago I started taking interest in Koori stuff. I decided at least to learn the culture. I did not find the stereotype. I found that we understood what we were and that we were on a wave-length. I made a lot of friends and I am yet to make more. It becomes very frustrating. I am asked about a Koori word and I don't know. You feel you should know and are ashamed for yourself. I feel Koori, but not a real Koori in the ways of my people. It is hard to say whether I was better off being taken away because the alternative never happened. I think the people I went with were better off economically and my education was probably better than what it would have been otherwise. I might have ended up in jail. I may not have had two meals or none and fewer nice clothes and been less well behaved. If someone tried to remove my kids - over my dead body. I'd pack them up and move them away. Not the shit I've been through - no.
Confidential submission 154, Victoria: removed 1974.