Topics  

Strengthening Families and Communities

• Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators report, Commonwealth Government (2009). Drawing on extensive evidence this report identifies the areas where governments believe it’s policies will have the greatest impact. The report measures the effects of those policies and reveals where more effort is required.
• The Literacy Question In Remote Indigenous Australia - Inge Kral, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research ANU (2009). This paper explores factors that can contribute to lower rates of literacy among remote Indigenous youth, many of which have little to do with the quality of teaching or resources, school attendance or lower expectations of competence.
• "Our future in our hands", Report of the Steering Committee for the creation of a new National Representative Body (2009). This report makes recommendations about a process for creating a national representative body.
• Family Responsibilities Commission, report to the Family Responsibilities Board and the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Family Responsibilities Commission (2009). This report outlines the Commission’s first 12 months of operation since July 2008 as a key component of the Cape York Welfare Reform objective to restore social norms in Indigenous communities. 
• The Role of Spirituality in Social and Emotional Wellbeing Initiatives: The Family Wellbeing Program at Yarrabah, Alexandra McEwan, Komla Tsey, Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health (2009). This Discussion Paper presents the findings of the 2003 and 2005 Family Wellbeing empowerment project evaluation.
• Family Violence, Help-Seeking & the Close-Knit Aboriginal Community: Lessons for Mainstream Service Provision – Lumby and Farrelly, Australian Domestic & Family Violence Clearinghouse (2009). The paper discusses implications of findings arising from a small, qualitative research project, recently conducted in an undisclosed New South Wales (NSW) region.
• When Prevention Occurs 200 Years Late: The Future for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children (2009), Audio Presentation by Professor Mick Dodson AM to ARACY Conference. In this audio presentation Professor Dodson speaks about that the right education must form the basis upon which we build credible, sustainable and workable policy. It must not be enough only to level the playing field; we must all play a better game, working together. the essential need for education of our Indigenous children as the basis for long term prevention and success in closing the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.
• Lessons learnt about strengthening Indigenous families and communities (2008) FaHCSIA Occasional Paper 19 by John Scougall. This report discusses what has been learned from the Strategy 2000–2004 about how to strengthen Indigenous families and communities.
• Regional and remote Indigenous communities: first report 2008, Senate Select Committee on Regional and Remote Indigenous Communities (posted 03-10-2008). Established in March 2008 to report twice yearly the Committee outlines issues raised with it so far including the NT Emergency Response, the role of state and territory government policy and Indigenous Business Australia, and provides some direction for the focus of future reports including housing, mental health services and access to adequate education facilities. Source: Australian Policy Online. 
• The Secretariat National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care SNAICC) website features an extensive collection of resources, tools, information and networking functions that will assist and resource community services and organisations working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families.
• Connecting Communities - The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Services Directory 2008, SNAICC. Connecting Communities contains agency details of over 5500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander family and children’s services, health and legal services, government departments, peak bodies and resource agencies from across Australia. It is a robust A4 350 page perfect bound book – a useful resource for those seeking to network with other services, and especially for those who cannot always easily access online material. The fully indexed entries are ordered by state/territory and service type.
• AFRC Briefing No. 7 2008 - Strengthening Aboriginal family funtioning: What works and why? by Roz Walker and Carrington Shepherd, Kulunga Research Network, Telethon Institute for Child Health Research. This paper discusses the contemporary evidence base, including case studies of programs that work. It shows how aspects of Aboriginal identity, spirituality and Aboriginal family and community life can be built-in to measures of family functioning. It also identifies the importance of incorporating an Aboriginal world view and the need for Aboriginal control, cultural security and respect in developing local solutions to improve family functioning.
• Evaluation report (July 2007) “Hey, Dad! Program for Indigenous Dads, Uncles and Pops”, Commissioned by UnitingCare Burnside and Centacare and conducted by Alt Beatty Consulting.
• Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) Through Young Black Eyes Workshop Kit. This kit will help practitioners run workshops where people can share information and stories to move forward and help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children be safe and happy. 
• Increasing Indigenous economic opportunity: a discussion paper on the future of the CDEP and Indigenous Employment Program (2008), Australian Government. This discussion paper focuses on how the Community Development and Employment Projects (CDEP) and the Indigenous Employment Program (IEP) can be reformed to ensure both programs meet Indigenous people's needs into the future. Please contact 1300 733 514
• Success in Aboriginal Communities: A pilot study (2004) from the Australian Collaboration, a collaboration of eight leading national community organisations. A national study of initiatives in local Indigenous communities that have helped to promote community wellbeing or to overcome disadvantage.
• The Child Support Agency (CSA) has launched a website for Indigenous separated parents.  The site provides information about child support, includes a step-by-step guide to register a child support case, and provides links to support products and services and a list of upcoming regional and community visits by CSA staff.  
• Welfare payments and school attendance: an analysis of experimental policy in Indigenous education (2008), Larissa Behrendt and Ruth McCausland. This analysis sets out the concept of mutual obligation in Australia identifying its increasing influence and its particular relevance to Indigenous policy. The paper looks also at the current trials to linking welfare payments to school attendance and outlines the current evaluations on this scheme. Source: ARACY.
• Beyond Empathy, Pathways Through Parents: A model for Improving Indigenous Access to Maternal Infant and Early Childhood Health and Family Serivces (2008), Beyond Empathy Limited – NSW. Beyond Empathy has developed a service model that uses the arts to connect Indigenous young people with existing health and family support services and provide a supported pathway from ante-natal care through early childhood.

