Yarn`n Up 1 - The Bouverie Centre

THE BOUVERIE CENTRE
AND LTU
.
INSIDE THIS
ISSUE:
ART WORK
2
METRO MELBOURNE
TRAINING
3
TWO
DAY FORUM
4
WHAT’S CHANGED
IN YOUR WORK
PLACE.
5
SEXY STATS
5
INTEVIEW KIM AND
KAYE BY DR KERRY
PROCTOR
6
PHOTO GALLERY
7
FROM THE
PRESIDENT OF VAFT
8
THINGS OF
INTEREST
9
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
10
YARN’N UP is the working title of our
Indigenous Family Therapy Newsletter.
You may well be thinking ; “So what’s
the purpose of the newsletter and who
wants it?” Actually no ‘one’ person said
they would like a newsletter. What happened was there were heaps of suggestions from all four of the training cohorts, that you fella’s would like to
know more about each other, where
you are working and how you are using
your family therapy knowledge. Some of
you wanted an ear to the ground
around all that’s going on in Family
Therapy, such as conferences, workshops, on line articles and job vacancies.
A newsletter was one way we could
establish this, within the confines of the
Bouverie Center’s illustrious budget, NOT!
So, if you have a cartoon, photos, a good
news or even a bad news story you would
like to have published in our newsletter,
please send it into me via email, at :
[email protected] The next newsletter will be published early in 2011.
YARN’N UP is the working title of our
newsletter! Send your suggestions for another title and we will collect them all together for the next issue for you to have
your say and choose which name the
majority of you prefer. Please
Forward your ideas to
[email protected] au
OATSIH is prepared to fund training for a raft of courses.
Check out their web site
www.health.gov.au/oatsih
NEWS ALERT.

Indigenous Family Therapist sits
on the VAAFT board.

Meet and Greet all the graduates
and current students at a two day
forum, March 2011.
A gift voucher to the value of $40 for
the best article submission to our next
newsletter. Your choice of outlet;
KHTM, Sanity, Borders?
Foot Steps to Healthy Families.
Page 2
The Creation of a Story and the Meaning of the Painting.
The painting is a story of the journey of engaging
and maintaining Aboriginal people/families into
family therapy healing/practices to bring about
strong and healthy individuals, families and communities.
This is partly due to a natural shyness of Aboriginal people and/or shame factor in acknowledging family dysfunction which can be further enabled through current organisational processes
which are often time consuming and culturally
void.
The painting highlights the need for more Indigenous therapists and also demands that current Aboriginal
health workers be recognised for
their often innate healing qualities that are also undervalued.
‘The painting
highlights the
This has been demonstrated by
need for more
the larger number of Aboriginal
Indigenous
Therapists”
figures than non-Aboriginal figures which is in opposition to the
current trend.
The symbols within the outer rim
of the circles depict complex
family structures which can include immediate, extended family and/or other
community members. The figures inside the circles are the therapists/healers both Indigenous
and non Indigenous.
The lone therapist/health worker who is not encompassed by symbolic people highlights the difficulty in engaging family into family therapy.
The male/female figures in the
two yellow circles represent elders/respected persons, this is
recognisable by the more elaborate head dress. They are integral in overseeing and ensuring
culturally safety and culturally
sensitive practices within the
therapeutic environment. This is
fundamental to the long term
health and well-being of Aboriginal people.
The foot steps painted in random fashion shows the healing process in action
and families coming together. This is the
result of culturally appropriate Family Therapy in
action.
Words written by the artist Joanne Dwyer 2008.
*******************************************************************
Page 3
METRO MELBOURNE
POST GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN FAMILY THERAPY BY
THE LOVELY FIONA MCILWWAINE
Our Metro Grad Cert began on 22d April 2010 with 8 students, and another three students from
Swan Hill joined the course in June. Sadly one of our students did have to withdraw from the
course due to family reasons. There are six students from the AOD sector, one student from a
school setting, one student from Family Counselling and two from Child and Family services within
an ACCO. In the group seven of the students work in ACCO’s and the other three are in mainstream
organisations working with Indigenous families.
The feedback from the group has been positive; students have talked about how it is a safe space
to talk, share ideas and learn from each other. Students talk about how valuable it is to be studying with people working in different agencies and are finding this is adding to the richness of the
discussion.
The research conducted within this Post Graduate Certificate in Family Therapy builds on the findings of the past trainings. It listens and attends to the voices of students in determining the cultural
appropriateness and effectiveness of the training and particularly in relation to the possibilities of
family therapy and family healing as an approach to addressing substance misuse in Indigenous
communities. It is anticipated that the current students will gain benefits similar to past graduates
who have recognised that through family therapy training they have been able to:

Develop and implement self-care strategies

Advocate for their clients within mainstream organisations and Aboriginal Community
Controlled Organisations

