Working with Children Archives - ...metaphorically speaking

‘Connecting in Time and Place’ With Michelle Bates

October 4, 2020

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Michelle Bates had spent most of her life in Sydney’s South West raising a family, but something else was calling her to the outback. Moving to Tennant Creek for a short stint helping Aboriginal people understand and implement the National Disability Insurance Scheme Plan, Michelle found herself putting down roots after falling in the love with the colours, the country and the stories of the Warumungu people.

Among her various roles in Tennant Creek, Michelle is a counsellor and narrative practitioner, advocate, mentor and leader. She volunteers at the Paterson Street Hub, a collective space in the main street of Tennant Creek which offers safety and opportunities for learning, sharing and contribution. This is a delightful interview of what its like to fall in love with a place and do the work that you really love.

In Episode 34 of ‘Talk the Walk’ we explore:

What drew Michelle to Tennant Creek to find an anchored adventure and what keeps her there
The history of Michelle’s connection to working towards systems change and living well in community together
The impact of connection to place and the role of nurturing women on Michelle’s early life and its resonance in remote Australia
A narrative project unearthing the wisdom of Aboriginal children in story and play, witnessed by important adults in their lives
What it means to children to uncover stories about the things that are important to them in childhood
An opportunity for listeners to provide outsider witness responses to the stories of Tennant Creek children
Key values and qualities needed to work with children in remote communities
The story of Patterson St Hub, a thriving inspiring gathering place for community members
The challenges of living and working remotely and how struggles become rich opportunities for growth
The small sparkling moments of resistance that makes Michelle’s day

To listen to this episode simply click on the Play button below or listen via the Stitcher App for iOS, Android, Nook and iPad.

You can also subscribe to podcast and blog updates via email from the Menu on the Home Page.

Don’t forget, if you or someone you know would make a great interview on ‘Talk the Walk’, send us an email from the Contact Page.

Things to Follow up After the Episode

Michelle’s Masters project through The Dulwich Centre (link to be provided when available)

Patterson St Hub, Tennant Creek website

Patterson St hub on Instagram

Michelle Bates on Instagram

Connect with Michelle Bates on LinkedIn

Email Michelle at michelle.bates@ymail.com

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Kids and Nature: Nurturing strong and healthy minds!

January 24, 2019

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Many of you will be familiar with my passion for keeping children safe in their first three years of life through the Healing Our Children project, to improve their chances of growing into strong and healthy adults! It is one thing to protect babies from violence to prevent trauma to the brain, but it is quite another to add in nurturing and nourishing activities to promote brain growth!

Author of ‘Your Brain on Nature”, Dr Alan Logan says “Your connection to nature established early in life to your experiences can actually influence your life course’s wellbeing”. He argues that young children who are disconnected from nature experience a variety of health impacts from poor gut health and low immunity to compromised mental health.

Louv and Charles have been looking at a growing body of evidence across the world that suggests children are now spending much less time in nature-based outdoor activity and this is having a detrimental effect on their development. Louv has gone so far as to use the term ‘nature deficit disorder’ to describe this problem.

While some research findings have limitations, here are some of the trends worth noting.

Between the decades, 1980’s to 2000’s, children’s lives have become increasingly structured and media oriented, leaving less time for independent play of any kind, including unstructured play in nature. Free play is going down, screen time is going up.
Visits to parks, national forests and other public land is in decline and are a possible indicator of the frequency of children’s exposure to the natural world.
There are fewer opportunities for children to engage in the natural world, with parents containing their children to more restrictive spaces, the move towards play indoors with supervision rather than unsupervised in parks, playgrounds or streets, a dramatic decline in children’s independent mobility, parents exerting greater control over children’s play and limitations put on children’s adventurous play.
Nature may encourage and support children’s physical activity and help them maintain a healthy weight. The number of obese children is rising, moving into their teens they are much less physically active. Some studies have linked children’s health to green spaces in the neighbourhood.
Children have less knowledge about plants, animals and their environment today than their parents. One possibility is that biodiversity has decreased where children live; or children have little or no meaningful direct experience with local biodiversity.

