Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

• Research required for accessing family and personal records.• Obtaining copies of records.• Advice and support before records are read.• Locating family members.• Arranging and assisting at family reunions.• Providing an ongoing Indigenous community for all clients, regardless of theiracceptance or otherwise into their community/ies of origin.• Support and counselling before a decision to proceed with a reunion is made andcounselling for all parties during and after that occurs, including grief and losscounselling and relationship-building.… If they need counselling to be able to communicate with their families, give that to them… I still can’t talk to my mother and that’s because of what happened to me. If I’d hadcounselling earlier on in that area I’d be right … Counselling today would help a bit but notas much as it would back then. Today it is extremely hard just to communicate.Confidential evidence 316, Tasmania.The resource implications were recognised by government representatives.While reunification of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children with their families is animportant step, it often has disturbing consequences for both the person who was removed and forthe family. The Aboriginal Health Division supports the need for the development of additionalresources and support services to address the often difficult consequences of family reunification(Marion Kickett, WA Health Department, evidence).Reconnection is far more than simply access to a file. It is a process, often over a long period oftime, of reconnection with identity, homelands, stories, cultural heritage, and many people.Limited resources exist to help people in this process.Counselling, support, and assisting a person locate family are all resource intensive. Both theinitial reconnection, and maintaining connections with scattered family and homelandsintrinsically involves travel, and given the poverty of many Aboriginal people, the sheer expenseof reconnection may be prohibitive (SA Government interim submission pages 22 and 24).Not all reunion services are able to perform the full range of core activities. Forexample the link-up workers in Victoria rely on the expertise of the non-government andnon-Koori adoption information agency, VANISH, to access both adoption and nonadoptionrecords for their clients. Alternatively clients must be referred to thegovernment record agencies (Victorian Government interim submission page 26). Someproportion of clients would be loathe to approach these non-Indigenous services and maydecide instead not to proceed with family tracing. Nevertheless the Secretariat ofNational Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) is confident that this proportion