Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

Church counselling servicesMost churches provide services for individuals and families experiencingfinancial, emotional or spiritual distress. The range of services is usually related to thesize of the organisation and the resources available to the church. Few services arespecifically provided for Indigenous people, although they are available to Indigenouspeople seeking to use them. In practice, utilisation by Indigenous people depends onwhether the service is culturally sensitive and appropriate.A number of churches identified services specifically directed towards the needsof Indigenous people and relevant to the survivors of forcible removal. The CatholicChurch, for example, offers Centacare programs including the Aboriginal FamilyWorker in Brisbane, the Financial Counsellor in Wilcannia-Forbes, Family CareTeams and Family Support Programmes generally and a number of other Catholicmarriage and family mediation services across a number of regions which may berelevant to those affected by forcible removal (Centacare Catholic Community Serviceevidence 478, Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission submission 479).The Uniting Church’s Burnside agency in New South Wales also identifiesfamily support services, including family counselling specifically related to childbehaviour problems within families as being relevant, along with parenting educationprograms, one of which has been developed in consultation with a rural Aboriginalcommunity to ensure cultural relevance (Uniting Church in Australia submission 457).Relationships Australia described a collaborative arrangement in the HunterValley with the Awabakal Aboriginal community in which training is provided toAboriginal women to enable them to lead groups and develop counselling skills.Importantly, the collaboration results from the initiative of the Awabakal communitywhich also determines training arrangements.EvaluationRelationships Australia and the Anglican Diocese of Adelaide both expressedreservations about their capacity to provide the counselling and related servicesneeded to address some of the effects of forcible removal. The Anglican Diocese ofAdelaide identified the absence of Indigenous staff in its own Family ConnectionsProgramme as a barrier to effective service delivery.[It] has been operating for approximately six years and has, until recently, worked with fewAboriginal families. Currently, out of a caseload of 32 families there are five Aboriginalfamilies working with the Family Connections Programme and one Aboriginal family on thewaiting list. All referrals come from Family and Community Services. For a programme withonly non-Aboriginal workers this work presents a number of dilemmas and a great challengeand we question whether it is helpful to these families having non-Aboriginal workersworking with them for reunification. It is an intensive programme and workers from theprogramme may spend up to 10 hours a week in a families home (Anglican Diocese ofAdelaide evidence 259).Relationships Australia, formerly the Marriage Guidance Council, identified‘obvious problems of accessibility and cultural appropriateness’ and a lack ofresources (submission 685 page 4).