Transcript for
Building connections in the out-of-home sector

Narrator [00:02]: Welcome to the Emerging Minds podcast.

Dana Shen [00:11]: This podcast is part of a series called ‘Listening to the stories of healing’. Within the series, you will hear stories from community and the very diverse experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and how these narratives have shaped the amazing work that is happening in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia. Here at Emerging Minds, we like to call it the Secret Garden, the stories and experiences that non-Aboriginal people don’t always get to see or hear. Whilst these stories include sadness and hurts and sometimes can feel uncomfortable to listen to, it is through listening to these narratives that you will get a glimpse of the deep wisdom, knowledge and healing practices of families and communities, and understand why our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples a part of the oldest continuing culture in the world.

Dana Shen [01:02]: Welcome everyone. This is Dana Shen, an Aboriginal cultural consultant working with Emerging Minds. Sue-Anne Hunter is a strong Wurundjeri and Ngurai illum wurrung woman who works to support cultural healing of the Aboriginal community, recently appointed as a Yoo-rrook Justice Commissioner. She is a social worker who was committed to self-termination, advocating for the rights of Aboriginal children, young people and families, and strengthening culture within our families and communities. Previously, she was the sector development manager of SNAICC, the National Voice for children, and co-chair of the Family Matters campaign. Sue-Anne has worked in the Aboriginal child and family welfare sector for 18 years. This included having oversight of all the cultural clinical healing services at Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency, or VACCA, and was a central point for the development of an integrated culturally appropriate and trauma-informed approach. Thank you so much for joining us, Sue-Anne. Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself first?

Sue-Anne Hunter [02:03]: I’m a Wurundjeri woman. My background really is social work and trauma therapy. I’ve worked in at-home care, it’s been roughly around 20 years, and that’s wide across the board in many different roles. But I think the thing around working in that field particularly is, I’m really passionate about the next generation. And how do we start? Look, we can’t do healing in one generation and we all know that it takes a couple. But just starting that process, particularly for our most vulnerable, who’ve been removed, and really fighting for kids to get home, really fighting for changes in legislation and systems that can assist our Mob rather than work against us. Yeah, it’s a pretty difficult space to hold. But it’s led me in so many different directions and different spaces. So I went to Italy to do some study and it was for Harvard Medical School, and it was a trauma recovery program.

Sue-Anne Hunter [03:03]: So now my certificate in trauma recovery from Harvard was amazing, was an amazing experience. There’s a lot of people from around the world, First Nations peoples. There’s only 60 people each year. And so just connecting with them and sharing stories, and ways of healing, and ways of being and all that sort of stuff, it was a great experience. And I’m really big on bringing culture into the space as well for our kids, really fascinated with how culture is protective and drives resilience for our kids. So always looking at different ways of doing bits of research with some different universities at the moment, just being part of that to draw out what are the elements of it that do that. And I think because we live in such a modern world and we’ve lost some history about how we bring those together, because culture’s evolving and how do I bring those together with culture as a base to make it safe, is something I love doing.

Dana Shen [03:57]: Did you see similarities? We know there is such diversity in indigenous cultures from across the world, but were there themes of similarity as well?

Sue-Anne Hunter [04:05]: There’s a lot. The spirituality, the ancestors, the care for country, and then not owning of it and how it supplies you with so much nourishment, spiritually and physically and emotionally. And then how that’s been taken as well, but how people are reclaiming it as well. And what’s similar is also that we tell our stories of trauma and hurt, but we also tell our stories of resilience and I found that real common thread, but I think the connection to the old people and the connection to country was really, really important for majority I’ve spoken to. Yeah.

Dana Shen [04:48]: I find it really amazing how cultures do this across the world. And unfortunately, Western ways of doing things tries to break that apart.

