The Era Of Stolen Generation And Social Justice For Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Communities

The Devastating Impact of Stolen Generation on the Descendants and Survivors

The era of stolen generation had a devastating impact on the descendants and the stolen generation survivors. The British arrival to Australia in 1788, introduced massacres violence, diseases, loss of land and adversely impacted the resources and traditional lifestyle of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The people were deprived of their traditional homes and were shifted to reserves (Braham 2013). They lost all their decision making powers on their children, the people needed to take permission in order to move in or move out of their reserves. They were deprived of their rights to marry or work. The violence followed till 150 years. The children of Aboriginal community were highly affected; they were forcefully removed from their parents and were placed in dormitories and other foster homes or were adopted by other non-indigenous people (Canberr 2015).  Their main purpose was to deprive the Aboriginal people of their tradition and culture. The policies disrupted the families, communities, traditions and cultures. It also contributed to huge number of challenges that is faced by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait communities today. The evidence from history states the harsh and inhuman treatment especially the children experienced.  The survivors of stolen generation suffered from severe trauma and pain (Canberr 2015). 

Torres Strait Islander communities, families and individuals 

The social justice implies issues of human rights facing by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The social justice assists the communities in enjoying the full rights. It includes the forms of self determination as well as criminal justice. Social justice includes the distinctive rights that every Aboriginal community people should hold considering the fact that they were the original people in the land. It includes various rights including right to their traditional status and culture (Coles 2016).This right helps the Aboriginal community people to maintain their own traditional and spiritual culture, strengthen their identity and other practices of the indigenous people. The other rights include right to self determination and right to land. This right enables the indigenous people to decide their own future, Identify and solve the issues facing them. Social justice also offers right to land to the Aboriginal people. It provides the rights of significant religious and cultural basis of the indigenous people. The commissioner of social justice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community seeks to promote these rights with respect and understanding among the Aboriginal community. The social justice commissioner provides rights and justice to the indigenous people. They work to support the indigenous perspectives and empower the Aboriginal people (Coles 2016). 

Social Justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities

3a) Historical events, government policies or legislation has impacted and helped to shape the current service delivery to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander clients.

The government policies and act that impacted the current service delivery are Aborigines Protection act 1886, however this act was not very successfully implemented, hence a new act Aborigines Protection Act 1909 was revised and implemented to shape the current service delivery to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait people (Dobia and Roffey 2017). 

3 b) Current federal and state legislation that gives context for cultural safety in the workplace

The current federal and legislative acts to protect the cultural rights of the people are: Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003, the main aim of this act is to protect and conserve the cultural heritage of the people (Dobia and Roffey  2017) .It provides recognition and identification of the people. Torres Strait Islander Cultural Heritage Act 2003 aims to protect, and conserve the cultural heritage of the Torres Strait Islander people. 

Effective communication plays a vital role in achieving positive outcomes for the users of services. If there is a lack of communication among the people and the service providers it can affect an individual’s social, physical and cultural wellbeing. Good communication and relationships has been identified as impediment to proper and good health, partnership building and relationship outcomes. Various factors influence relationships, communication of the people. Issues like experiences of marginalization, colonization and a feeling of disempowerment leads to distrust, trauma and intergenerational disappointments (Dudgeon 2013). These issues affect the relationship, communication and building partnership among Aboriginal people in service delivery.

Various conflicting priorities, social complexities, challenges of family obligations, huge gaps in cultural understanding, contending racism, various judgments regarding the choices of lifestyle, insufficient cultural awareness, prevalence of multilevel institutionalized practice of racism and discrimination and distrust  influence service delivery of the Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people ( Fredericks 2013).

Effective communication includes a two way process which is essential is communicating with community to ensure culturally safe programs. Ineffective community has been a major cause for continuous health crisis of the Aboriginal people. Presence of cross cultural communication experiences differs in the process of communication ( Fredericks 2013).  Hence cross cultural communication must be given main priority in delivering a culturally safe service and programs. Programs and service requires the provision of culturally sensitive services. A process of two way communication and understanding the culture is equally important in the service or programs. Verbal communication is considered to be the most convenient method of communication however; non verbal communication should not be completely ignored (Nelson and Allison 2007).  

