Cultural Support Planning
with Aboriginal
Children and Young People
Legal Aid NSW Care and Protection
Conference – 22 August 2014
Wendy Hermeston,
Senior Policy Officer, AbSec
Cultural Support Planning
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Links between past history (Stolen Generations)
and current over-representation of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander children and young people
In the best interests of the child? Cultural identity
and its importance to Aboriginal children and young
people in care
Cultural Support Planning explained - in minutes!
Your role as solicitors – where and when to pounce
Most of us girls were thinking white in the head but
were feeling black inside. We weren’t black or white.
We were a very lonely, lost and sad displaced group of
people . . . We didn’t know anything about our culture.
We were… brainwashed to think only like a white
person.
When they went to mix in white society, they found they
were not accepted, [as] they were Aboriginal.
When they went and mixed with Aborigines, some
found they couldn’t identify with them either, because
they had too much white ways in them.
So that they were neither black nor white. They were
simply a lost generation of children. I know. I was one
of them.”
HREOC. Bringing them home. Report of the National Inquiry into the
Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their
Families. Canberra: AGPS 1997
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/social_justice/bth_report/report/index.html
Children and young people’s rights
and our obligations:
• UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC), 1990
– Articles 8, 9, 20 and 30
• UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,
2007
• s13 Aboriginal Child Placement Principles (next slide)
• s78A Permanency Planning (3) A permanency plan for
an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child or young
person must address how the plan has complied with the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child and Young
Person Placement Principles in section 13
s13 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Child and Young Person Placement Principles
(6) If a child /young person to whom subsection (4) applies:
(a) is placed with a person who is not within an
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander family or community,
arrangements must be made to ensure that the child/
young person has the opportunity for continuing contact
with his or her Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander family,
community and culture, or
(b) is placed with a person who is within an Aboriginal or
Torres Strait Islander family or community, arrangements
must be made to ensure that the child or young person
has the opportunity for continuing contact with his or her
non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander family,
community and culture.
Cultural Support
• Focus on our children’s right to culture
• Protective and a source of resilience and
wellbeing – culture as indivisible from an
Aboriginal child’s best interests
• Child viewed in the context of the whole family
and the whole community – not separate
• Day to day – embedded
• Enables connections, helps Aboriginal
children/young people feel a part of their
culture and not a stranger to it, to know their
own identity, where they fit, where they belong
• Spending time with mob through contact 
specialist identity counselling
Cultural Support planning template
• Child or young person’s cultural identity, kinship
groups, community of belonging, language, totem,
thoughts on what’s important in their cultural
development
• Child or young person’s parents, siblings
• Extended family, kin or community people with a role in
supporting child or young person
• Participation in cultural activities, events and programs
are experiences, classes, sessions or other measures
that allow Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander
children or young people to actively participate in, be
immersed in and grow up with, their own culture
• Aboriginal organisations or services with a role in
supporting child’s cultural and other needs
• Consultation – who was consulted, relevance to child,
how they were consulted and by whom, what their
views were
The role of solicitors –
short term gain for long term gain
Care plan
filed
Cultural support
inadequate ?
Affidavit
ADR
Final Orders
Ask for s82 re cultural
support for Aboriginal kids!!
s82
Cultural Support Resources
http://www.snaicc.org.au/projects/dsp-default-c.cfm?loadref=284
Cultural Support Resources
AbSec CONSULTATION Guide
http://www.absec.org.au/images/pdf/Aboriginal%20Consultation%20Guide.pdf
Thank You
The Children’s Court of NSW
Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) Ltd
FaCS’ Aboriginal Services Branch and Legal Branch
AbSec colleagues – staff and Aboriginal OOHC agencies
Further details available at: www.absec.org.au OR
http://www.absec.org.au/images/pdf/Aboriginal%20
Consultation%20Guide.pdf
Contact Wendy: research@absec.org.au
02 9559 5299
Cultural Support Resources
• AbSec: www.absec.org.au
• Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency: www.vacca.org/
• Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child
Protection Peak: www.qatsicpp.com.au
• Secretariat of National Aboriginal Islander Child Care:
www.snaicc.org.au
• AIATSIS: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres
Straight Islander Studies: www.aiatsis.gov.au (‘Little Red
Yellow and Black Book’)
• UNICEF – CROC Factsheet:
http://www.unicef.org/crc/files/Rights_overview.pdf
• Health Info Net – Resources pages:
www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au
• Bamblett and Lewis (2007). Detoxifying the Child and
Family Welfare System for Australian Indigenous Peoples:
Self-determination, Rights and Culture as the Critical
Tools; First Peoples Child and Family Review, p49