Sue-Anne Hunter [04:58]: Yeah. But I think there’s things like people do walking meditation, there’s a thing called forest meditation or forest therapy. And I remember first coming across it and look, there’s nothing wrong with it because it’s exactly what our people used to do. So I’m like, “Wow, that’s what we used to do.” Or that dig where people talk about, before the whole did all that work. People would talk about counselling, about being present and listening, really being in the moment. And I’m like, “That’s exactly what my nan taught me.” And you can have moments of silence and you can sit in that. So when I talk about bringing Western therapies and culture together, there’s some similarities there and you can bring them together because our culture underpins it because that’s where it started, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Dana Shen [05:50]: So do you want to tell me a little bit about the overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in care?

Sue-Anne Hunter [05:58]: It’s roughly around 10%, roughly or 10 times more likely if you’re an Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander child to be removed than a non-Aboriginal child. And so that has increased over 10 years and if we don’t intervene, it’s going to double in the next 10 years, which will be more than Stolen Generation. So it is about a call to action and it is about how do we change the system. When we talk about overrepresentation, there’s a lot that’s involved in that. But I think there’s one factor that remains in that, it’s connected to pass policies and practices, so colonisation. And when the Stolen Generation time of what happened to our kids around that time, then there comes the offset of that. So the intergenerational trauma, the poverty, or the socioeconomic disadvantage, the institutional racism that’s still around today and also the racist structures, so that Western models that are set up, particularly not for our families, they work quite against our families, poor access to safe, affordable, and quality housing is a big one at the moment because there’s a shortage of housing, exposure to family violence, mental health issues.

Sue-Anne Hunter [07:11]: There’s also the lack of understanding of cultural difference. And so people don’t understand that. So children may be removed because of people not understanding that and the current legislations and policies that are failing our kids. And they’re not addressing the inequalities about families or our kids. So it’s quite complex. And out of all of that comes a range of symptoms and issues that our Mob are left with, particularly the intergenerational trauma. And what comes with that.

Dana Shen [07:46]: You spoke a little bit about institutional racism. Do you want to give our listeners a little bit of an insight of what that might look like in the child protection system?

Sue-Anne Hunter [07:56]: So really the child protection system is a Western model. For instance, this isn’t now. So this was previous, and it’s in our lifetime, that if you were an Aboriginal child and you reported to the child protection system, if you were under, I think it was under two, and an Aboriginal child, they get two risk factors. So just being Aboriginal made you a risk factor of being removed. And that’s not that long ago. You’ve got a system that looks at overcrowding. It’s not safe there. We do have people coming and going and we do put our mattresses in the lounge room or there’s lots that we do that isn’t understood.

Sue-Anne Hunter [08:40]: We’re big with mob, if we’re struggling, someone will take on someone else’s kids. That’s just what we do. But that’s seen as a deficit, not something that’s positive that the child is getting more from somewhere else and still getting the love and connection, because we know our aunties are like our mums and it’s that closeness. So it’s things around cultural differences that just aren’t understood that get in the way and don’t work with a European system. So I think that’s sort of how it works. If that’s a good enough example.

Dana Shen [09:13]: What are your biggest concerns for Aboriginal children in the child protection system or out-of-home care system?

Sue-Anne Hunter [09:20]: Yeah. So my biggest fear is that they’re removed from family and community. So we’ve got the Aboriginal child placement principle, that’s depending on where you are, how that adhered to. And I’m just talking about the actual placement of a child there. And so it keeps the child closer to the family and then goes out from there. A child that’s put in a non-Aboriginal foster care placement is more likely to lose connection to family and community. Then in turn lose connection to culture, which is a protective factor. And there’s a range of issues that arise from not having your culture. And that’s around understanding who you are, your identity, what it means to be an Aboriginal person. If you don’t have those relationships to other Aboriginal people that are at Keith Keenan community, they’re your cultural anchor, that’s just the term I like to use, so they’ll be the anchor that connects you to culture. And that makes sense of being an Aboriginal person. And it makes sense of everything, the world around you.

