Transcript for
Supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infants during the first 2,000 days

Shirley Young (00:00): We must work with our families to help them to get to a place where they are talking about those strengths, where we encourage those conversations, where we get our families to help us understand their strengths as a family. I think it’s really important that we acknowledge the strengths when they come into the room as well, and that we tell the families we love the way that they’ve actually done this, or we love the way their family have come together to do that. We can use the kinship system as a way of actually putting a support around a family, and that is a strength.

Narrator (00:33): Welcome to the Emerging Minds podcast.

Jacquie Lee (00:38): Welcome to the Emerging Minds podcast. In this episode, you’ll be hearing from cultural consultants, Dana Shen and Shirley Young. Both of these inspirational Aboriginal women have been involved in the development of our new course, ‘Replanting the Birthing Trees’. This course explores the cultural considerations that support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families in the first 2,000 days of a child’s life, and consider what the barriers and opportunities are for non-indigenous practitioners in providing support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families. You can learn more about the course by visiting www.emergingminds.com.au. 

(01:19): In this episode, you’ll hear both Dana and Shirley share some of their insights about practises that support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children’s and family’s wellbeing during the first 2,000 days. Practising strength-based and hope-inspiring approaches will help you engage parents, while offering choices to help empower them. Listen to Dana speak about the importance of working with hope and prioritising the knowledge, skills, and strengths of families.

Dana Shen (01:46): First of all, if we look at it, in general, our communities are used to being disempowered. So, that’s just as a general framework, the more choice and control we can give Aboriginal families, the better for them because of our history, colonisation, et cetera. The second thing is that in order for young families to feel more confident about what they’re doing in their lives and with their children, they need to have a sense that they can choose particular ways of doing things, and be trusted in that. So, by giving empowerment, by giving a sense of believing in the directions that they want to go to, culturally, as two young parents, you’re actually giving them a sense of building their own confidence in what they do as well, as well as validating a cultural experience and validating the questions and directions that they might want to set. So, strengths-based practice is good on a broader systemic level, and it is good on an individual level for our families, particularly younger families having choice.

Jacquie Lee (02:48): Now, listen to Shirley as she describes the importance of listening for sparkling moments, which form the basis of a strengths-based practise.

Shirley Young (02:56): Strength-based practice is really, really important. It’s often easy to look at a family and all that’s actually happening for and with the family. It’s easy to read notes that have been written about the family and actually think, “Oh, my goodness, what am I going to do here?” And become really, really overwhelmed by what presents in itself. It’s really important though to actually spend time with a family, getting to know them and understanding how they operate, because in that conversation, there will be little sparkling moments where you notice something where a family have managed in a different way despite all of the challenges that exist. It’s really important to be looking actively for those moments, to not just sit in the problem that exists all the time, to actually look for the things that have worked differently and what’s been happening in and around those moments.

(03:49): Case notes these days are filled with problems, basically. Because we get stuck in assessment mode constantly, we’re constantly looking for the risks, for the worries, and all of those things. But not very often do we actually see case notes that actually incorporate the strengths of the family, and the protective factors that exist within culture. And if we look at what the protective factors are and the strengths of the families, often they negate what the risks and the harms are for the family. So, looking for those moments, being able to write a very balanced story about what’s happening for the family is really important. Often, we find those things exist within culture, the way that we actually operate, our aboriginal families, how they make ends meet, the way that they deal with everyday life, despite having intergenerational trauma in their lives.

(04:38):

The way that we actually parent our children is a strength. The kinship system is a strength for our families. All these things are strengths, and we need to be locating those in the story of the family and ensuring that it’s actually translated into the way that we think, the way that we write, and the way that we plan for our families moving forward. We must work with our families to help them to get to a place where they are talking about those strengths, where we encourage those conversations, where we get our families to help us understand their strengths as a family. I think it’s really important that we acknowledge the strengths when they come into the room as well, and that we tell the families we love the way that they’ve actually done this, or we love the way their family have come together to do that. We can use the kinship system as a way of actually putting a support around a family, and that is a strength. We can use different family members in the family to be able to support our young people, and we must recognise that as a strength.

(05:36): The strengths that are actually in our families are massive, but unfortunately, we often don’t think to look for them. So, that ongoing assessment about the risks and things really gets in the way. So, I really encourage you as a practitioner to find ways that you can actually see the strengths happening, where you can see the way that family have done things well, despite other times they may not have done well. There might be a time where they can describe where things have gone really well. And so, drawing that out and helping the family to realise even that they’ve done something in a very different way that’s had a very different outcome. And helping them to realise that these things do happen in their family is really important to actually help build the strengths and to encourage them to continue to do the sorts of things that we would love to see more of.