Evidence of decreased mobility, reduced availability to natural areas, and restrictions placed by parents on children’s activities in natural areas, suggests fewer opportunities to engage in the natural world.

So what does the research say about the benefits of contact with nature for children and young people?

There are a number of studies that demonstrate children’s play outdoors reduces the impact of stressful life events and has long-term benefits for physical, social, emotional and cognitive development. Children who experienced high levels of contact with nature report higher global self-worth and higher cognitive function increasing their ability to learn and concentrate, decreasing anxiety and increasing self-esteem.

In Australia, adolescents have talked about their desire for safe places to break away from everyday life, to restore energy levels and to make meaning from the ups and downs of life. Between 25 and 31% of young people in Years 9 to 12 said that nature was their favourite place to find peace, quiet and freedom, feel calm, where they can think about things or where they can be themselves. The study found nature plays an important role in maintaining stable mental health for adolescents, who live in a modern world where societal changes and pressures are rising at a rapid rate.

Primary school children’s access to nature in Melbourne primary schools has shown a number of social and mental health benefits including building resilience, improved attitudes towards school and relationships with peers and adults, greater calmness and less disruptive behaviour, growing sense of freedom and creativity, and enhanced self-confidence.

We know how good it is. So how can we get our kids off their devices and plugging into nature? Here are three nature connection invitations, I recently tried with some children aged 10-14 on a Guided Nature and Forest Therapy walk. They absolutely loved them!

Wish Upon a Rock

Find a rocky creek or waterway. Invite the children to create a cairn. For each rock they are able to stack and balance, they can make a wish, a hope or dream. How many wishes can they balance? Give the child time to reflect on their experience.

Befriend a Tree.

Invite your child to find a tree they connect with. Invite them to get up close and use their sense of touch to explore. “What do you notice when you hold a leaf or two? What do you hear when you move the leaves or run a stick against the bark? What part of the tree has a smell? Do you see different things when you get up close or sit further away?” After a while, invite them to sit by themselves next to the tree and just spend some quiet time there. “Perhaps a name for your tree might come to you. I wonder what stories this tree might tell you while sitting there in quiet still awareness?”

Paint a Rock

Using paint pens and a flat rock, write a message for the forest or for other beings in the forest to discover. Hide your rocks in the forest. Take a photo of them and post its location on the #NSWRocks Facebook or Instagram community page (or search your state for your local rock group). You can join in the hunt for other kids rocks too.

Of course, it is much easier for children to feel comfortable in nature, if they have been exposed at an early age. Taking your baby for a daily walk outside is giving them a great start to life. You will be laying down the foundations of a strong and healthy brain. Oh, and bringing down some of your own stress levels too, no doubt. Here’s to happy child’s play in nature!

References:

ABC News (2016) ‘Gut health, mental wellbeing and immunity linked to outdoor play’

Charles C and Louv, R. (2009) Children’s Nature Deficit: What We Know – and Don’t Know.

Selhub E and Logan A. (2012) Your Brain on Nature

Townsend M and Weerasuriya R. (2010). Beyond Blue to Green: The benefits of contact with nature for mental health and well-being. Beyond Blue Limited: Melbourne, Australia.

The Influence of Narrative Therapy in my Work with Aboriginal Communities

August 16, 2018

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I was first introduced to Narrative Therapy in 2006 after graduating with my social work degree in Brisbane. But it wasn’t until a few years later in Darwin that the penny dropped on how this approach might actually sit comfortably alongside the worldviews and cultural perspectives of Aboriginal people whom I was working with. A one week intensive at the Dulwich Centre in Adelaide introducing me to Collective and Community practices from a narrative approach was the start of a journey of sharing these ideas with my Aboriginal colleagues and ‘having a go’ to see what works.

The following reflections show how my practice approach has been influenced by narrative therapy ideas.