Sue-Anne Hunter [10:28]: If you’re brought up in a completely different culture or a completely different way of being, but we’ve all heard stories from Stolen Generation around, I knew I was missing something, but I didn’t know what it was. You can see what’s happened and that disconnect. And then those teenage years are quite informative for all kids. And that’s where they’re trying to figure out where they fit in the world, who they are, all that. And if they don’t know what it means to be an Aboriginal person and that’s them, then that causes a great deal of unrest, higher rates of suicide, forming attachments. Before that they should have that pride of being an Aboriginal child and bad enough in society that sometimes that gets lost for our kids. But if we can instill that, particularly for our kids in out-of-home care, it’s protective and it’s resilience making. And I think the biggest thing is that loss of connection. And once you lose that, it’s really hard to get back.

Dana Shen [11:35]: You spoke a little bit about protective factors. Do you want to unpack what that looks like? If you’re a non-Aboriginal person working with a child and kinship or out-of-home care, what does it mean?

Sue-Anne Hunter [11:46]: Well, when we talk about it as Aboriginal people and in a cultural sense, those protective factors are that gives you a sense of belonging. So if you’ve got a sense of belonging, because that’s the innate human needs. We want to belong and we want to be connected. And really good example is of some of our young girls that aren’t connected and I’ve seen it over so many years is that there’s no healing done and they’re not connected. It ends up down the wrong path. And you’re looking for love with whatever man comes your way. And because they’re so vulnerable, they’re more likely for whatever happens. Being part of something bigger than yourself and we all know this is make sense of the world, make sense in meaning. That’s the biggest protective factor is being connected to culture, country, community as an Aboriginal child.

Sue-Anne Hunter [12:39]: And seriously, just go back over, bringing them home report, those accounts of those adults now telling their story. They’re horrific. And you think they were told it’s shameful to be Aboriginal. And that connection gives you so much more of than you realise. It’s huge, right? And sometimes as an Aboriginal woman, I find hard to explain because it’s a sense of being. It connects us to our country. It connects us to our cultural practices. It then connects us to the old people and the ancestors. It’s a holistic way of being and particularly understanding social and emotional wellbeing. It’s all of the body. It’s all. It’s mind, body, spirit. And it’s that connection. People might say, “Oh, your culture’s gone.” It’s actually not. It’s just evolved and it looks different. But that sense of belonging, it’s huge. And if you see a child that’s been brought up in community, to a child has been brought up in care disconnected. There’s a huge, huge gap in a lot of things, even the developmental needs, some of those milestones are missed.

Dana Shen [13:44]: So what does disconnection from culture really mean for children in out-of-home care? You mentioned it before, but is there anything else that you wanted to add?

Sue-Anne Hunter [13:53]: Yeah. I guess if our kids are denied that crucial part of their developing identity, connection and belonging, it contributes to that long-term resilience plus a sense of self. Well, we know if you haven’t got that, there’s bits missing, there’s no self-esteem. We just a frightened person in a big world, but it also means that we’ve got another generation that’s not Stolen Generation, but lost a culture. And then lost to the community. So there’s lots in it, you could call it attachment to community and culture, is really, really vital for someone of a different culture. And there’s lots of studies done overseas around kids adopted of two different nationalities and different cultures and how you actually can’t give it because you don’t have it. So you need to be immersed in it to be able to get a good sense of self. Yeah.

Dana Shen [14:51]: So if you were to explain to a non-Aboriginal practitioner, the kinds of support systems or practices that might be behind that family who was presenting, what would they be? What would they be looking for?

