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• 88 per cent reported mild, moderate or severe symptoms consistent with aclinical disorder• 33 per cent reported high or very high psychological distress (implying that theymay have a greater than 50 per cent chance of an anxiety or depressive disorder).Population norms suggest that between 11 per cent and 12 per cent of the generalpopulation have high to very high scores on the K-10 (NSW Department ofJuvenile Justice 2003).A recent survey of young people on community orders in NSW (Indigenousjuveniles comprised 20 per cent of the young people surveyed) found that:• 25 per cent of young people serving community orders had experienced a high tovery high level of psychological distress.• Young people on community orders reported fewer mental health issues andfewer suicide or self-harm attempts than young people in custody(Kenny et al. 2006).Mental wellbeing of childrenThe mental wellbeing of children is intimately connected to the emotional andphysical wellbeing of their parents (BMA 2006). Risk factors for vulnerability toboth mental and physical illness are often transmitted across generations in theabsence of interventions to break the cycles of vulnerability (BMA 2006).There is a paucity of data to describe the mental health and wellbeing of Indigenouschildren. The Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey (WAACHS),conducted in 2001 and 2002, used a modified version of the 25 item Strengths andDifficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) to assess risk for clinically significant emotionalor behavioural difficulties. The WAACHS found that:• 24 per cent of Aboriginal children were at high risk of clinically significantemotional or behavioural difficulties compared, with 15 per cent ofnon-Indigenous children (Zubrick et al. 2005).• Life stress events was the factor most strongly associated with high risk ofclinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties in Aboriginal children(Zubrick et al. 2005). Families of Aboriginal children report extraordinary levelsof stress including, death, incarceration, violence and severe hardship. Over onein five (22 per cent) Aboriginal children aged 0–17 years were living in familieswhere 7–14 major life stress events had occurred in the 12 months prior to thesurvey (Silburn et al. 2006).FUNCTIONAL ANDRESILIENT FAMILIESAND COMMUNITIES