doi:10.1111/j.1365-2206.2009.00637.x
‘Get Up. Stand Up.’ Riding to resilience on a surfboard
cfs_637
56..65
Paul Morgan
Child Protection Counselling Service, Sydney Children’s Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Correspondence:
Paul Morgan,
Child Protection Counselling
Service,
Sydney Children’s Hospital,
High Street Randwick 2031
Australia
E-mail:
paul.morgan@sesiahs.health.nsw.gov.au
Keywords: Australian Aboriginal,
challenge, child abuse, resilience,
surfing
Accepted for publication: May 2009
Published online: October 2009
A B S T R AC T
Government policies sanctioning the systematic removal of Australian
Aboriginal children from their families ended in the 1970s. However,
trauma associated with removal remains active in the present day for
those removed and their offspring, contributing to the pernicious
interlinked set of health and social problems afflicting most Aboriginal communities. Child abuse and neglect are an important avenue of
inter-generational transmission of trauma leaving many Aboriginal
children challenge-averse and vulnerable to social disadvantage, substance abuse and mental health problems in later life. Child protection and health services have a poor record engaging and providing
effective interventions to Aboriginal Australians. Sunset Surfers is a
learn-to-surf programme targeting a disadvantaged urban neighbourhood with a high proportion of Aboriginal families. Qualitative evaluation shows that participants experienced positive effect associated
with the challenging activity of learning to surf, allowing for reframing of children’s negative beliefs about challenge. By providing an
appropriate balance of challenge and support, and encouraging
physical activity, Sunset Surfers represents a holistic, preventative
approach to a pernicious array of social and health problems.
INTRODUCTION
Sunset Surfers was a pilot school holiday programme
aimed at building resilience in children from disadvantaged backgrounds through the provision of
surfing instruction. The programme targeted children
from an inner Sydney neighbourhood characterized
by a high degree of social disadvantage and therefore
high risk of child abuse (Garbarino 1995), as well as a
high proportion of Aboriginal families.The aims of the
programme were to establish a positive engagement
between children at high risk of abuse and agencies
providing child protection and family welfare services;
to provide socially disadvantaged children with a
positive and enjoyable physical activity; to enhance
children’s sense of agency and resilience through the
experience of mastering a safe, healthy, challenging
and enjoyable physical activity.
C H I L D W E L FA R E
For over a century until the 1970s, Australian government policies resulted in Aboriginal welfare practices
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known collectively as the ‘Stolen Generations’. Stolen
Generations was the systematic, forced removal of
Aboriginal children from their families to be raised in
institutions or by non-Aboriginal foster families. The
report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of
Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders from their
families estimated that between one in three and one
in ten Aboriginal children were removed from their
families, and that most Aboriginal families were
affected ‘in one or more generations by the forcible
removal of one or more children’ (Human Rights and
Equal Opportunity Commission 1997, p. 4). A very
high proportion of Aboriginal children removed from
their families endured abuse, neglect, exploitation and
violence while in care (Read 1981; Human Rights and
Equal Opportunity Commission 1997). The original
intent of these policies continues to be debated in
Australian society. However, the actual human cost of
the widespread forced removal of Aboriginal children
has become far more apparent with recent advances in
the science of developmental psychology.
Psychosocial trauma in early childhood can cause
profound long-term developmental deficits (Rutter
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Riding to resilience on a surfboard P Morgan
et al. 1997; Zeanah et al. 1997). The damage to
attachment relationships caused by the forced removal
of Aboriginal children along with the widespread and
often severe abuse and neglect experienced in institutions and in many non-Aboriginal foster families
represented profound early trauma for those children
(Read 1981; Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission 1997). The consequent disruption to
development of brain structures would have had a
profound and lifelong negative impact on the socioemotional functioning of removed children (Perry
et al. 1995; Zeanah et al. 1997). Individuals exposed
to chronic trauma in early childhood experience in
adulthood higher rates of mental illness and substance
abuse problems, and lower levels of social, emotional
and cognitive functioning (Rodgers 1990; Swan &
Raphael 1995).