Double Listening

The problems that affect the lives of Aboriginal people can often be presented in a way that is disabling or weighing them down heavily; for example, domestic violence that has gone on for many years or issues associated with poverty that affect people’s stress levels. This negative story can come to dominate people’s lives so that it is the only one they come to believe about themselves and other people tell about them.
However, people have many story lines running through their lives. Perhaps they have simply lost touch with the things that are important to them and they give meaning to? In a process of ‘double listening’, we are continually looking for doors into the alternative story, as the problem-dominant story is one that Aboriginal people can fall back into again and again.

Externalising

An externalised problem in play doh.

The person labelled as ‘angry’ or ‘naughty’ by others can sometimes internalise this view about themselves. The process of externalising helps us to “separate the problem from the person”. A lot of my counselling work has involved externalising the feelings of children who have been labelled by their communities or families as angry, naughty, bad, lost, lonely, no-hoper, mad and stupid. Through exploring the “strong story” using things like drawing, painting, clay, puppets and story writing children come to see that ‘the problem’ they are experiencing does not reside inside themselves, but is external to them, possibly as a result of someone else’s problem behaviour in the family. Children have such amazing imaginations when it comes to naming the problem and can articulate the ‘monster’, ‘devil’ or ‘alien’ as no longer having hold over their lives.

Eunice and Elaine share their ‘strong story’ of going to school.

Resistance

Aboriginal people who have experienced trauma are often overwhelmed by feelings of shame, thinking somehow they are to blame for their problems or perhaps they invited it. However, no‐one is a passive recipient to trauma. Even in the most difficult of circumstances when it was not possible to avoid the trauma, people still take positive steps to stand up against it, resist it or protect themselves from its effects (Yuen 2009). However small these steps might be, they indicate people are responding because it challenges their values and who they are. What is it they hold precious in their life that they would respond in this way? What is it they strongly believe in, that has been threatened? By exploring and thickening the strengths, skills, values and abilities that help them through difficult times, Aboriginal people reclaim strong stories of hope and resilience and move towards healing. The narrative approach gives Aboriginal people a safer place to stand to explore their experience without having to re-tell any traumatic details.

Collective Narrative Documentation

The Tiwi developed their own Ripples of Life story.

Narrative practice is interested in linking the individual experience to the collective; our individual problems are instead viewed as social issues. When listening to Aboriginal people’s experience of trauma, we are not only listening for individual accounts of how people responded to hard times and developing a rich narrative together, but looking for opportunities to link their life to some sort of collective experience. In this way, people speak through us, not just to us (Denborough 2008). Some of the children I worked with wanted to share their stories of living with violence or bullying with children from other communities. I became the deliverer of special messages between children who willingly offered up their stories if it meant it would help someone else. They often reflected “I am not alone in this” or “My experience is helping someone else”.
When people have an opportunity to anonymously share their stories with a broader audience, like another community, they gain a sense of contribution to the lives of another who may also be experiencing hard times. In my work with Tiwi at Family Healing Bush Camps, community members were invited to share what skills, knowledge and abilities they used to get through difficult issues such as family and domestic violence, substance misuse in the family and having their children taken by welfare. A written collective document was given back to the participants to share with other communities. Such documents can be powerful methods of generating a social movement towards change, healing whole communities of people who share stories with each other.

Tree of Life

Tree Of Life

Collective methodologies such as the Tree of Life and Team of Life have shown to be extremely effective at allowing children and young people who have experienced trauma or significant loss to speak about their skills and knowledge in the comfort and security of peers. These metaphors offer Aboriginal people safe ways of exploring the difficult events of life like “the storm which hit our family” or “having to defend oneself from attack”. Family members and Elders who act as outsider witnesses to children’s experience are valuable players in validating these stories. The artwork generated from this group-work can also be shared as a collective document of children’s resilience, knowledge, hopes and dreams with other groups around the world.

Collective Narrative Timelines

Collective Narrative Timelines are also a well documented narrative practice for using with groups. I used this methodology during groupwork with Aboriginal women to help them reflect on their own childhood experiences and how these memories have impacted on their own parenting. Collective narrative timelines are great for the beginning of groups to help participants develop a connection very quickly around a shared theme, while also acknowledging the diversity of experience in the room. You can read about my process of using Collective Narrative Timelines in a previous blog.

