It is also important to remember that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families you work with may come from a different community and identify with a different cultural group to people you speak to locally. Establishing the cultural background and connections for the family themselves will also be important to inform how you work with them. The following reflective exercise provides an opportunity for non-Indigenous professionals and agencies to consider and reflect on their commitment to working in genuine partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to deliver intensive family support services. It is drawn from a series of SNAICC resources to support genuine relationship development called Creating Change through Partnerships, which are available from the SNAICC website. Reflective Exercise 1: Commitment to genuine partnership for non-Indigenous organisations and professionals The following principles for genuine partnership are extracted from SNAICC (2014) Creating Change through Partnerships. They are drawn from consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous agencies engaged in partnerships about what they believe is most important to the success of their relationships. Read the statement below and reflect on the following questions: Are these principles that I believe I should enact as an individual, or that we should enact as an organisation? How could I/we reflect these principles in family support services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families? Commitment to long-term sustainable relationships based on trust Significant time spent building relationships between staff, organisations and community. Partners commit to ongoing relationship, not only an activity or project. Respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and history Commitment to build cultural understanding, to consult and listen to the local community, and to value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge and professionalism. Commitment to for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples Empowering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to lead response to child and family needs. Building Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, organisation and workforce capacity. Aim to improve long-term for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, families and communities Identifying and sharing respective strengths in supporting children and families. Partnership resources viewed as community resources and shared for the benefit of children and families. Shared responsibility and accountability for shared objectives and activities Negotiated and shared vision is developed. Partners jointly develop indicators of success and work together to monitor and evaluate progress. Valuing process elements as integral to support and enable partnership Agreements clarify commitments, roles and accountability. Time and resources allocated to joint planning, review, and partnership development. being
worker — there to investigate. experience with others. Remember to respect a person’s home and privacy. Always ask if it’s okay to come in and ask before providing help. Help the family out with immediate practical needs and tasks. Once they see you are there to help they will be more willing to talk. Always on what you say you will do for the family and let them know you expect the same. Ask families to tell their stories of change so that they recognise and acknowledge their own successes. Meet families in places that are safe and comfortable for them. Give them control over the time and place. Be upfront with families the service, including what support you can provide and how long you will support for. Listen to children to hear perspective on what they want to change in the family and support them to talk to parents. Request the family’s permission to share successes with the child protection service. Reach out and connect Listen, learn and build trust Respect and empower Track and celebrate change What I know works or what I want to try
THE INDIGENOUS RISK IMPACT SCREEN (IRIS) The Indigenous Risk Impact Screen (IRIS) is designed to screen for both alcohol and drug and mental health issues and was developed to meet the specific needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Schlesinger et al., 2007). Rather than being intended for the assessment of any one drug specifically, the IRIS measures alcohol and drug use in terms of total substance use, an approach that the authors suggest is consistent with identified patterns of addictive behaviour in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations (Schlesinger et al., 2007). The IRIS also contains a second component for screening for mental health symptoms. Training in the use of the measure and an associated intervention is provided by Queensland Health and can be accessed at: Assessing the tools we use REFLECTIVE EXERCISE 9 – IS THIS THE RIGHT TOOL FOR US? The below provides a template for thinking about whether a particular tool is useful for the work you are doing to support families. One example is included. This table could be used by your family support team to assess tools you are already using or ones that you would like to consider using in the future. Name of tool What are we trying to measure with the tool? Do we know if the tool is reliable and for our families? Do we know if it is culturally sensitive? Will it help to develop a support plan for our families? Will it provide some indication of whether there has been a change Example: SDQ The four year-old’s behaviour at school and home There has been a version adapted for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, but I have used the non-specific one from the website It is good enough to give an indication of areas of strengths and difficulties I can look at areas of strength to build on. The four child scores high on pro social and does not have peer problems. But his attention and concentration is a bit problematic. Can we help settle him, provide more consistency, support parenting? I can re-administer this measure in 10 weeks time and if we have managed to get his behaviour a bit more settled and his family life more stable we should see change on his attention and concentration. If we do not we may need to think about further assessment.