Compounding this trauma, the forced fragmentation of families and wider traditional kinship structures denied removed Aboriginal children the primary
experience human beings draw upon to become effective parents: experience of being parented. Consequently, many children who were removed and who
went on to have their own families are in effect
‘unparented parents’ whose responsibilities for their
own children are confounded by their lack of personal
experience and knowledge of child-rearing practices
(Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
1997). The psychological consequences of early
trauma, along with this disruption to cultural connections and the inter-generational transmission of traditional parenting practices caused by child removal
often resulted in abusive parenting practices, and
involvement with statutory child protection services
for the next generation of Aboriginal children (Stanley
et al. 2003).
Exposure to chronic child abuse and neglect in the
early years of life causes profound disruptions to neurological development, leading to problems of depression, aggression, social relationships, cognitive deficits,
emotional regulation, substance abuse and criminality
later in life (Perry et al. 1995; Guterman 2001). The
abuse and neglect of children associated with parental
substance abuse and mental illness resulting from the
parent’s own experience of childhood trauma closed
the circle, locking many families into an intergenerational cycle of poverty, violence, abuse and
neglect. Child abuse and neglect represent significant
avenues for the inter-generational transmission of past
trauma into the present day lives of families.
Conventional child welfare approaches (investigation, legal sanctions, casework and counselling) tend to
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be individualistic, deficit focused, coercive and occur
after abuse has taken place.These approaches have had
very little success within Aboriginal communities. By
and large they have failed to protect Aboriginal children (Libesman 2004), and most Aboriginal communities have rates of child abuse and neglect far in excess
of the wider Australian community (Richardson 2005).
In 2007, the rate of out-of-home-care for Aboriginal
children was eight times the rate for other Australian
children (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
2008). Despite the well-documented ineffectiveness of
conventional approaches, they continue to appropriate
the vast majority of resources devoted to child abuse
and neglect in Aboriginal communities. Service providers’ frustration with a policy environment that continues to rely on these ineffectual approaches, despite
lack of either an evidence base or significant positive
outcomes in the local community, was an important
factor leading to the development of the Sunset Surfers
programme.
H E A LT H
On all major health indicators, the health status of the
Aboriginal population is significantly lower than any
other group in Australia. Indigenous people remain
the least healthy sub-population in Australia (National
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Council
2003) with a disease burden 2.5 times and a life
expectancy 17.6 years less than that of the general
Australian population (Pink & Allbon 2008). Compared with the broader Australian population,
Aboriginal people have significantly higher rates of
circulatory disease, diabetes, respiratory disease, musculoskeletal conditions, kidney disease, and ear and
eye problems (Pink & Allbon 2008). A history of
health interventions targeting individual causative
factors have been largely unsuccessful at improving
Aboriginal health status (Ring & Brown 2002).
The Adverse Childhood Experiences epidemiological study finds a strong correlation between poor adult
health status and the experience of child abuse.
Clearly, the health status of adults and the experiences
of their children are related (Felitti et al. 1998). This
nexus between these two aspects of Aboriginal family
life is compounded by the history of human service
interventions in both fields that have more often been
ineffectual or worse. Such multilayered, interconnected problems that have proved difficult to solve
constitute what Conklin (2006) calls ‘wicked’ problems. Although wicked problems offer numerous
intervention points, finding effective responses is
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Riding to resilience on a surfboard P Morgan
difficult because wicked problems are systemic and
resistant to change, while responses tend to be fragmented and contradictory (Conklin 2006). For
Aboriginal families, the range of challenges can be so
broad and mutually reinforcing, that it is difficult to
know where to start. Aboriginal Australians experience
rates of mortality, morbidity, substance abuse, mental
illness, exposure to family and community violence,
unemployment and poverty considerably higher than
those of the broader Australian community (Scougill
2008). For example, substance abuse-related and
mental illness-related cognitive deficits undermine the
effectiveness of standard social learning parenting programmes and cognitive behavioural therapy responses
to child abuse. New models of working with Aboriginal
families and communities are required.
Child protection and health social workers often
experience great difficulty engaging Aboriginal families because of an accumulation of mistrust and
hostility towards welfare services resulting from generations of negative interactions with child welfare
services. Present-day child protection services are
often seen as an extension of past genocidal welfare
practices (Libesman 2004). For child protection social
workers, just getting in the front door is challenging,
let alone bringing about actual positive changes in the
lives of children at risk. Like child protection services,
health services have difficulty establishing effective
engagement with Aboriginal communities (Ivers et al.
