AIATSIS runs first accredited Family history workshop

  FHU
  PJ Williams of the Family History Unit assists one of the delegates at the AIATSIS Link Up training course - the delegates were the first group of Link Up workers to attend a formally accredited course.


2 June 2011


“We were all saying the other day we’re making history – the first group of Link Up workers to attend a formally accredited course,” said WA,Yorgum Link Up caseworker,
Melbourne Hart, this week when attending the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Family History Unit Link Up training course.

Ten Indigenous Australians from Link Up services around Australia attended the workshop held in early June.

Melbourne, a former Aboriginal community health worker with the Broome-based Broome Regional Aboriginal Medical Service (BRAMS) said he had found the training most beneficial
and useful.

“I’m a member of the stolen generation myself,” he said, “so there is a great feeling of empathy when you work with community people to help them find their families”.

The value of the course to increasing skill levels was a view repeated by other course members.

For example, Link Up South Australia’s cultural team leader, Lorelle Hunter, said she had attended previous Family History Unit training courses.

“I first came to an AIATSIS course nine years ago,” said Lorelle. “The content is excellent. This time the content is different and challenging. It’s great to know that this is the very first
accredited course”.

AIATSIS’s Principal, Mr Russell Taylor, said the accreditation of the workshop was the culmination of a new partnership with the Canberra Institute of Technology and its Indigenous
Yurauna Centre.

“AIATSIS’s Family History Unit has long worked with Link Up services to help members of the Stolen Generations to find their family and to find out about their family history. In fact,
from June of this year the Unit will be working solely to support Link Up caseworkers and their clients,” Mr Taylor said.

“We are delighted that the workshops are now formally accredited.

“Link Up caseworkers will be formally trained with research skills and knowledge of family history records and resources and how to access them. These skills are vital in to their role in
helping members of the Stolen Generations”.

Mr Taylor said AIATSIS Family History Unit (FHU) had been helping Link Up caseworkers since l999

“Since 1999 FHU staff have:

“The unit is staffed by a team of qualified trainers and assessors and are also highly skilled and experienced in Indigenous family history research”.

Senior Family History Officer, Rebecca Stubbs, said that attendees at the workshop included participants from the Northern Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia,
Victoria and Western Australia.

“The workshop will be run over four days and aims to equip participants with the necessary skills, training and knowledge to undertake and deliver family history research services at the
local level. “The Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health funds the Unit and to have finally seen the content formally accredited is a major step forward. To be able to assist workers in the
Australia-wide Link Up service network is fantastic.

“They provide a vital service to hundreds, probably thousands of Indigenous Australians every year,” Ms Stubbs said

Another person to attest to the value of the course content was another SA Link Up employee, Nicki Morey. Nicki, a caseworker, said she had only been working at the Link Up Service for
nine months.

“I think the more you learn how to access data bases and find out information that helps the client base the better it is.

“You are better equipped to help your clients,” Nicki said. “We are being shown options for finding out information we were not previously aware of. “That’s good”.

Walter Harrison, from Link Up Victoria, said he, too, was a newcomer to the Link Up family having spent many years working for organisations and programs designed to lessen family
violence.

“The work is very different,” Waltter said. “I must admit to be able to improve my skills as well as being able to meet and network with other Link Up caseworkers is tremendous.
“I’m getting a lot out of it”.

This was the same view expressed by Link Up NSW caseworkers Tracey Fitzgibbon and Rebecca Clarke – also both relative newcomers to the Link Up family.

“We come from working in very different backgrounds. But what we both appreciated immediately is that you are working face-to-face with community members and can help them
immediately.

“That gives good job satisfaction. The more we learn to do this better the better it is for us and our audience base.”

And almost as one – the l0 participants emphasised that their’s was a growing audience base.

Some said they already had waiting lists.

Perhaps Nicki Morey best expressed the majority view when she said: “We all want to help the Stolen Generation. When you achieve that you really feel you are doing something positive.\

“Something positive for Indigenous people everywhere”.