Build confidence and increasingly value the ability to be ‘cross-cultural’

Utilise a broad range of therapeutic interventions – including an awareness of trauma

Empower clients and communities to find solutions to their problems
From left to right, Trainers, Jana and Fiona, then Di, Jo, Anita, Shel, Anthony, Gillie, Frank and Jimmy.
Francie and Alma were away that day.
`Our role is to support not just one person but the whole family... to help
the family stay together’ (Current AOD student)
The course will finish on 24th February 2011 with a Community Performance so we will keep you
posted about the venue for that.
Students will then formally graduate from La Trobe University in October 2011.
Location and funding to be advised.
Have a dori!!
Www.howsyoursugar.com.au/
There will be a two-day forum from 1st—2nd March
2011 when the family therapy
students and graduates of the four training programs
across Victoria, will come together and yarn about the
implementation of family therapy ideas in the
workplace and the potential
support that organisations such as the Bouverie
Centre can offer graduates and their agencies once
the training is finished.
There’s a great web-site on diabetes called
“How’s your sugar’
T WO DAY FO R U M F O R O U R G R A D UAT E S A N D
CURRENT STUDENTS
The decision to hold a two day forum also resulted from your contributions to the research.
Recommendation Six of the Ballarat report states that
To support and sustain the emerging identity of the graduates as Indigenous family therapists by an Indigenous state wide
therapy network.
The following three supports are recommended.
1. For the Bouverie Centre's Indigenous Training Team to collate, publish and distribute a quarterly newsletter, to all
graduates and current students. The graduates, current students and the Indigenous Training Team will to be invited to submit articles of relevance. The newsletter could develop into a professional Indigenous family therapy
journal
2. To hold an annual two-day, state-wide forum for both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous graduates, from this training program
3. Family Therapy graduates and ACCO managers will be invited to attend. The forum could develop into a professional conference for Indigenous family therapists
ISSUE 1.
2010
Page 5
WHATS CHANGED FOR YOU AND YOUR HEALTH SERVICE SINCE
GRADUATION?
What’s changed for you and your health service since your training and/or graduation?
We would love to hear from you. Are you
now using your family therapy skills in your
work place or maybe in your community?
Are you now included or excluded from meetings regarding your clients?
Has your health service redefined your job
description to include dedicated time to work
with families as a family therapist?
What has been the impact of supervision for
you?
Has your boss, colleagues or family made
any comments about your family therapy
work, skills or training?
We would be really interested to hear from
you.
If you do or don’t want to be identified in
your feedback, just let me know.
Robbie and Jacqui presenting on “ Hearing Indigenous
Voices” at the ALARA conference in Melbourne, Sept
This is just one of the
deadly hand prints on
our office wall. When
you come to visit us at
the Bouve, you are definitely invited to add
your hand print to our
wall of hands.
SUMMARY OF INDIGENOUS STATS
Research in the hands of
Indigenous researchers
can really work for us.
GET THIS! In the 2006
Australian census: onethird (32%) of Indigenous
people reported Year 10
as their highest year of
school completion and
less than one-quarter
(22%) had completed
year 12 compared with
almost one-half (47%) of
non-Indigenous people;
one-quarter (25%) of Indigenous people reported
having a post-school
qualification, compared
with almost one-half
(47%) of non-Indigenous
people; and only 1.7% of
Indigenous people reported attending a university, compared with
4.1% of non-Indigenous
people. In 2006 there
were 136 Indigenous
graduates of higher de-
gree courses nationwide.
There are currently 126
Indigenous Australian
students studying across
the campuses of LTU. It is
anticpated 19 Indigenous
students graduating in
the Post Graduate in
Family Therapy in 2010,
representing half the university’s Indigenous students, enrolled in all
higher research degrees
at LTU.It is a landmark
training program that is
leading the way in closing
the education gap between Indigenous and
non-Indigenous people
and is having an impact
on the professional development of workers, services, families and community.
Page 6
Interview with Kim and Kaye by the Deadly Kerry Proctor
THEIR JOURNEY:
From capacity building training in family
therapy to a professional family therapist role in Indigenous Communities.
Both Kim Warde and Kaye Babarovich
are graduates of the Shepparton training, having graduated in May 2009.
Both are currently in the same positions
they held when they were doing the
training in Family Therapy throughout
2008.
Kim Warde has completed her Graduate
Certificate in Family Therapy through
Latrobe University and The Bouverie
Centre with the support of her employer
Njernda Aboriginal Corporation Echuca.
Kim has been working for Njernda in the
Maternity Program as the Midwife. Her
various duties include Support of
women in labour, domiciliary visits,
home visiting, ante-natal check ups,
immunisation provider, Pap smear provider, nursing duties in clinic, health
assessments, facilitating walking groups
etc.
Her ultimate dream is to be employed at
Niernda in the capacity of a Family
Therapist working with the families both
she and Anita Baxter-Waters, Maternity
Health Worker and a Shepparton graduate, have been working with for the past