For more resources and ideas on narrative practice with Indigenous communities, explore our Direct Practice and Professional Development Libraries.

References:

Denborough 2008, Collective Narrative Therapy: Responding to individuals, groups and communities who have experienced trauma.

Yuen, A. 2009, Less pain, more gain: Explorations of responses versus effects when working with the consequences of trauma.

How Did Metaphors Become a Part of My Therapeutic Framework?

August 9, 2018

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One of my very first learnings all those years ago in counselling work with Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory was their tendency to talk in round-a-bout ways. At first I found this frustrating. You could not ask a direct question and get a direct answer. It will usually be silence or a head nod (which does not necessarily mean yes, but a polite acknowledgement)! So I had to find ways that clients would be comfortable to share their experience safely in ways which suited their communication style and integrated their traumatic experience. After trying the methodologies I’d learnt from narrative therapy and getting such a good response, it dawned on me that working with metaphors was common sense. Aboriginal people have been communicating in metaphorical ways since time began, through their dreaming stories and ancestors. This way of working just fits! Whether it has been in individual counselling or groupwork with women and children or in training and mentoring with Aboriginal workers, concepts or ideas are much easier to communicate through metaphorical stories, verbal or visual.

My first exposure to working with metaphors was at the Dulwich Centre. “The Tree of Life” methodology was inspired by the work of Ncazelo Ncube of REPSSI (Zimbabwe/South Africa) to respond to children affected by HIV/AIDS. I’ve used this and its sister method “The Team of Life” with children in the Tiwi Islands with great success, training local Aboriginal women to facilitate the activity. The tree metaphor gives children a safe place to stand to explore challenges and problems in their lives without re-traumatising them. I also noticed how the adults supporting the children, started talking about their own lives using trees.

“Trees can teach us a lot about how to live. Our traditional way of life is about caring for each other and growing strong families. Now there are storms destroying our families and hurting our children. We can see it’s not a healthy life for our people”. – Elaine Tiparui, Bathurst Island.

Picture: Ian Morris. This image has been used to talk about the role of the whole family/community to grow up strong kids (Grandparents are the old growth trees in the background, Uncles/Aunties and parents in middle, teenagers as younger trees and babies/toddlers the little seedlings in front).

I went on to work collaboratively with the women of Tiwi Islands and NE Arnhemland to develop a new tool using the tree metaphor to invite women into a conversation about violence and its affect on children’s development. “It Takes a Forest to raise a tree: Healing Our Children from the Storms in their Lives” is my first resource produced in community, with community, for community.

As my counselling work progressed, I found that narrative therapy still relied on people being able to verbally express a story. Neuroscience tells us that the impact of trauma on the brain means that people are simply unable to talk about what happened to them, even if they wanted to! Many of the children, I’ve worked with were still very much non-verbal and I’ve come to rely more and more on art as a method of communicating and integrating traumatic experience. Working alongside Aboriginal Child and Family Support Workers using their own languages, we discovered ways for children to document their stories of abuse, violence and neglect using methods like drawing, clay, collage and mask making. Not surprisingly these stories were communicated through aliens, imaginary friends, monsters, dreaming animals, body parts and other such creatures apart from themselves. To offer other alternative ways in to children’s stories, I also went on to write ‘The Life of Tree’, a therapeutic picture book, designed to help Aboriginal children speak up about their trauma experience. Metaphors work in the most magical way to bring healing!

…metaphorically speaking will continue to experiment with playful and effective therapeutic tools using metaphors in our direct work with clients and in the resources we produce in the future.
You can read more about how we are integrating use of metaphors with other therapeutic modalities on our page ‘How We Work’.
You can also find further resources on using metaphors in counselling and trauma work in our Professional Development Library.