Sue-Anne Hunter [15:05]: One, we need to remember that all our cultures are different. So it’s going to look different in each community. And so keeping that in mind, depending on where you’re working. We need to remember that our definition of family is different to that of mainstream. So it includes a lot more than just mom, dad, and the kids, so there’s others around. I always say, if you look hard enough, you’ll find that one person that that kid trusts, that that kid has. It might be an auntie, it might be a cousin, but just keep looking there. There doesn’t particularly have to be mom or dad. And I think that gets forgotten and lost a bit that our child rearing practice is collective rather than individual. So that saying that it takes a village to raise a child is so true for our community and being able to see that as a strength, rather than a deficit, that they’re always over their place. Well, that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think the other thing is that our older kids, sometimes look after our younger kids and take on that responsibility.

Sue-Anne Hunter [16:13]: And it’s not that we’re not watching, it might look like we’re not watching, but it’s that learning and growing that we have a bit more trust in our kids, I think, than non-Aboriginal people. And so it looks a bit different. We’re always around. The adults are always around. And the kids have just a little bit more responsibility, I would say than a non-Indigenous family. The elders of our families are really, really important and their advice and guidance should be taken highly into account. And I also think our families are harder on themselves than anybody else could be. And so if you don’t speak to a nan, there’s a program called Aboriginal family-led decision making. And so you bring the family together and they just decide as a collective what outcomes they would really want. And my God, I’m like, “You serious?” They’re harsh on each other because they want the best for the kids. And those nans and pops will growl at that family, if there’s something wrong and pull them back into line.

Sue-Anne Hunter [17:21]: But using that as well because of the love and affection that they want for their kids, that understanding that the elders play a huge role in outcomes and including them in decision-making. And I think the other thing is, what are the cultural practices of that family, or how well are they connected to culture? Understanding that some families are really connected and some families are not as connected and how as non-Aboriginal people, we can facilitate that connection. It’s not that you do it, but you facilitate that happening. And I think having the guts to facilitate that, because I know people get stuck in culture and get scared and they don’t know it. So they just don’t want to go there, but you’re going to learn a lot more from whoever you’re working with and taking that journey with them, than just ignoring the cultures in the room. Simple things like return to countries and taking people back on countries, having yarns outside instead of in a office.

Sue-Anne Hunter [18:19]: You can go for a walk. What’s comfortable? What can you do? Doing things a little bit differently without the rigidness of that being a particular meeting. And also I think our families, they highly regard people that are upfront and straight with them. So my motto was always to go in and say, “These are our bottom lines for these children. That’s it. We’re going to work really well together. If you go there, there’s a problem with the children because they need to be safe.” And so if you’ve always got bottom lines, then they’re always saying, “Oh, look, we’re going backwards. What have we done? What do we need?” And I’ve found them asking more for help rather than going below those lines of what’s unsafe for the kids.

Dana Shen [19:05]: I heard you speak about it a little earlier about healing trauma through evidence-based ways, but also integrating this with a cultural base. Tell me a little more about this.

Sue-Anne Hunter [19:16]: Yeah. I guess many of our Mob, and me personally, we’ve lost a lot of our old healing ways, or we are trying to recover them, or we’re trying to reclaim them and there’s not a lot there. So what I do know or what I do have, I try and use that to the best of my ability to bring culture as a foundation of safety into the room and connection. So any therapeutic approach that I use, I’ll use the foundation of culture, so I could facilitate something on country, rather than in a room. Our Mob have a history of possum skin cloaks. For instance, women’s groups, sometimes we get them to do a pelt each and then we’ll sew them together. And that process of doing that, and Bruce Perry talks about that rhythmic pattern, repetitive. Well, think about you’re sewing or you’re drawing. It’s just this rhythm.

Sue-Anne Hunter [20:14]: I find the burning of a possum skinny makes you stop and you have to be present because if you go too hard, you burn through. I’ve had time. You burn through the pelt, and then it’s no good. So doing things like that, but having the discussions as well, because people are regulated, it’s sensory, including a whole body experience rather than just the narrative of it all. Many people go, “Oh, we have an oral history and we talk about it a lot.” And one of the things I personally struggled with, and this is my only thinking, is if you get someone to talk about their trauma experience, generally they become heightened and they weren’t able to tell and they just write down. So one of the things is, what are you doing therapeutically? That’s going to calm somebody before you start getting some of the story yet. So for instance, EMDR, which is an eye movement therapy, which I do.

