Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

The need for trauma and grief counselling is recognised. The Action Plan seeks toensure ‘all staff in community controlled health services [will] be trained to handletrauma and loss events while some workers would receive additional training to covercounselling for families and individuals’.Community-based Indigenous health services are directly funded by theCommonwealth Department of Health and Family Services. They are described belowwhere information is available to provide an overview of the services available in eachState.New South WalesThe NSW Aboriginal Health Strategy is ‘in development’ and there are plans toemploy a number of Aboriginal Mental Health Workers (NSW Government submissionpage 106). In evidence the Inquiry was told that nine workers would be employed and intraining by July 1996 (Maria Williams, Acting Director, Aboriginal Health Unit, evidence).The Aboriginal Health Branch consulted Link-Up (NSW) in its development ofspecific policy and programs to respond to ‘the Inquiry needs’, which we take to meanIndigenous witnesses’ needs for follow-up counselling after giving evidence (NSWGovernment submission pages 106-7). In this process Link-Up observed a generalcommitment to Indigenous mental health and planning for ‘significant improvement’(Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 page 159). The proposed development of responses tothe Inquiry witnesses’ needs did not eventuate.One recent NSW initiative is the Central Sydney Aboriginal Mental Health Unit.This service was established in 1995 as a joint project of the Redfern Aboriginal MedicalService, the Aboriginal Health and Resources Co-operative and NSW Health’s CentralSydney Area Mental Health Directorate. The Area Clinical Director Professor MarieBashir and Unit Co-ordinator Sister Robyn Shields have a staff of two (a clinical nursespecialist and a psychiatrist) with two hospital-based psychiatrists also designated. TheUnit accepts referrals of Koori patients from a range of sources including prisons, theAboriginal Medical Service and the Aboriginal Legal Service. Clinics are conducted atthe Aboriginal Medical Service and at the State’s psychiatric hospital (Rozelle).In South Sydney a preventive home visiting program for new parents was initiatedlate in 1996 by the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect(NAPCAN) and the Lions Club. There is a significant Koori population in this area. TheDirector of the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs is represented on the project’sProfessional Advisory Body and it has the support of the Murawina [Koori] Children’sCentre in Redfern. The aim of home visits will be to enhance parents’ confidence andself-esteem and to assist them to access local services.VictoriaThe Victorian Government supports the Statewide Aboriginal Mental HealthNetwork established in 1987 by the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (interimsubmission page 78). This network is a collaboration between the Aboriginal Health