“Every Child is Worth It” with Doug Dunlop

December 6, 2017

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Today’s conversation on ‘Talk The Walk’ has many gems, but particularly for counsellors and social workers interested in developing an evidence based program that is also culturally safe. Doug Dunlop is a senior counsellor with the ‘Holding Children Together’ program based in Alice Springs and working with surrounding town camps. Doug is part of the team leading a rigorous evaluation process, developed and mentored by the Australian Childhood Foundation and a Cultural Advisory Group. In episode 17 of Talk the Walk, we also get a glimpse into the man behind the work; his historical roots, his life experience, the values and principles he brings to his trauma-informed, culturally-safe practice framework.
There is nothing quite like ‘Holding Children Together’ elsewhere in Australia and other organisations are starting to take notice of the Care Team model adopted by this child and family counselling service. The road to evidence-based practice is long, requires collective good-will and a large investment, but like Doug says “every child is worth it”.

In this episode, we explore:

Considerations for Doug arriving from New Zealand to work in Australia’s Central Desert communities
the stark differences working with Maori and Aboriginal children beginning with engagement in therapy
understanding trauma informed practice with Aboriginal children and their families
the Care Team model integral to ‘Holding Children Together’ (HCT)
a typical day in the life of a counsellor
how HCT is upholding cultural safety and working towards evidence based status
a sparking story that makes the work all the more worthwhile and why great outcomes cannot be tied down to one intervention
the challenges of working within a Care Team model
insights into the complexities of reunification with family when a lot of intervention has focused on establishing relationships with carers
what makes Doug so passionate about his work and the values he holds most precious
important considerations of cultural world views in cases of Aboriginal children in foster care which has implications for reunification
awareness of white privilege and seeing the world through the eyes of others
Moments from Doug’s early life that have influenced the values underpinning his practice
How Holding Children Together manage the exposure to trauma in counsellors
Hopes for the future of evidence-based counselling services and why it’s a good process to undertake

Don’t forget, if you or someone you know would make a great interview on ‘Talk the Walk’, send us an email from the Contact Page.

Things to follow up after this episode

Contact Doug Dunlop at doug(at)ra-nt.org.au

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‘The confronting world of working with Aboriginal Youth in Detention’ with Daniel Hastwell

October 18, 2017

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Photos courtesy of ABC

I still can’t get this image out of my head. A youth detained at the Alice Springs Youth Detention Centre is forcibly restrained and hooded. As Australians watched on in disbelief at the shocking Four Corners footage in July 2016, our Prime Minister quickly responded, setting up a Royal Commission to investigate practices inside the Northern Territory’s juvenile detention facilities and child protection system.

As part of a suite of supports put in place for young people and families making submissions to the Royal Commission, Relationships Australia was funded to provide counselling services. One of those to join the team, moving from Adelaide to Darwin was Daniel Hastwell.
In Epsiode 13 of ‘Talk the Walk’, you’ll get an inside look at what it’s really like to work alongside a Royal Commission using a trauma informed approach to counselling.
With over 90% of youth in detention being Aboriginal, this has got to be one of the toughest and most important jobs in the country at the moment.

In this episode, we explore:

Daniel’s reaction to the Four Corners report which sparked the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory
Daniel Hastwell – Counsellor, Royal Commission Support Service

Daniel’s previous experience working alongside Aboriginal consultants with Aboriginal families in child protection and hospital social work
What sparked Daniel to up and leave Adelaide for the Northern Territory
Daniel’s interest in culture and it’s connection to personal values of respect for the land
A day in the life of a Royal Commission Support Service counsellor
What it’s like to work with traumatised young Aboriginal men and youth
Using personal disclosure to build a relationship of trust and the challenges of engagement
celebrating the small moments and stories of success
outcomes for people who have shared their story with the Royal Commission
the hopes that clients have expressed for change within the system and Daniel’s hopes for the Recommendations due in November
The need for early intervention and prevention support services for young people

Don’t forget, if you or someone you know would make a great interview on ‘Talk the Walk’, send us an email from the Contact Page.