(06:24): But that happens over time. You’re not going to see a strength necessarily on the first day, maybe you will. But what I would suggest is that the more you’re with a family, the more you understand a family, the more you will see their strengths, and the more you’ll see the beautiful things that come from the culture that they’re connected to. We just need to look for it. We need to stop just looking for everything that is wrong, and think about what is actually happening well within this family.

Jacquie Lee (06:50): Offering access to a range of resources is part of quality holistic care. A holistic approach provides support that looks at the whole person, not just their mental health needs. Their physical, emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing should also be considered. Listen to Shirley speak about holistic care.

Shirley Young (07:09): So, when I think about holistic care, I think about the domains of social-emotional wellbeing. I think about the fact that as Aboriginal people, we need to be connected to culture, we need to be connected to kinship, we need to be connected to our customs and country, of course. And all the things that are actually involved within social-emotional wellbeing. And so, provision of holistic care ensures that we are thinking about all of those things. And what we know about social-emotional wellbeing is if that one of those things are missing, then we can become unwell or our care becomes unbalanced. So, what we need to be thinking about are all aspects of a family’s life and how they impact on one another.

(07:49): So, if somebody is disconnected from their family and they are unwell, then part of their support system is broken down and they’re unable to actually access help. So, when we’re thinking about what a client is presenting with, we need to think about all of those aspects to ensure that the provision of care that we are providing is looked at on multiple levels. Each of those levels are overlapping and interconnected. And so, therefore we must consider how the client is doing in each of those areas. And of course, we would be listening deeply to hear what the family are talking about, and we must provide time, and for them to be able to speak about the things that are happening for them, so that we are not just hearing what we want to hear, but we’re actually hearing what the family are really saying. And sometimes, that includes us just being silent, and sometimes it includes us providing extra care to hear what it is the needs of the family is really about.

(08:48): We may ask questions to clarify what that might be, to ensure that we’re actually hearing them, to make sure that we’ve heard what it is they’re asking for, but we must take the time to actually do that, to ensure that we’re providing what the family is actually needing and hearing what it is they’re bringing on each day that we see them. So, as a practitioner, you can encourage cultural practise by asking really simple questions like, “What’s important to you about when you’re birthing? Who should be there? What should it look like? Okay, we’re having to have a baby in a hospital, but what can we do to actually introduce some of the practices into the hospital room? Can you bring something in with you?”

(09:31): But I guess it’s about staying curious about how you can actually help the family do that, being open to, are there other people that should be in the room? And that may be out of the norm for you, but asking the question will help you understand who should be in the room. I know there’s a whole bunch of norms around how that normally happens, but I think we need to be open to understanding why that should happen. And it’s usually a whole bunch of stuff around supporting the woman as she’s birthing, supporting her wellness, supporting her social-emotional wellbeing, honouring, celebrating.

(10:03): And all of those things can be done in a contemporary way. We just need to be open. We need to ask questions. We need to understand that it might not happen in the way that you think it should happen, but we need to be comfortable about allowing a woman and her family to talk about what it is they need in order to feel like they’re still connecting back to important practises, despite it might not be something that we would be expecting to happen, but still being aware that we need to ask the questions and being comfortable with the fact that it could be something outside of what you would normally think of.

(10:35): And then, I think it’s really important to actually do what you say you’re going to do and follow things through, so that when the woman comes to birth, she is ready and that everything is comfortable. This may mean that you may need to talk to other people and help them understand what the plan is so that they are ready for that to happen, because we want it to be the most natural process ever that the woman can possibly have. So, by asking questions and being curious, we can make it a much better experience.

Jacquie Lee (11:04): Shirley goes on to describe and provide tips on how she would incorporate holistic provision of care in her practise.

Shirley Young (11:11): If I think about practicing holistically, I think about maybe some of the following things. Often, we need to do some work to make families feel comfortable, and so that’s all about letting families know what it is we’re doing and why. And it’s about allowing them to know when things are going to happen as well, and to have some say about what it looks like. An example of providing holistic care might look like this. I might have received a referral from a family, and I might give them a call to have a yarn about the referral. I would make sure that they’re feeling comfortable, and I would ask them, is there anything specific that would help them to feel comfortable? I might spend some time just getting to know them for a little while as well, just trying to make the engagement actually happen smoothly.