Sue-Anne Hunter [21:10]: You don’t have to tell your story. So for me, that helps take the feeling and the emotion, it’s still there and your memory is still there of it, but it helped takes a lot of the sting out. So you can actually tell your story without being overcome by emotion. And then we can talk about it till the cows come home. But I think getting people regulated, another thing is using water. Water is really healing for our Mobs. So what is the way you use that? Maybe even if it’s group or a family getting an outage with smoking pre and post, symbols, what are the symbols that people have or use?

Sue-Anne Hunter [21:48]: And I’ve used it with a family where we put symbols on rocks. And then we’ve also written under the symbol what it is. And we’ve done that with emotions and different things. We’ve been really creative with lots of what we do, like different settings, bringing in, for instance, gum leaves and they’re all different smells, of course. So being able to use the sensory of crushing gum leave in your hand, and then being able to smell it and bringing you back to the present. And there’s just a range you can use. It’s about being creative. Well, my belief is, and most people are okay with it is, once you bring culture into the room, it settles people and they feel safer and more regulated.

Dana Shen [22:32]: How could a carer maintain connection to family, culture, community, and spirituality to support Aboriginal children’s social and emotional well-being?

Sue-Anne Hunter [22:43]: It’s really tricky and it’s really hard. One, make a connection with an Aboriginal organisation that can support you in this, but also making connections with community. And I know it’s hard for some people that have never been within the Aboriginal community before, but I think that’s one of the sacrifices you have to just stand up and make. And if they make that connection themselves, and that child comes along on that journey and making that journey together, probably them and the child learning a lot more because the child needs to be immersed in the culture.

Sue-Anne Hunter [23:14]: And there’s only so much Google and a march can do, if that makes sense. I think facilitating those activities and being able to make sure the child turns up and is there, but to also make those meaningful interactions with community. And people can turn up to the NAIDOC march once a year with a child. But does the child understand what NAIDOC is? Do they understand what they’re marching for? Do they understand whose country they’re on? All that meaning underneath it needs to make sense for a child to be able connect to it. So although it’s tricky and hard, you as the carer need to make connections to facilitate it for the child.

Dana Shen [23:54]: How might this look if the child has no contact with families, what else can foster carers do if there’s no connection?

Sue-Anne Hunter [24:02]: One of the things, again, make a connection with the Aboriginal agency. And there’s a couple of young women now, but young girls, I forget how long I’ve been working in the system, that have said to me Melvin is not their Mob, but she said, “I’m so accepted by the community. And I’m so fortunate.” And she says, “VACCA made that connection for me. I’m not my foster carers, not anyone, but VACCA made that connection for me.” So the agency made the connection for her to Mob and community, by being able for other Aboriginal people, to take her out into those other spaces and give her opportunities to meet and participate that she probably never would have had. But those connections, it’s going to make your life easier as a foster carer, because you’re not going to get all that, trying to understand themselves later in life.

Sue-Anne Hunter [24:53]: And really, all that hurt and pain that’s there from not understanding, so hopefully not turning to drugs and alcohol and down that path, you’re going to save a lot of heartache in that sense. But I think that trauma work as well, needs to be done. And in fact, trauma work’s not done, there’s still not a sense of self anyway. And I think the system’s really bad for any child to actually get some form of trauma therapy, really good trauma therapy that they can come out the other side, just being able to make safe, healthy life choices, unless they’ve got this brilliant carer that really fights. And I’ve seen that as well, that trauma isn’t integrated into their life. It’s just this piece of their life that just sits there and haunts them so to speak. Yeah.

Dana Shen [25:42]: So how can foster parents or carers support that trauma healing? What could they do?