Things to follow up after the episode

Contact Daniel Hastwell via daniel(at)ra-nt.org.au

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Just one day left to ‘Give Aboriginal Kids a Voice’

March 29, 2017

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Cassie and other Aboriginal Support Workers use various ‘talking tools’ in their work to assist clients accessing the community Safe House.

A month ago I set out with a goal of getting my new book out to as many remote communities as I could, so that Aboriginal children might be better placed to speak up about their experience of domestic and family violence.

This week, as I revisited my hopes and intentions to achieve this goal, I wondered whether Aboriginal Support Workers in Safe Houses across the Northern Territory would also be able to see the benefits of using this simple resource with their clients.

This week I tracked down one such worker in Cassie Daniels who works at Milikapiti Safe House on the Tiwi Islands. Sharing a digital copy of ‘The Life of Tree’ with her, I was delighted to hear of her excitement that this resource would be heading her way very soon.

Cassie revealed that it had really got her thinking about how this book might be used to assist children and families that stay at the Safe House. As well as with individual clients, Cassie sees the potential for using the story with weekly women’s groups and at community events that focus on family and domestic violence. She says

“I love the pictures. It’s easy to see the pictures and talk about them relating to their self experience”.

In considering how Safe House workers might put extra supports in place for children who have been exposed to domestic or family violence, Cassie goes on to say that this book will be a source of reassurance.

“Older women in the community who have the wisdom and knowledge of history that’s in line with this book [will] give hope to children who are experiencing storms at home; [knowing] that they do have roots that are strong in their identity [and] through other family to help.”

If you would like to empower other Aboriginal women in their communities to help children talk about their experience of domestic and family violence and get the help they need to stay safe, then head over to our crowdfunding page.

There’s just 24 hours to go to ‘Give Aboriginal Kids a Voice’.

Thanks for your support.

Giving Aboriginal Kids a Voice – Part III

March 26, 2017

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“Jack” from ‘The Life of Tree’ children’s therapeutic book

As a counsellor who has worked in remote communities, I have seen the lack of resources available to children fleeing violence in remote communities. For many years, children in domestic violence shelters were not recognised as clients needing support and assistance in their own right, with much of this being offered to their mothers or caregivers. Thankfully things are changing, slowly. We know that children are impacted by hearing, seeing and experiencing it too!

With less than a week to go in our crowdfunding campaign, we are encouraged and amazed by the response by people all over Australia, to help us achieve our dream of giving ‘Aboriginal Kids A Voice’ on their experience of violence or trauma.

As I write this, we have raised over $1700. This will allow us to send 68 copies of our therapeutic children’s picture book to domestic violence shelters in the NT, WA and Queensland.

We have shared our story with Lyrella Cochrane at ABC Radio Darwin and Emelia Turzon at ABC on line. Any day now, a story will be published in the Crinkling News, the national newspaper for young people.

As we have already blown away our initial target, we have now expanded our goal to support children who arrive at shelters in South Australia and NSW too. We’ve also been asked to consider translating ‘The Life of Tree’ into Indigenous languages to make it even more accessible for children through schools in Arnhemland.

If you would like to be part of this amazing opportunity to sponsor a book, that will help children share their story and get the help they need to start the healing process and stay safe, head over to our campaign page at https://chuffed.org/project/giving-aboriginal-kids-a-voice

Thank you so much for your support. One book is one more voice.

Giving Aboriginal Children a Voice – Part II

February 26, 2017

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Bloopers captured in time on our crowdfunding campaign video

This blog goes out on the cusp of the release of my first children’s therapeutic picture book. Nerves aside, it’s been an exciting but hectic week as Christine and I prepare for media interviews. We’ve also been busy creating a crowdfunding campaign to get the community on board with our hopes for the book. We are new to all this stuff, so of course there have been many laughs along the way (hence the blooper snapshot captured here while filming our campaign video). If you really want to know what all the fuss is about, then maybe this Q&A might provide some answers.

What is the book about?

There are two characters in the book, a little boy called Jack and his friend Tree, who lives with his family (or other trees) in the bush. I think the blurb on the back cover is a good summary of what happens in this story.