(11:56): And then, I might be asking them, where would it be a good place to actually meet them? So, if there’s no reason why you can’t meet them in a community location, that’s often where I meet families. I meet them in a place where they feel comfortable. And I generally ask them, “Is there anybody else that you need to have at the appointment? Are there other people that should be there?” So, if there are other mothers or there are other sisters that want to be there, then I would encourage them to be there too. I would outline to them about what it is they can expect from the appointment, and I would ask them if they need any help to get there, or do they need a reminder? And I would generally send a text reminder as well, just to remind them of the appointment.

(12:35): We all know that people have busy lives and things happen, that’s part of life. And I’d also say to them, “Look, if something comes up and you’re not able to do that, just give me a ring and we can actually change the booking. We can make it to another time.” And so, that morning, I would send them a text and just remind them of the appointment. And if I thought of a last-minute thing that I thought, “Oh, I need to ask them,” I’d ring them and have a chat with them, so that they felt comfortable, they knew what the appointment was about. I would go to the location that they feel. And often, for me, it’s a coffee shop or it might be down the beach, or in a location that they feel comfortable. And sometimes, I’ll bring food because I know that I like to sit at the beach and eat food myself. And so, often just making things feel comfortable, it just helps a family to go, “Oh, okay, this person’s here and they’re really interested in me. They’re trying to make me feel comfortable.”

(13:26): And so, then, I would just have some conversations about, “How are you feeling about the appointment? How’d you get here? Was everything all right?” And then, I would basically say to them, “So, you’re wanting to utilise our service?” And I would find out, “What is it that you think that the service can offer? What were you hoping for? And what would you like the service to look like? Are there other people that should be doing this journey with you, and who should that be?” I think about holistic care being where we both get to talk, but mostly, I get to hear the story of what the family are actually bringing. I’d like to know how I can support them, and I’d like to know what good support looks like. Does that mean do they like weekly visits? Do they like to bring new people into their visit?

(14:16): And then, there’ll be times where I’ll provide them information, and I need to be really clear about what it is I’m offering and I need to be clear about if I have a responsibility to do something as well. So, generally, organisations expect practitioners to talk about their responsibilities fairly upfront. I do that once I’ve been yarning with families for a little while, and usually, I get to know them a little bit, and I also share a little bit about myself. And I share with them my intentions for the work with them, and how I like to work with them. And I like to have a bit of a laugh and make them feel comfortable. And then, usually, I’ll say to them, “Part of my role is I’m a mandated notify. And so, my responsibility is that if I feel like that you’re at risk, or that you’re going to hurt yourself, or you might hurt a child, or I become worried about your family, that there’s an expectation that I need to actually tell somebody about that.”

(15:17): And generally, the way I do that is I will let you know that I’m worried about that, and we’ll have a conversation about it. So long as I feel your children are safe and that there is a level of safety, we will have a chat about it and we’ll talk about how we go about that. And sometimes, I’ll even do that while you’re there, so that you know what it is I’ve said. However, there are times, if it’s difficult, that I may have to actually do that outside of here. But I’m letting you know that that’s part of my role. And I’ll ask the family, “Do you understand that?” And mostly, families will go, “Yeah, I understand that.”

(15:51): But I think it’s the way that you do that. I think sometimes transparency is a good way, providing people are safe. And what that says to them is that you actually really care about them and that you actually want them to be okay. And that’s generally the way that I do that. Very rarely have I ever found a time where I’ve had to go away and make a notification without talking to the family about it. The reason why I raise it with the family is I actually want them to be successful in that situation, and I want them to brainstorm ways that we can do it differently, so that there isn’t a risk anymore. And how can you do that if you haven’t had the conversation with them? I think these days we think that the notification is the be all and end all, but what it does is actually it doesn’t provide the family the opportunity to do anything.

(16:37): And families want the best for their kids. And if they’re unable to come up with a way of doing something differently, we work it through together. And I think we normalise that stuff a bit, that all families have difficulties at times and that there are ways of actually working through things. And so, that is the reason why I do it that way, because I believe families have the skills and the abilities to answer their own problems and work through ways of keeping their children safe, because that’s ultimately what they want. They want the best for their children, generally.

Jacquie Lee (17:05): Working across cultures can be challenging at times. Engaging in culturally-reflective practise is crucial for you to ensure the ways you work with and across cultures is respectful, promotes cultural security and achieves improved mental health and social and emotional wellbeing outcomes for children and families. Listen to Shirley talk about culturally-reflective practise, and provide examples of how practitioners can apply it to their work context.