6 years. Anita recently left her position
at Njernda to take up a new role as Aboriginal Health Education Officer at
Deniliquin.
Kaye Babarovich works as an ARPAC
worker with Goulburn Valley Community health Service, and is currently
the sole Aboriginal worker at GVCHS.
At the completion of the training,
she wrote: In my role of assisting
people to manage their own chronic
conditions I would be talking to family members about how they can
support each other to do that and
therefore would be talking within a
family system and within community…
As a result of doing this training the
changes to my work practice have
been that I listen. I listen to the information and this makes a huge
difference because I am actually
hearing the issue. Before I would
hear the issue but go, “I have all
these solutions,” but now I really
listen to the problem and end up
thinking “Oh, OK then… now you find
the solutions, I can help you, but this
is your problem. I am just here to
guide you and give you some ideas.”
Both Kaye and Kim, along with Anita
have attended regular family therapy
supervision sessions every month to
six weeks, to discuss their
More ha
nd prints
from our
office wa
ll.
and mainstream organizations so
Aboriginal families have choice of
appropriately qualified family counselors/health workers to go to.
The positive role that the graduates
of family therapy play in mentoring
other Indigenous workers to have
the confidence to commence undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications.
In maternal and child health, family
therapy ideas and practice helps
prevents the breakdown of families.
Family therapy ideas and practice
have a preventative focus that would
work alongside the AFDM approach.
Family therapy training would be
invaluable for the Koorie Education
Support Officers (KESSOs) in order
to work more effectively with families, the schools and the children.
clinical work in community from a
family perspective and continue to
develop a ‘systems perspective’ on
their organizational role.
Kim and Kaye have remained committed to ongoing supervision, and
have shown a remarkable capacity
to maintain the link with their family
therapy learning, and a desire to
offer family therapy to Community.
“It is not easy!”
Kim Warde (left) and Anita Baxter-Water (right)
Both Kay and Kim agree that it is
important for dedicated family therapy positions to be funded in both
Indigenous organizations and in
mainstream agencies working with
Aboriginal families. They spoke
about a number of things that they
considered important about that
being able to do family work (with a
therapeutic focus) within their existing roles that would also benefit
Community. These were:
DHS supporting funding for family
therapist positions critical in ACCOs
Kaye Babarovich
Page 7
ISSUE 1.
2010
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Gippsland mob at their Community Forum.
2010.
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Therapists, from
Our First Family
09
hepparton, 20
nt,
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I’M SO SORRY
I COULD NOT
FIT ALL YOUR
NAMES INTO
THIS PAGE.
I DECIDED ON
BIGGER IMAGES AND
LESS TEXT.
The Ballarat mob at their Community Forum 2009.
Page 8
FROM THE PRESIDENT OF VAFT/AAFT BANU MOLONEY
Newsletter notes from the President of VAFT/AAFT
I wear many shoes and hats, though obviously not all at the
same time.
But it is still difficult to carve myself off from one role to another.
I wanted to say some things for this first newsletter as the
President of VAFT/AAFT but I am not sure if my excitement
about Indigenous family therapists is as a consequence of being
involved in the training or as the President. I sure would not
have wanted to miss out on the journey of learning with
Indigenous family therapists. As president I feel enormously
excited for family therapy in Australia.
I recently delivered a keynote address in New Zealand about the
developments of family therapy training in Australia. Top on my
list is the success of 3 cohorts of Indigenous students successfully completing the Graduate Certificate in Family Therapy;
La Trobe university being the first university to have the highest
percentage of Indigenous post graduates at tertiary level,
La Trobe university wishing to support Indigenous students to
study the Masters in Clinical Family therapy, ACCOS willing to
create family therapy positions for Indigenous family therapists
and most importantly Indigenous students collaborating to write
a culturally congruent and respectful family therapy curriculum
that mainstream family therapists can also benefit from. The
possibility that for the first time we might turn our thoughts to
an Australian curriculum is exciting. However I was also a little
anxious while in New Zealand that I might have to admit to Australia being the only signatory to the United Nations convention
that is choosing to ignore the racial discrimination laws, when it
comes to the first nation people. Apparently when Cook arrived
in New Zealand the story goes that the Maoris’ said to him “you
come on shore and we will kill you and we will eat you”. I fortunately retuned home safely.
So how is this training in family therapy for Indigenous students
different?
Shaun Coade and I have worked on this project from the very
first disastrous beginning where I thought it was a simple case
of taking my power point to the bush and delivering it there, end
of story. Not so. It was almost end of me except for Shaun not
giving up on my ignorance and blind spots when it came to understanding the very nature of colonisation on the knowledge