Sue-Anne Hunter [25:52]: Whilst the child is still under orders in the system, would be that advocacy back to the system. That we’re not doing anything to heal this child from A, B and C, whatever that trauma history looks like. And being aware that children with trauma aren’t the same as the children you’ve brought up. So they need to be parented differently and being able to say, “Oh, I don’t know that.” And being able to connect with the system set, “I need training in that. I need training in these. I don’t understand it, give me something to raid or somewhere to go.” And the more you understand, the more you’ll actually be able to advocate for what’s right for that child.

Sue-Anne Hunter [26:31]: And we all don’t know everything. So I think being able to say that there’s difference, or something’s not quite right, but you don’t know why. And being able to reach out and say, “Well, what’s going on for this child?” And we’re a lot more aware of it these days. And there’s more research done around trauma and what that means and how it affects the brain and the body. And so it’s all there and people have got ways of healing. We’ve looked at the other side as well. So, I’d say, go and do research because you can advocate so much better.

Dana Shen [27:00]: How can practitioners help children make sense of this situation and disconnection?

Sue-Anne Hunter [27:06]: I would say that truth-telling is really, really important for any child that’s got any disconnect, because kids are good at making up what’s happened and making sense of it. I think that truth-telling around why they are where they are. One of the things I found in the work that I’ve done is, I’ve looked for stuff on it, but I can’t really find it at this point, so maybe I’m going to have to do something, some research on it, is separating the trauma from Aboriginality and that it’s not the Aboriginality that hurt you. There’s the trauma and it’s usually a person, it’s not because they’re Aboriginal. So I think that’s really, really important when making sense of what’s going on for the child.

Sue-Anne Hunter [27:51]: But also again, they can make sense of it as well, by connection to culture and in what shape or form that comes with. It shows them that our culture is it’s not harmful, if that makes sense. And sometimes we need to do that because as many child said to me, “I don’t want to be Aboriginal.” “Why wouldn’t you be Aboriginal?” “Because you hurt people because someone’s done this to me or so.” “I’m Aboriginal. Do I?” “No, you’re one of the good ones.” And being able to take the time to separate it out for them and make sense of it. I think that’s a really, really important part.

Dana Shen [28:29]: There was a lot of uncertainty for Aboriginal kinship carers and children. What are some of the strategies to help them manage these daily uncertainties?

Sue-Anne Hunter [28:38]: So it’s tricky for kinship carers. So there’s lots for foster carers. There’s all this training and there’s money to be a foster carer. And that goes down in levels depending on the trauma of the child. And then you’ve got the kinship carers and depending on what state and where they are, it depends on what supports they get. So there’s minimal trauma training for kinship carers. And I think that’s about people particularly don’t want to trigger the kinship care, because it’s their trauma too, it’s their story too, because obviously they’re related to that child. So one of the things is around your own healing as a kinship carer is, are there parts of yourself that you need to still heal? And I’d really encourage that to be done, even if you take the child on, because your responses need to be different than a trauma response than the child, because that’s not going to work.

Sue-Anne Hunter [29:36]: I think the other thing is a really clear routines for everybody in the house so that everybody knows what’s coming next, because life’s uncertain at this point. You’ve got the department involved, you probably got several different agencies involved depending on what’s going on. And so being able to keep a clear routine, not only for the kinship carer, but the children and everyone, a lot more smoothly. Again, that understanding that parenting a child with trauma is different. So really being able to understand that. And I think also sometimes with doing that work, you start to understand yourself a lot better. One of the best things I’ve ever done is I’ve just done all my studies around trauma and so much helped me understand my dad’s trauma story, my family a lot better, our Mob as a whole. And I think it helped heal me because I was able to make sense of it.