Shirley Young (17:32): It’s really important to be reflecting on our own worldviews, our thoughts, our opinions, and our values that we actually bring into the work with our families. It’s really important to be aware of what’s happening on the inside of you, to know that there are some things that might be impacting you on a particular way, and it’s really important that we reflect on those things regularly. We can reflect on those things with our Aboriginal colleagues. We can reflect with supervision. We can take time out to think about the way that we are thinking about cases, the way we’re formulating our thoughts, the way we’re writing about our thoughts and the way we’re actually thinking about our clients and the way that we are, I guess, creating a thought process about what’s happening. 

(18:17): The importance of reflecting on our thoughts and our opinions and our worldviews is that, ultimately, our clients will end up getting a service based on our thoughts and our opinions. We must be really aware of what our body is doing, what our face is doing, and the way we’re actually responding to our families. It’s really important that we’re able to sit in discomfort sometimes and hear things that might make us feel a bit uncomfortable. And it’s okay for us to take time to unpack actually how that’s made us feel. But it’s really important that we critically reflect on what our thoughts and our feelings are doing, so that we ensure that the way we think about our cases, the way that we write about our families, and the way that we actually locate their strengths and abilities is done from the right place, and that we’re reviewing it from the place where the family is sitting, and not through our own thought processes that we bring into the work that we do.

Jacquie Lee (19:12): Listen, as Dana talks about being uncomfortable, and how practitioners can work through discomfort.

Dana Shen (19:18): As a professional, when we work with families, there’s always going to be the potential of discomfort. Discomfort can come from the experiences we have. Maybe we haven’t worked with lots of families before, or maybe we haven’t worked with families from different cultures before. There’s so many potential things that can make us uncomfortable. So, I think there’s some really useful things for practitioners potentially where this might arise for you. I think the first thing is to know and name when you feel discomfort. This is actually really normal. It’s part of our human experience that things won’t always feel comfortable all the time, and particularly when we’re in a process of learning, that’s very, very normal.

(19:57): The second thing is that we can begin to understand what the discomfort feels for us in our own bodies, and to work with that. So, there are various kinds of mindfulness practises that can assist us to begin to just very, very gently notice when we bring us a level of discomfort. This is really helpful because part of the human experience is that humans can sense how other people are feeling. And so, when we are doing this kind of work to our best of our ability, we want to be bringing calm to the experience. And when we’re not calm, that we state that we are not calm, so that the people in front of us know what’s happening.

(20:36): So, things to think about is, obviously, you can prepare ahead for a particular family or work that you’re doing. What’s some of the learning that you can do prior to be able doing that? What’s some of the learning you can do before you come into that context? That’s really important. The second thing is that you can name the discomfort, name that you might be uncomfortable, or that you might walk into discomfort. Thirdly, begin to understand what that feels for you, whether that’s emotionally or physically, and there’s lots of mindfulness practises that you can use to explore that. And finally, when you walk into the space, if you are still feeling that discomfort, it’s actually okay to acknowledge that and to be able to share that in a respectful way with people, because often, they can sense this anyway. So, all of those things can be helpful.

(21:23): So, for instance, if I was walking into and working with a family and I was feeling a little worried or feeling a bit uncomfortable about it, I would just walk in there and I’d go, “Hi, how are you? I’m feeling a little bit nervous because this is my first time meeting you.” So, it might be you won’t express all the things that you’re thinking because that’s not their problem, actually, it’s yours. But you might at least name that there’s a bit of discomfort. Or something I might also go is I go, “I’m actually a little bit shy meeting people for the first time. If you feel that, that’s what you’re feeling from me.” So, yeah, I just express a level of vulnerability.

(22:01): And in fact, what I’ve noticed is that in the sharing of vulnerability, the people that I walk alongside and work with, they’re actually really great with that. In fact, they like to see an actual human being in the room and knowing that that person can feel concern, or worry, or discomfort too.

Jacquie Lee (22:20): Thank you Dana and Shirley, for so generously sharing your insights and examples in the importance of culturally-reflective practise, and how practitioners can create reclaiming conversations to prioritise family connectedness and strengths. To learn more about the Replanting the Birthing Trees course, visit www.emergingminds.com.au.

Narrator (22:44): Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au to access a range of resources to assist your practise. Brought to you by the 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 and Youth Mental Health Program.