Health and Wellbeing

• Review of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled alcohol and other drugs sector in Queensland (2009), Gray et al - the National Drug Research Institute for the Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health Council (QAIHC) and Queensland Indigenous Substance Misuse Council (QISMC). This report makes 23 recommendations in relation to the organisational structure of QISMC, Indigenous capacity, service provision and standards of care, staffing, training and reporting.
• Indigenous Housing Indicators 2007-08, AIHW (2009). This report provides current national data across all housing assistance programs on a range of key Indigenous housing indicators including connection to services, dwelling condition, overcrowding, affordability of housing, and more.
• Bridges and Barriers – Addressing Indigenous Incarceration and Health, NIDAC (2009). In broad terms Indigenous agencies support the report’s recommendations, in particular the relaxation of requirements to enter juvenile diversion programs and the development of an individual education support fund to assist their participation within the education system.
• Working with Indigenous survivors of sexual assault (2008), Dorinda Cox, Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault. This paper examines the historical and contemporary aspects of sexual assault as they impact on Indigenous people. It suggests some improvements to existing service delivery to enable cultural appropriateness, and it gives some advice on the skills and knowledge needed in order to work effectively with Indigenous people.
• An overview of the economic impact of Indigenous disadvantage, Access Economics / Reconciliation Australia (posted 30-09-2008). According to this analysis closing the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people would deliver sizeable economic benefits and increase living standards for all Australians. Source: Australian Policy Online.
• Auseinet Mental Health promotion and illness prevention - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People (2008). This paper explores the meaning of social and emotional wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and looks at influences, data, policy and practice.
• Cooperative Research Centre For Aboriginal Health in collaboration with the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research and the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Occasional Paper 20, Stories on 'growing up' (2008) from Indigenous people in the ACT metro/Queanbeyan region. This paper presents a summary of the information collected during FaHCSIA’s community engagement qualitative trial undertaken in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) metropolitan (metro) region and the Queanbeyan region.
• The health and welfare of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples 2008, Australian Bureau of Statistics / Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. This report provides a comprehensive overview of the health and welfare of Australia's Indigenous population. Some of the links between education and health and between selected risk factors and health are also explored. Source: Australian Policy Online.
• Living through a national emergency: A view of the intervention from ground zero, (2008) by Bill Fogarty and Marisa Fogarty, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research. This seminar provides a perspective on the Intervention from one of the largest Indigenous townships in the NT through the eyes of two doctoral research scholars who were researching in the community as the Intervention broke.
• Close the gap: National Indigenous health equality targets (2008), Tom Calma and others / Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. This report by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and the Steering Committee for Indigenous Health Equality presents the outcomes from the National Indigenous Health Equality Summit, 18 – 20 March, 2008. Source: Australian Policy Online. 
• Is 'Close the Gap' a useful approach to improving health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians? (2009), Kerryn Pholi, Dan Black & Craig Richards. This paper discusses the enthusiasm for the Australian government’s commitment to ‘Close the Gap’ in Indigenous disadvantage, health status and life expectancy and how the pursuit of statistical equality is reducing Indigenous Australians to a range of indicators of deficit, to be monitored and rectified towards government-set targets. This paper argues that an imbalance in power and control over the Indigenous affairs agenda in Australia is the ‘gap’ that must be addressed if the health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians is to improve.
• Closing the gap - targets for indicator diseases (2009), Stephanie Davis. This article discusses the clear gap between the rates at which Indigenous and non-Indigenous people suffer from communicable diseases. Data was taken from the Northern Territory Notifiable Diseases System (NTNDS) and for most diseases, direct age-standardisation was used to provide a comparison between Indigenous and non-Indigenous rates of disease.
• Aboriginal services plan: key indicators 2008/07, Koori Human Services Unit (2008). This sixth report from the Department of Human Services outlines the department's commitment to improve the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal Victorians. Source: Australian Policy Online.
• Implementing an Aboriginal perspective into any everyday early childhood enviornment (2008), G. Wilson, Childcare and Children's Health. This publication promotes current expert advice on child health and wellbeing and current policies and practices for those who work with young children and their families. Source: Australian Policy Online.

Child Protection

• See Child Abuse Prevention & Child Protection in Indigenous Communities.
• One year following the Australian Government's intervention into the Northern Territory to safeguard the wellbeing of children living in remote Indigenous communities, a series of evaluative reports were produced. Copies of these reports are available on the FaHCSIA website.
• Indigenous welfare reform in the Northern Territory and Cape York: A comparative analysis (2008), Jon Altman and Melissa Johns, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research. The Rudd Government have brought about some fundamental changes to the initial Northern Territory Emergency Response laws, however the most enduring part of the legislation, as discussed in this analysis, is the progression of welfare reform for Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. Source: Australian Policy Online.

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