1997). There is a widespread perception among
Aboriginal families that mainstream health services
are not for ‘blackfellas’ (Ring & Firman 1998;
Houston 2001). The comment of one Aboriginal
client of the author captures this attitude succinctly:
‘Kooris (Aboriginal people) only go to hospital to
have babies and die’. The first step in achieving
improvements in Aboriginal health and child protection is the development of programmes that engage
Aboriginal families and communities more effectively.
There is now widespread agreement that achievement of substantial improvements in indigenous
health requires holistic, long-term collaborative
approaches involving indigenous leaders and communities, the health and non-health sectors (Ring &
Firman 1998; Lehmann et al. 2003). A similar consensus is the achievement of substantial improvements
in Aboriginal child welfare requiring long-term,
collaborative approaches involving Aboriginal communities, government and non-government sectors
(Libesman 2004). In order to be effective, strategies
for overcoming the transgenerational transmission of
abuse need to be holistic, targeting neighbourhoods
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and whole communities rather than individuals and
families; strength rather than deficit based; and focus
on prevention and building family and community
capacity (Langeland & Dijkstra 1995; Libesman
2004; Scougill 2008). A number of writers identify the
difficulty of gaining an accurate picture of alternative
child abuse prevention programmes for Aboriginal
communities because such programmes are limited in
number, ad hoc and short-term in nature and tend
to occur at the grass roots rather than official level
(Tomison & Poole 2000; Memmott et al. 2001;
Stanley et al. 2003). This paper has been produced in
the interests of documenting just such a programme.
PROGRAMME DESIGN
Sunset Surfers was devised as an alternative to specialized medical treatments, and conventional, coercive, parent-focused, child protection interventions.
The programme has a combined child protection and
physical and mental health promotion framework
operating at a number of different levels. Rather than
targeting individual families after child abuse has
occurred, Sunset Surfers took a preventative approach
focusing on a high-risk community. RedfernWaterloo, an inner urban, Sydney neighbourhood, has
very high levels of social disadvantage and therefore
high risk of child abuse (Garbarino 1995), as well as a
high concentration of Aboriginal families. Child protection agencies have had great difficulty engaging
families and providing an effective response to child
abuse in this neighbourhood. Because resident families identify strongly with the local neighbourhood,
the programme included a mix of Aboriginal (77%)
and non-Aboriginal participants, reflecting community identity and composition. The programme consisted of a series of six 2-hour lessons with professional
surfing instructors at a local Sydney beach, transport
to and from the beach and a picnic lunch after the
surfing. On the last day, the children’s families were
invited to participate in a barbecue celebrating their
children’s successful completion of the programme.
Sunset Surfers was developed as a collaboration
between two community-based family support services and three government agencies. This allowed for
a pooling of resources without which the programme
would not have taken place. The programme was
developed by frontline workers rather than those at
more senior levels of these organizations. Rather than
being a stand-alone project, it was conceived as one
element of an integrated suite of family services
that drew on agencies’ existing connections into the
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community. Participating agencies tend to use
strength-based approaches with client families (Saleebey 1996; Scott & O’Neil 1996; Berg & Kelly 2000).
Rather than targeting deficits, agency workers identify
and enhance existing family strengths. In order to
overcome longstanding difficulties engaging families
in this community, the programme took a lifecycle
approach to the inter-generational nature of child
abuse and health problems by initially targeting children in middle childhood (8–13 years), an age group
that past experience has shown to respond enthusiastically to activity-based prevention programmes.
The programme design draws on resilience theory,
‘identifying and enhancing the processes that protect
development from the ravages of hazardous growing
conditions’ (Luthar 2003). Many of the children participating in Sunset Surfers come from ‘at-risk’ families and have much in common with children in care.
Gilligan (1999) argues that adult mentors in cultural
and sporting activities play a crucial role in building
the resilience of children in care. Workers involved in
this programme are seen as offering a similar mentoring role, providing ‘vital personal attention’ and
‘encouraging talents and interests in the young person
which help to build confidence, self esteem and social
skills’ (Gilligan 1999, p. 191). Accordingly, some of
the programme workers are Aboriginal in order to
provide mentors with whom Aboriginal children can
identify.
Gilligan (1999) also argues that vulnerable children
benefit from being involved in challenging sporting
activities. Such participation enhances resilience by
building self-esteem and mental health, and opening
new social relationships beyond the care system and
specialist treatments (Gilligan 1999). Resilience is
fostered by experiences of success and achievement
(Raphael 2000), and challenge (Jenkin 2001), and
building a strong link between the act of engaging with
challenge and a positively affected sense of mastery
(success).