Sue-Anne Hunter [30:33]: So I would really encourage kinship carers to really reach out and do some of that understanding because it makes sense of yourself. Doesn’t mean you have to go to a therapist and talk and all that stuff, whatever you don’t want to do, don’t. Just understanding what it means, is usually helpful. If you’re struggling, you can ask for help. It doesn’t mean you’re failing. It also doesn’t mean the system’s going to take the child off you. I think it’s a strength if you’re struggling, because then you’re going to get strategies. You’re going to be offered different ways that can be helpful. You may also be offered some respite care. Now I always say, “I’m a single mom and I have respite care when the aunties or nan or someone takes my daughter. She’s not with me 24/7.” And so doing that is similar to that.

Sue-Anne Hunter [31:25]: So don’t be afraid to say, “I need a break this weekend.” That’s okay. You’re not letting anybody down. You’re actually doing your own self-care. My other advice would be, if you’re a kinship carer, you’re able to immerse the kid in culture. And I would say that would probably be really healing for both of you as a family. We see so many grannies and aunties take on extra kids all the time, even though they’re struggling. I just honour our women that do that and men do it as well, but I see more of our women. And don’t feel guilty if you can’t do something, because we can’t do it all. And that even if a kinship placement breaks down, they’re still your family and it’s okay. And how you fix that and move on is up to yourself, but really reaching out and healing that space. Kinship is just such a tricky space because we put kids really back into a family that has the same trauma sometimes.

Sue-Anne Hunter [32:25]: And it just doesn’t work sometimes. Without the supports that a foster carer would get, which is just wrong, just because you’re family doesn’t mean you don’t need those extra dollars to look after a child, or you don’t need that counselling. You don’t need this, or you don’t need that, because you do. You’ve usually got four of your own and then you’re bringing on another one. And a lot of our Mob don’t put up their hand because they’re worried that if they do they’ll get judged and then their own kids will go. So there’s lots of barriers to being a kinship carer.

Dana Shen [32:55]: How would you help kinship carers balance the dynamics within the family?

Sue-Anne Hunter [33:02]: I’ve seen this quite a few times where grandma will take on the child and the system says to them, “Okay, but your daughter can’t come and visit, which is the mother, can’t come and visit this house. She’s not allowed in this house.” And you’re like, “You can’t. That’s the daughter. You can’t even say that.” How can you play someone there and then say that your son or daughter can’t visit them because you know it’s going to happen. And then once it happens, then you’re going to remove the child again. So there’s barriers to that. I’d be saying, “Okay, so it’s your son or daughter, they’re going to come and visit you. How are we going to manage this?” And put things around and do it differently in that space, rather than saying… That’s ridiculous. That’s just setting people up to fail. But I think kinship carers needed big pat on the back. And they really need to look after themselves because they don’t and they want to do what’s best because they don’t want to see the kids go in the system and I totally get it.

Dana Shen [34:02]: I totally agree with you, Sue-Anne. So as we close, I wondered if you had any final words or hopes for our community.

Sue-Anne Hunter [34:12]: I guess just keep going in the struggle because every day it’s something else. And one day we’re going to come up and we’ll start saying what we’ve been talking about, in action. Always take on the mindset of what my ancestors did and go. If they could do that, then me sitting here talking about it or marching for it, or whatever needs to be done, is nothing compared to the platform that they’ve given us. I wouldn’t be sitting here with a voice today, had they not done what they’d done. And so I think we just have to honour that and keep up the struggle, but also keep yourself well within that. I think that’s really, really important. You can’t hold others if you’re not okay. And I think we’re always good at giving advice. I know I am. And then I’ll be like, “Come to Paul Rucker, I got to take my own advice.” But integrating it into your everyday life and what that looks like is really important. So looking after yourself, whilst you’re in the struggle, I think is really important.

Dana Shen [35:11]: Thank you for joining us in our podcast series, listening to stories of healing.

Narrator [35:21]: Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au to access a range of resources to assist your practice. Brought to you by The National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health led by Emerging Minds. The National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health, under the national support for child who needs mental health program.