Assistant Commissioner meets with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation

On April 28, the Assistant Commissioner and Executive Director met with Richard Weston and Lisa Hillan from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation (the Healing Foundation) to learn more about some new initiatives planned for Queensland to improve the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people through healing programs.

Established on the first anniversary of the Apology to Australia’s Indigenous peoples, the Healing Foundation aims to address the profound legacy of pain and hurt in Indigenous people’s lives from past government policies.

The Healing Foundation is committed to building culturally strong community programs locally designed by Indigenous people, delivered by Indigenous people, from an Indigenous world view. This work includes:

• Community healing programs
  Community driven healing programs in partnership with local organisations and people to focus on the prevention and treatment of trauma.

• Research and evaluation
  Providing the evidence of the benefits of the healing programs through community driven and culturally appropriate research and evaluation to government agencies to inform decision making and policy and program design.            

• Training and capacity building
  Community driven training initiatives to promote training models designed and run by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to address prevention and treatment of trauma.

In order to overcome the intergenerational transmission of trauma in Indigenous communities, the Healing Foundation believes that a focus on children and young people is imperative. In recent years there has been a significant investment to address these issues for children, but more resources and support are needed to assist young people.

For this reason, the new Healing Foundation initiatives target 10 to 19 year olds. Three pilot sites will be chosen in the coming months and all projects will be developed and delivered by local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities.  

The Healing Foundation also intends to conduct some forums with young people in Queensland later this year and the Assistant Commissioner has indicated that the Commission would be pleased to assist in this regard.

The meeting also facilitated discussion about how the Commission could support the initiatives and how the Healing Foundation’s research and evaluation could inform the Commission’s advocacy in relation to Queensland’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people.

The Commission will continue to provide updates on this page as the initiatives progress.

For more information about the work of the Healing Foundation, please visit www.healingfoundation.org.au

 

Last Updated: May 13, 2011

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