In order to have the experience of mastery, however,
challenge needs to be pitched within the limits of a
child’s capacity to respond successfully (Jenkin 2001).
Learned helplessness theory recognizes that depression can result from recurring situations in which
individuals have no sense of control over events in
their lives (Abramson et al. 1978). Children subjected
to chronic abuse by important carers at a young age
experience such a sense of powerlessness (Crittenden
1996). In these circumstances, the developmental
impulse to engage with challenge can become distorted into thrill-seeking behaviours that often expose
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children to great risk of harm with no developmental
benefit (Manikam 2002).
Where children are neglected the dynamics are
slightly different. Attachment theory holds that children’s early experiences of carers (attachment figures)
are crucial to human psychosocial development.
Interactional patterns of behaviour played out
between carer and infant are internalized by the infant
to provide fundamental internal working models of
self and others (Bowlby 1980). A supportive attachment relationship is also necessary for the healthy
expression and development of the AssertionExploration Motivational System, the drive to engage
with, make sense of and master problems (challenges)
presented by the environment. Successful expression
of this motivational system results in the child’s
behaviours of exploration and play, and in the experience of agency in the world, which in turn produce a
positively affected sense of efficacy and competence
(mastery), as well as the development of new skills
(Lichtenberg 1989). In order for this learning of new
skills to be consolidated, and for the development of
an internal model of self as efficacious, it is necessary
that children experience having their attempts at
mastery witnessed and valued by supportive attachment figures (Crittenden 1996; Marvin et al. 2002).
For neglected children, early steps towards mastery
usually go unnoticed. They receive no validation of
their successes, no encouragement or assistance to
manage feelings of frustration when their efforts fall
short. Instead, they have repeated experiences of being
overwhelmed by challenge. They become discouraged
and develop an internal working model of self as ineffectual, leaving them ‘unable to exploit the learning
potential of their environment’ (Crittenden &
Ainsworth 1989, p. 452). This in turn leads to loss of
motivation to take on further challenge because of
the expectation of future failure.This attitude becomes
the basic psychological template underpinning all
future situations involving challenge (Crittenden
1996). Also, the early experience of trauma also
produces anhedonia, loss of the capacity to experience
joy (van der Kolk et al. 1996). Developmental learning
becomes decoupled from positive effect, so that there
is no expectation of pleasure associated with the learning of new skills. The sense of self that emerges from
such early experience is one of profound powerlessness and apathy – ‘Why bother?’ (Crittenden 1996).
By contrast, exposure to challenges with achievable
goals, encouragement and support for managing
frustration results a sense of mastery for the child.
When abused and neglected children are involved in
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structured programmes incorporating an element of
challenge, such as scouts, sports or artistic activities,
their experience of success fosters a sense of competence that allows them to abandon disempowering
coping strategies resulting from the experience of
abuse and to more effectively respond to the hazards of
life (Gilligan 1999). Manageable challenge in a supportive context assists children to rework debilitating
self-beliefs in the face of challenge, and it does this in an
experiential fashion rather than through purely cognitive strategies of traditional counselling approaches
(Kraft & Sakofs 1985; Newes 2005). These characteristics of the programme have strong parallels with the
approach used in adventure therapy (Gass 1993).
Providing vulnerable children with experiences of
meeting challenge successfully requires overcoming
negative expectations and maintaining motivation in
the face of the frustration that accompanies the
learning of any new skill. In order to be of benefit,
challenging activities need to include an element of
personal control (challenge by choice) for children
(Schoel et al. 1998; Newes 2005). Also, the activities
must not be experienced as overwhelming, but must
be balanced by appropriate levels of encouragement
and support. It is important that coaches/mentors
strike the right balance of challenge and support, a
balance that enables abused children to rework their
highly negative internal working models of self
and others. The presence of supportive adults who
acknowledge success and provide encouragement to
re-engage with challenge in the face of failure is essential to the restructuring of dysfunctional internal
working models (Gilligan 1999). The presence of
Aboriginal workers on the programme allows Aboriginal children to more easily identify with and internalize positive adult role models.