“Tree is living a peaceful life in the bush until a wild storm comes along and damages his environment. His friend, Jack is worried that Tree won’t recover and be able to play with him again. When Jack also lives through a wild storm in his home, he comes to realise just how strong they both really are. Jack has strong cultural roots, just like Tree that brings hope and healing to his whole family.”

This story is really exploring the ‘storms of life’ that children go through and how this impacts on them. It’s also a story of healing which comes through connection, culture and the support of family and community.

How did this story come to me?

The story was just slowing coming together in the back of my mind, mulling away there for a long time. Then one day, I think I was in a day dream state and the idea just popped into my head. I then went away and wrote it fairly quickly. Often ideas come to me in my dreams day or night.

Book Cover

What are the aims of the book? What are my intentions in writing it?

I think the book reflects what I am trying to do in my counselling work with children. First, it’s about helping them find their voice and give words to the ‘problem story’ of their lives. It’s also about making visible the ‘strong story’ of their lives – what is it that is keeping them going, stay safe and be happy.

I am hoping that the adults in children’s lives will use this book to give voice to the strong story of children’s lives and perhaps even document this. This could include the skills, abilities, beliefs, values and knowledge the child has in coping and keeping themselves safe.

‘The Life of Tree’ is another resource that people can add to their tool box in their conversations with children.

Who is the book for? Who would be interested in reading it?

This book is intended to be read by an adult to Aboriginal children who have been affected by trauma.

This book will appeal to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people care for, live or work with children who’ve experienced trauma such as domestic and family violence. So this can include family members and foster carers as well as professionals such as counsellors, social workers, support workers or case workers.

What inspired me to write the book?

My biggest motivation is to help children tell their stories. One of the greatest challenges I’ve faced in my work with Aboriginal children, apart from the obvious cultural and gender barriers is gaining enough trust, for children to feel that it is OK to talk about the really tough stuff. And that what they are feeling is normal. Kids do feel sad and angry about violence in their families. And it’s shame and fear that really hold them back from speaking up and healing from their experience. So in order to gain trust we need to create a safe space for the conversation.

Another motivation is to provide a culturally safe tool for professionals. ‘The Life of Tree’ uses images and themes that children can connect to because it reflects their own cultural traditions and beliefs. Christine has done an amazing job bringing her artistic talents to this story. I haven’t really found any other resources like this out there.

Of course, my favourite part is the use of metaphors because this has worked in other areas of my practice. I’ve been practicing narrative therapy in my work with children for 8 years, with groups of children in remote communities as well as in individual counselling. I have witnessed how the use of metaphors is effective in connecting with people and creating a safe space for conversation about difficulties in their lives. Asking direct questions isn’t always going to work, but people seem to spontaneously want to share their own story, if they hear a story that is similar to theirs.

What initially got me interested in this topic?

10 years ago I arrived in the Northern Territory virtually green from university. The first 6 months working out bush as a drug and alcohol counsellor, I drank lots of tea and did a lot of listening. I later moved into children’s counselling and I was hearing lots of stories from women Elders about their concerns for their children and grandchildren. I guess, I’ve always been listening for ways I might be able to meet an expressed need – that’s what community development is all about. If there is some way I can walk alongside communities to find solutions to the problems in their communities, then there is a place for me there. Along the journey I’ve found myself more and more in the healing space, finding ways of bring healing to people’s lives.

When is the book being released? How can people buy it?

The book was released on Wednesday 1^st March 2017. You can access further information and a Sneak Peak of pages from the book from my online Shop. There you’ll also find a downloadable Order Form.

What about people who can’t afford to buy the book?

We are officially launching a crowd-funding campaign on Tuesday to raise money to send free books to communities. Christine and I would like to put donated books into all the women’s refuges in remote communities of the NT, WA and Queensland. We are both aware that the support for children coming into remote safe houses is pretty limited. ‘The Life of Tree’ is one way, that Aboriginal workers in those services could engage children and directly support them.