Impact of Government Policies and Legislation on Service Delivery

Research has found policies of the programs and services that provides opportunity to establish good relationship with the Aboriginal and Torres community. Several reports, studies and research papers identified successful programs and policies: (Dobia and Roffey 2017)

• Approach of grass root and bottom-up, has been able to knit the primary knowledge within the framework of the nationals.
• Region specific and local programs have been found to crater to the needs of the Aboriginals and Torres Islander communities, rather than one policy that fit all.
• Long term investments and support for strengthening the communities to handle their own lives and make decisions on their own.
• Co-operative and cross cultural communications that reduce the burden of the Aboriginals and Torres Islander community and red-tape on their organizations.
• Independent and regular evaluation of the community, implementing programs and policies to ensure success.

7b)  Evaluation of service and program outcomes involving Aboriginal community in the process.

  Effective planning of the programs should be done and to ensure that evaluation id properly resources. The methods of evaluating must be culturally appropriate and locally acceptable and must be appropriate. Respecting and building relationships and partnership must be implemented into all the stages of evaluation inclusive of the designing and planning (Thomson, Darcy and Pearce 2010.).

The services and programs have successfully incorporated cultural safety strategy by acknowledging the problems faced by the communities, respecting and understanding the cultural obligation, incorporating the strategy of cross cultural communications, improving the listening and speaking skills of the people involved, implementation the strategy to demonstrate with respect. In order to build relationship and partnership, the service programs were built relationship of trust and confidence, visiting the Aboriginal and Torres Islander community organizations and their leaders. The strategies were implemented by showing respect to the community, acknowledge their country, using names which were preferred, two way process of communicating building relationship or partnership before the business (Thomson Darcy and Pearce 2010). 

Every people must be treated as an individual, it must be understand that different people have different cultural. The difference among the culture and things in common both need to respect. It is required by the people to be aware of these cultural differences but avoid any assumptions (Lowe and Yunkaporta 2013).  There are difficult interactions with the Aboriginals which need to be acknowledged. Several preconceptions and assumptions might lead to negative communications which sometimes lead to hostility and mistrust. Therefore communicating with respect and honesty is recommended.  

References

Braham, L. 2013. Ministerial Statement: The Reform and Development of Local Government in the Northern Territory, 17 February, Northern Territory Legislative Assembly.

Canberr, Cornell, S., Fischer, V., Grant, G., Morehouse, T., and Taylor, J. 2015. Native Self Governance, Political Institutions, and Economic Development in Alaska, unpublished paper prepared for Western Regional Science Association Annual Meetings

Coles, D. 2016 The Marriage of Traditional Aboriginal and Western Structures in Local Government in the Northern Territory, paper delivered to Institute of Public Administration Australia conference, 8–10 September,

Condon, J.R., Zhang, X., Baade, P., Griffiths, K., Cunningham, J., Roder, D.M., Coory, M., Jelfs, P.L. and Threlfall, T., 2014. Cancer survival for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians: a national study of survival rates and excess mortality. Population health metrics, 12(1), p.1.

Dobia, B. and Roffey, S., 2017. Respect for Culture—Social and Emotional Learning with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Youth. In Social and Emotional Learning in Australia and the Asia-Pacific (pp. 313-334). Springer, Singapore.

Dudgeon, W., Wright, M., Paradies, Y., Garvey, D. and Walker, I., 2014. Aboriginal social, cultural and historical contexts. In Working together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing principles and practice (pp. 3-24). Commonwealth Department of Health.

Fredericks, B., 2013. ‘We don’t leave our identities at the city limits’: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in urban localities. Australian Aboriginal Studies, (1), p.4.

Gee, G., Dudgeon, P., Schultz, C., Hart, A. and Kelly, K., 2014. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional wellbeing. Working together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing principles and practice, 2, pp.55-68.

Thomson, A., Darcy, S. and Pearce, S., 2010. Ganma theory and third-sector sport-development programmes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth: Implications for sports management. Sport Management Review, 13(4), pp.313-330.

Hunt, J., 2013. Engaging with Indigenous Australia-exploring the conditions for effective relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Lingard, K., 2016. The potential of current legal structures to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander interests in the Australian bush food industry. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 23(2), pp.174-185.

Lowe, K. and Yunkaporta, T., 2013. The inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content in the Australian National Curriculum: A cultural, cognitive and socio-political evaluation. Curriculum Perspectives, 33(1), pp.1-14.

Lynn, R., Thorpe, R., Miles, D., Cutts, C., Butcher, A. and Ford, L., 1998. Murri Way! Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders reconstruct social welfare practice.

Nelson, A. and Allison, H., 2007. Relationships: the key to effective occupational therapy practice with urban Australian Indigenous children. Occupational Therapy International, 14(1), pp.57-70.