Where challenge involves physical activity, resilience
builds at a number of different levels. The body produces its own opiate-like peptides, called endorphins
during exercise (Farrell et al. 1982). Widely reported
feelings of psychological well-being and euphoria
experienced during aerobic exercise have been linked
to the increased blood endorphin levels found during
exercise (Biddle & Mutrie 1991; Schwartz & Kindermann 1992; Goldfarb & Jamurtas 1997). Clinically
depressed patients and children show marked increase
in self-esteem and well-being following exercise
because they develop a sense of mastery as they exercise, resulting in a feeling of control over their life and
positive psychological states (Biddle & Mutrie 1991;
Dimeo et al. 2001). From the perspective of attachment theory, such psychological transformation can
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also be understood as the restructuring of internal
working models of self with respect to challenge.
Also, from the biological perspective, voluntary
exercise releases growth factors that stimulate brain
cell growth, increasing brain plasticity (van Prag et al.
1999; Cotman & Berchtold 2002). This allows for
repair of neural damage caused by the experience of
abuse in early childhood and provides a biological
substrate for the psychological restructuring of dysfunctional internal working models. Streeck-Fischer &
van der Kolk (2000) state that children who have
experienced chronic trauma early in life experience
trauma-related hyperarousal and somatic numbing,
resulting in an inability to relax and heightened irritability. They argue that treatment for these children
must include ‘fun’ physical activities that endow
‘knowledge of what it feels like to be relaxed and feel
a physical sense of mastery’ (Streeck-Fischer & van
der Kolk 2000, p. 914). They recommend activities
that promote physical synchronization, coordination
and balance, all of which surfing does.
Surfing is an innately pleasurable activity. Surfers
consistently report that surfing induces intense
endorphin-related euphoric states, and small versions
of such states are experienced by most people from
the earliest stages of learning to surf (Kotler 2006;
Gibbons 2007). The experience of surfing as ‘fun’ is a
key aspect of the Sunset Surfers programme and is
important on many levels. The experience of feelings
of pleasure is a powerful motivating factor in the
process of learning to surf. It maintains enthusiasm
until the pleasure associated with a sense of mastery is
achieved. It enables the learner surfer to tolerate the
frustration inherent in the repeated experiences of
failure that are part of learning a complex new skill,
and to persist in spite of frustration until they experience a sense of mastery. It appears to amplify the
positive effect associated with the experience of
mastery. This heightened positive effect promotes a
recoupling of pleasure with mastery experiences and a
gradual restructuring of internal working models of
the self with respect to challenge to a more efficacious
sense of self. The positive effect also becomes associated with workers involved in the project, building
trust and enhancing engagement. The ‘cool’ image of
surfing helps counteract initial negative expectations
often associated with physical exercise programmes.
Preventative health aspects of this programme
extend beyond these mental health and child protection issues. Lehmann et al. (2003) report finding significant reductions in rates of skin and ear infections
among children in remote Aboriginal communities
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after the introduction of saltwater swimming pools
into those communities. Childhood skin diseases have
also been linked to the extremely high prevalence of
adult renal problems and acute rheumatic fever
among the adult Aboriginal population. Ear infections have been linked to deafness and literacy problems (Lehmann et al. 2003). By providing the
opportunity for regular immersion in saltwater, the
Sunset Surfers programme is seen as replicating
the conditions used in the Lehmann study, which
found that ‘swimming in salt water provides the
equivalent of nasal and ear washout and cleans the
skin’ (Lehmann et al. 2003, p. 417). Furthermore,
the programme is seen as providing fitness benefits
resulting from the strenuous physical activity necessary for successful surfing.
On the final day of the programme, parents were
invited to participate in a barbecue to celebrate their
children’s successful completion of the programme.
This gave parents the opportunity to observe and
celebrate their children’s accomplishments and gave
the children the experience of having their success
reflected back to them by proud parents, reinforcing
their sense of achievement and self-esteem. By including parents in this way, the programme reinforced
existing strengths in family relationships and deepened positive engagement with services.
E VA L UAT I O N M E T H O D
Some of the participating children and parents who
attended the closing barbecue undertook a semistructured interview. Several parents who did not
attend the barbecue were interviewed over the phone.
Evaluation was conducted by recording verbal feedback to these interviews of eight children and seven
parents. This evaluation is not intended to measure
child protection or health outcomes. Instead, it offers
qualitative accounts of participating children’s and
their parents’ subjective experience of the programme,
particularly the quality of their engagement with the
programme. In order to evaluate service delivery
aspects of the programme, workers participated in a
focus group after the conclusion of the programme.
