Conference Papers
Session WR. 1.1. Programs and research supporting youth resilience
1. David Cole: Healing our children to ensure our future
Balunu’s vision is to heal our children and rebuild our families through a culturally appropriate and holistic healing program. Giving our children the tools of understanding and planting seeds for life we strive to change our destiny through healing our children today. Through the knowledge of our Elders we strive to reconnect the youth to their culture and identity whilst providing them with the opportunity to heal. We currently deliver cultural healing programs to at risk Indigenous youth in the Darwin region. Our program addresses the underlying issues and challenges many of our youth face which result in them turning to substance abuse and misuse to escape the reality of the pain they face. We aim to address the underlying pain in order to alleviate the need to require substances to escape this pain and as a result have reduced the self harm in many young people, prevented many suicides and turned around the lives of many at risk Indigenous youth in our community. I am very interested in sharing the great work we do and the positive outcomes we achieve through our holistic approach to addressing the challenges faced by at risk youth. Our children are our future, we cannot change our past but we can change our future if we rebuild the Warrior within our youth to rebuild our families, communities and culture to ensure we have a future free of the suffering and pain we experience today on a mental, emotional, spiritual and physical level, come walk with us.
2. M. Singleton & A. Abudeen: Beating da Binge: community collaboration to reduce harm from young people’s binge drinking and what young people said
This presentation describes a whole-of-community harm reduction approach to binge drinking by young people in Yarrabah, north Queensland. The project was prompted by the closure of Yarrabah’s Community Development Employment Program and community concern that the resultant lack of engagement by young people in employment would exacerbate the extant binge drinking culture. The Beat da Binge initiative was developed by Yarrabah’s Gindaja Treatment and Healing Centre in collaboration with nine community organisations and has been implemented through a research partnership with James Cook University, University of New South Wales and University of Newcastle. The initial focus of Beat da Binge was a social marketing awareness campaign but early participatory action research processes led to a community-driven change in to a focus on greater involvement of young people in the project design and implementation, attempts to gain evidence about binge drinking behaviours and interest to influence the determinants of binge drinking. Young people informed the development of a survey relating to their peer’s awareness and behaviours and were then employed to implement the survey and enter data. Two versions of the survey were delivered opportunistically to 48 high school students aged 12-15 years and 222 young people aged 18-25 years (of Yarrabah’s 600 approx young people). Of the older age group, 83% males and 75% females said that they drank alcohol, with 75% males and 71% females drinking at levels that put them in a high risk category. Reasons given for binge drinking included boredom, lack of training, employment or activities. The presentation will discuss the unfolding participatory nature of the project, the results of the survey and their implications for future community action.
Author bio: Michele Singleton is the Program Coordinator at Gindaja Treatment and Healing Indigenous Corporation in Yarrabah, near Cairns. She is responsible for managing the Beat da Binge project including the evaluation process. Michele has a background in education and has developed extensive community networks and knowledge through living in Yarrabah for more than twenty years.
Autor bio: Ansari Abudeen is a Health Economist and PhD Candidate with the National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. He has analysed the Beat da Binge survey data from 270 young Yarrabah people.
3. Colin Tatz: The complexities of Aboriginal youth suicide
Aboriginal suicide, especially among the young, was unknown before the 1960s. Rates are now among the highest in the world. Explanations of this phenomenon lie in the social and political contexts of both Aboriginal policies and their practice. There is a social context of violent behaviour – towards others and towards self – that requires both recognition and understanding. Simply trying to locate 'illness' within those intent on cessation of life, and treating such with therapy or pharmaceuticals, is an oversimplification and unrealistic in terms of approaching a national problem. Not only are the results of such an approach very poor, but the individual patient approach does nothing to explain the complexities involved in Aboriginal alienation, social, political, economic and legal estrangement from the mainstream for well over a century.
Author bio: Colin Tatz is honorary visiting fellow at AIATSIS and visiting fellow in Politics and International Relations at ANU. He is the author of Aboriginal Suicide is Different: a Portrait if Life and Self-Destruction.
4. Norm Sheehan: Sustaining Connections, Cultural Strengths and Social and Emotional Well Being
An outline of the Sustaining Connections research conducted in Queensland Aboriginal communities during 2010-2011 will be provided along with an analysis of project outcomes. Cultural strengths basis for this research will be presented and the features of this approach that relate to social and emotional well being will be discussed. The connective art project will also be examined as a cultural connection model that provides a practical and experiential hedge against self harm and suicide.
Author bio: Norm Sheehan is a Wiradjuri man born in Mudgee NSW. He has taught in Aboriginal communities, TAFE and higher education in NSW, Tasmania and Queensland since 1979. In 2008 Norm completed an Australian Research Council Discovery project that investigated Indigenous Knowledge programs in higher education. He also recently completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Social and Emotional Well Being with the School of Psychiatry at the University of Queensland. This work laid down a framework to inform a cultural strengths approach to Aboriginal education. In 2009 Norm was awarded the South East Queensland NAIDOC award for the contribution his teaching and scholarship has made to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. He is currently Associate Professor at the Faculty of Design at Swinburne University of Technology.