So if there is anyone out there who would like to sponsor a book, they can look up our campaign ‘Giving Aboriginal Kids a Voice’

Christine with ‘The Life Of Tree’

Why I do Learning Workshops, not training in Aboriginal communities!

December 14, 2016

by metaphor with No Comment Community Work Cross Cultural practice Learning Workshops (aka "Training")Nurturing Children wheel Practice tools Social Work with Indigenous communities Strengths-based practice Two way learning Violence and Abuse Working with Children Working with Families

A Learning Workshop on the Tiwi Islands

One of the aims of the Healing Our Children project in which I work involves “building up the capacity of the community to respond to domestic and family violence”. One of the issues I have with this statement is that it assumes that people don’t already have capacity. Having worked on the Tiwi Islands for almost 10 years now, I know that there are many people in community actively responding in protective ways and resisting the effects of violence in their families.

So how do we honour what it is that people already know and do, when our aim might be to contribute to the conversation with new knowledge and skills? My preference is to facilitate ‘Learning Workshops’, however to satisfy the needs of funders and other service providers I find myself using the language of ‘training’ with them.

Perhaps I fell into the concept of ‘two way learning’ because it fit with my values and ethical ways of practising, but there is also a lot written about this from the field of education. The two way or both way learning approach grew out of the work of Mandawuy Yunupiŋu and Nalwarri Ngurruwutthun in Yolŋu schools in the 1980’s. Indigenous culture and language was taught alongside the Western curriculum, acknowledging the value and worth of both world views.

One of the strongest beliefs for me is that I have just as much to learn from Indigenous folk as they may learn from me. By introducing a concept from the Western knowledge system and inviting dialogue about it amongst the workshop participants, so much more can be gained from the experience. In fact, the results can be quite surprising.

What would this look like exactly? Well, here’s one example of a simple activity I conducted in a recent learning workshop on the Tiwi Islands.

You may be familiar with the widely used Abuse of Children wheel and the corresponding Nurturing Children wheel developed by Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs (DAIP). As you would understand, a learning workshop on abuse of children can get quite heavy, so I am always interested in lightening the conversation and focusing on the strengths, skills and abilities of communities. I decided to cut up the different parts of the Nurturing Children wheel, a bit like slicing up a pie. Each participant took a piece and talked with a person next to them about how they see this aspect of nurturing children happen in their own community. Coming back to the bigger group, after clarifying what some of the Western ideas and words meant (some of them were unfamiliar), we came up with a list of ways Tiwi people are nurturing children.

This represented ‘Caring for Children – Tiwi Way’ and it looked something like this.

Out of this grew a conversation about the importance of Tiwi culture in growing up strong kids. There was a strong sense of needing to do something for the children and families who had been affected by violence.

The Elders of the group then started sharing stories about the ceremonies and traditional practices they had used for healing and had been taught about by their ancestors. These included smoking ceremonies for healing the good spriit and releasing the bad, and the use of white clay for strength and vitality, applied to the body in the bush and left there until it wore off. They reflected that occasionally the traditional practice of applying white clay to the grieving widow was still happening, but there was a sense that these practices were slowly disappearing. The women began talking about how they might bring traditional healing practices back, to take the children and families affected by violence out bush and to pass on this knowledge.

From learning to dialogue to action. This is the power of the ‘two way learning’ approach.

I employ the same approach for everything, whether it be sharing new ideas from the field of neuroscience or introducing people to modalities of narrative therapy. Oh, and another very important thing. I develop the content and process of the workshops alongside a cultural adviser, and where possible they are employed and co-facilitating the workshops with me. This ensures the whole things is culturally-safe! It means a lot of work has already happened behind the scenes sharing the knowledge with the cultural adviser first!

The process is a piece of pie really! Take a piece of Western knowledge and serve it up in a digestible way, break it up into bite-size pieces, allow people to chew it over and add their own flavour, and see what is spat out. You are likely to uncover some precious tried and true recipes of community knowledge, skills and values!

References

Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs (DAIP)

‘About Both Ways Education’ at The Living Knowledge project