R E S U LT S
Participating children expressed a very strong sense of
‘fun’ (pleasure) associated with their involvement in
the programme. ‘Yes, [I would do it again] cause it was
heaps of fun./ It was cool./ Mad. . . . fun. . . . learning
how to stand, surfing waves, meeting people./ Every-
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thing about the surfing was great./ I want to be a
professional surfer’. All said they would like to do it
again. Similarly, parents were highly positive about
their children’s participation in the programme. ‘She
had a ball. . . . loved it. Came home after the first time
and wanted a surfboard. /Told me everything. First
day not too sure. Then told me he was beginning to
get his balance. Telling me every week about getting
better’. Universally, parents reported that their children enjoyed the programme and that they would
send the children to future programmes as well as
recommend the programme to other parents. Also,
a strong appreciation of the children’s efforts was
expressed. ‘Definitely [send my child to the program
again] because she comes home happy. When I seen
[my granddaughter] standin’ on that surfboard, I felt
so proud. I never seen no one from our family doin’
nothin’ like that before. What, with all them sharks
and all, you’d never get me in there!’
None of the children reported finding the activity
too demanding. Instead, they reported high levels
of enthusiasm and motivation to master the skill.
Although some children identified standing up and
paddling as challenging, expressions of frustration
were minimal. Irrespective of whether they described
the programme as difficult or not, all participating
children said they want to do the programme again
‘cause it was heaps of fun’. All said they would encourage their friends to attend. Parents were asked if they
had noticed any changes in their children after the surf
group. All parents responded positively, and identified
improvements in mood and behaviour. ‘Happy and
calm and talking about how he enjoyed it./ More alert
and had a smile from ear to ear./ Relaxed and ready
for bed./ Seems happier. Bit more life in him. It was
brilliant’. Some parents stated the improved mood
associated with participation in the programme
carried over well after the activity had finished.
Staff-identified benefits to children included
improved self-esteem, opportunity to have fun in a
safe rather than high-risk environment, increased
levels of physical activity, positive role modelling,
exposure to a new activity. They identified children’s
strong sense of achievement as the biggest success of
this programme. Staff also identified benefits at the
family level including expressions of parental pride
and opportunity for respite. At the level of service
provision, staff identified improved engagement
between agencies and both parents and children as
a major benefit of the programme. Staff generally
saw the new inter-agency partnership as positive.
However, they did identify a level of disorganization in
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the roll-out of the programme which they attributed
to poor communication and cultural differences
between the services involved. They felt that the
success of the programme relied on the pooling of
resources (financial and human) that the inter-agency
partnership made possible. Two staff members questioned whether the programme might have been more
effective if it was identified as Aboriginal only rather
than as a neighbourhood programme. All staff
members expressed a high level of personal satisfaction, and were overwhelmed by the opinion that the
programme was very successful.
DISCUSSION
Sunset Surfers was developed to provide an intervention across a range of domains. It is evident that
Aboriginal and other children from the high-risk community of Redfern-Waterloo engaged very positively
with this programme.The results reflect a high level of
enthusiasm for and enjoyment of the programme.The
enjoyment of surfing appears to have motivated participants to persist at the activity, in spite of the physical challenge it posed. The results also support one of
the central tenets of the programme design – that
learning the activity of surfing in a supportive context
results in a positively affected experience of challenge
for a high-risk group of children. Reported improvements in mood and behaviour indicate that children
experienced short-term benefits from the balance of
support, challenge and fun offered by the programme.
This programme offers participating children an
experiential reframe of negative coping strategies.
Most of these children have internalized a pattern of
negative experiences of engaging with challenge.
Learning to surf offers them manageable challenge in
a supportive context. For children so much of whose
experience of being challenged has been overwhelmingly negative, they found that rising to a challenge
can be both fun and satisfying. And they are learning
this reframe in their bodies – in the very cells and
tissues of their bodies. They not only are getting a
psychological reframe. They are building physical
health while they do it. Parental reports of positive
changes to mood persisting into the evening after the
surfing programme suggest that the positive effects are
sustained beyond cessation of the activity.