appropriation for Indigenous people. The family therapy course
in mainstream is devoid of any reference or consideration of
Indigenous ways of knowing and learning. And that was the
course I had taken to the people of Shepparton. Now you know
why I nearly did not make it.
Shaun and I intend to shortly publish an article which will go into
much detail on what has worked and how in the success of the
Indigenous family therapy training. So I wont give the recipe
away yet.
An important outcome of the success of the Indigenous family
therapy training has been the interest in mainstream to become
more aware of training from a culturally congruent perspective
and also to be aware of what is important for Indigenous families and communities for family therapy to be effective. Though
family therapy has been around in Australia since the 1970s
not much of this knowledge or work has impacted on Indigenous families. Indigenous families still do not feel safe or respected to turn up to a mainstream organisation or for that matter willing to identify as being an Indigenous family when coming
for therapy if they do. What is also interesting is that mainstream organisations have not had the energy to pursue Indigenous families or even wonder why they have not shown up. This
lack of interest in Indigenous families well being in mainstream
will surprise no one in Indigenous communities. It is more of
the same that has always been. The Bouverie Centre with the
appointment of the first Indigenous family therapist is actively
addressing this gap and in time hopefully Indigenous families
will have real choices as to where they go to get help without
fear of not being understood.
So what is different about Indigenous Family therapy?
So what is different about Indigenous Family therapy?
1. Students’ knowledge base is actively solicited and built on
2. Local knowledge privileged above imported knowledge
3. Family therapy theories and skills are interrogated for their
efficacy for Indigenous families
4. And where possible family therapy theories are adapted to
make it more congruent and respectful for the individual
family or community.
5. Learning is a collective, shared experience and skills are
worked on as a group rather than focused on individuals
gaining skills in family therapy practice alone. No one is
left behind and everyone helps each other understand
complex family therapy concepts.
6. Training is delivered using both Indigenous and non- Indigenous trainers.
7. Stereotypes and myths are interrogated for their usefulness
i.e. Indigenous students learn orally and don’t like reading
or writing.
8. Feedback is sought early and often and responded to regularly regarding all aspects of learning.
9. Whilst sorry business is always acknowledged and allowance for missing class is made attempts are made to
make up for missed sessions
10. Humour is an essential ingredient and a sense of humour
vital for survival.
st
fir
the
’s
ly
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mi
a
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ou o sit
n
Gu
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tt
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Ind rapis ard
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e
T?
Th he b
AF
t
A
/
FT
A
V
ISSUE 1.
2010
Page 9
THINGS OF INTEREST
Conferences
31st Australia Family Therapy Conference 2010. Diversity, Context, Culture and Community. October
6-8th 2010. http://familytherapyconference2010.com.au/
The Gippsland Mob presented at this conference. They were stunning. Congratulations to one and all.
Photos and some reflections in the next issue.
Indigenous Family Therapy Forum. 28th—29th March 2011. TBC.
For graduates to link and network.
W.W.W.’s
THE LOWITJA INSTITUTE http://www.lowitja.org.au/
Australia’s National Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research
Incorporating the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health.
http://www.onemda.unimelb.edu.au/
A Good Read
Holding Men: Kanyirninpa and the Health of Aboriginal Men. By Brian McCoy.
GREAT WEBSITE: www.hows your sugar.com.au
The Power and the Passion. By Dr Shannon Falkhead.
Training Opportunities.
Masters in Family Therapy training
http://www.bouverie.org.au/
Our second edition will have two special features.
There will be the
column.
There can ask a question of
And …..her response will be in the next newsletter. For example, “What do I do when
my
boss still doesn’t acknowledge my new found skills in family therapy and tells me to leave the room when they are having
professional discussions?”
This
colu
mn
is fo
for e
r thi
xam
ngs
ple:
YOU
a
ckno
wan
reco
t to
w
gniti
ledg
tell u
ons.
eme
s
nts,
………
a
and
chie
and
vem
the
your
thing
ent
com
s ma
mun
king
ity s
tron
you
g.
Page 10
Page 11
V I C T O R I A ' S
F A M I L Y
I N S T I T U T E .
BOUVERIE
NEWS
T HE BO UVE R I E C E NT R E
AN D LT U
Amelia holding hands with her Dad..
8 Gardiner Street.
Aaron our intake worker, is now a Dad.
Brunswick. 3056.
Jana and Robbie and Bouverie are creating a more Indigenous friendly waiting space at the Bouv. We welcome other your input and ideas as to what you
would like to see.
Phone: +61 3 9385.5100.
Fax: +61 3 9381.0336.
E-mail: [email protected]
We now have two Lin Onus screen prints at the Bouv, on loan from LTU’s
collection.
The White Room has been renamed
rie
e.edu.au/bouve
Web: www.latrob
We would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people who are the Traditional Custodians of this Land on which our organizational building stands.
We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present of
the Kulin Nation and extend that respect to other Indigenous Australians.