However, longer-term benefits such as increased
resilience resulting from changes to internal working
models of self as powerless or prone to failure would
not be expected to be significantly altered by such a
short-term intervention. The restructuring of such
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deeply held beliefs would require numerous repetitions of the reparative positive experiences of engagement with challenge the programme provides. The
children’s responses indicate that they saw the programme as providing their access to the activity of
surfing. In order to establish surfing as a sustained,
self-motivated, health-promoting activity in children’s
lives, the programme would need to be of considerably
longer duration. Nonetheless, the strong association
between the experience of significant challenge and
positive effect demonstrated here is encouraging. The
very positive response of high-risk children to Sunset
Surfers does suggest that it would be useful to continue the programme beyond this brief pilot.
One of the major barriers to effective service provision to this community has been a history of poor
engagement with services. The positive responses to
the evaluation of the programme indicate that participating children engaged enthusiastically in this programme. By targeting middle childhood rather than
adolescence, the programme was able to mobilize and
benefit from the innate enthusiasm characteristic of
this age group. Children’s responses indicate that the
programme is not perceived as ‘therapy’ or as a child
protection service (‘The Welfare’) or a healthy lifestyle
programme, but as a ‘fun’ activity. It raises a question
as to whether this positive perception increases the
likelihood of children staying engaged with the programme, which the evaluation did not explore.
Evaluation responses indicate that to some degree,
this positive attitude towards services has been picked
up by parents. Inviting parents to a barbecue to celebrate their children’s success at the end of the programme not only gave them an opportunity to express
pride in their children. It also gave parents, most of
whom had previously avoided contact with services, a
positive experience of services, increasing the likelihood of future engagement. Although Sunset Surfers
is described as holistic, it is not envisaged as a complete response in itself, but an effective initial point of
engagement that is one part of a larger integrated set
of services. In this wider service context, the positive
response to the programme raises a further question.
Is it possible that children’s positive experience
becomes associated with workers and services
involved in delivering the programme, building up a
bank of goodwill and trust that transfers across to
other programmes offered by those services, improving engagement? Child protection and health services
have found the engagement of Aboriginal families to
be extremely challenging. This study raises the possibility that a family approach, which initially targets
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children with fun but challenging activities, may
provide a useful entree into engaging reluctant
Aboriginal families.
Sunset Surfers operates at a number of levels, the
psychological, the physical, the individual, the family,
but not at the level of community. If the programme
were to continue, it may be useful to work at the
community level to develop a club structure to
support children’s more frequent ongoing participation in surfing outside the programme, in order to
achieve sustained changes in children’s attitude
towards challenge. The question of whether to target
such community activities at the Aboriginal community or the neighbourhood community has been raised
but not answered here.
The evaluation made no attempt to measure
broader outcomes predicted by the theory discussed
earlier in the paper and implied in the programme
design such as improvements to family functioning,
increases in levels of children’s physical activity,
resilience, health status, reductions in the incidence of
child abuse and neglect, and an increased willingness
of participating families to engage with services. It is
unlikely that such a brief intervention would produce
measurable improvements in these domains, and
significantly higher levels of programme resourcing
would be required to measure such changes.
Responses from staff indicate that involvement in
the programme convinced staff that it is possible to
successfully pool resources to run a multi-agency collaboration. Frustrations associated with collaborative
activities were not so great that they overwhelmed
the positive outcomes of the programme.Through the
process, workers have learned an enormous amount
about the logistics of staging a surfing programme as
well as the practicalities of working collaboratively
with multiple agencies. The positive response to the
pilot programme has been encouraging enough to
warrant its expansion into a long-term programme
with a somewhat altered format in order to develop
skills and reinforce the psycho-emotional learning the
programme offers. It is hoped that a long-term programme will result in sustained improvements in children’s physical and psychological resilience, as well as
reinforcing the sense of connectedness at a family
level.
CONCLUSION
Australian Aboriginal people face a ‘wicked’ complex
of social challenges that exclude them from many of
the benefits enjoyed by non-Aboriginal Australian
63
Child and Family Social Work 2010, 15, pp 56–65
society. This study argues that social work practice
with Aboriginal families benefits from a broadening of
approach away from a purely individualistic, psychologistic, deficit-focused approach to one that is more
holistic and strength based. Participation in an enjoyable, physically demanding activity such as surfing
encouraged by supportive mentors improves both
physical health and psychological resilience in vulnerable Aboriginal children.
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