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‘Striving for Fairness and Equity in a Colonised World’ with Sammi Lillie

It is a fitting tribute for NAIDOC week, that I should be interviewing Sammi Lillie on ‘Talk The Walk’ this week.  In this conversation, Sammi honours the many Aboriginal women that have supported and vouched for her on her journey into social work with First Nations peoples.  Having just graduated from her Masters of Social Work, Sammi reflects on her placement experience of co-ordinating the Child Removal campaign at ANTAR Qld (Australians for Native Title and Reconcilitation).  Driven by personal family interests as well as deeply held values and a commitment to self determination, Sami shares the ingredients that have made practising Indigenous policy and advocacy work successful as a non-Indigenous woman.   Social work students considering their future placements will find this episode invaluable and current non-indigenous practitioners will discover pearls of wisdom for standing alongside our Indigenous brothers and sisters for recognition and justice.

In episode 24 of Talk the Walk we explore:

  • Why social work students should consider a placement experience in policy and advocacy work
  • The current state of affairs in relation to the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families
  • The state of child protection legislation in Queensland after adopting the principle of self determination in 2017
  • The need for a national inquiry into the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out of home care
  • How you can support the Family Matters initiative to make a difference
  • Sammi’s greatest learnings working on Indigenous advocacy campaigns and policy development
  • The social work theories that influenced Sammi’s developing practice framework
  • Sammi’s concept of a ‘pro-Indigenous theory’ arising out of her interest in the work of Bob Pease on pro-feminism
  • Sammi’s personal connection to the Stolen Generations and the other motivating factors that make her so passionate about addressing discrimination
  • How Sammi has avoided major struggles in the work by acting with integrity, honesty and ‘cultural courage’
  • Knowledge that social workers should have but are just not getting
  • Unpacking the values underpinning Sammi’s work and life
  • The mentors and rolemodels that continue to inspire Sammi in her work
  • Reflections on proud moments, avoiding mistakes easily made, and Sammi’s plans for the future
  • Final advice for other social work students considering their placements

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

ANTaR Queensland website and Sign Up here for their Newsletter

ANTaR National website and Sign Up here for their Newsletter

Social Work Focus, Autumn Edition, featuring Sammi’s article ‘Support for Self Determination imperative to address the over-representation of Indigenous Children in the Child Protection system’.  You will need to be a member of the AASW to access this resource.

Like Sammi’s Facebook Page ‘Ally Through Advocacy’

Sammi’s Reading List
Clare Tilbery, ‘The over-representation of indigenous children in the Australian child welfare system’, International Journal of Social Welfare.
Bob Pease,  ‘Men as Allies in Preventing Violence against Women: Principles and Practices for Promoting Accountability’.
Bindi Bennett, Sue Green, Stephanie Gilbert, Dawn Bessarab (eds), Our voices : Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social work.
Bindi Bennett, Joanna Zubrzycki, J & Violent Bacon, ‘What Do We Know? The Experiences of Social Workers Working Alongside Aboriginal People’.
Christine Fejo-King & Linda Briskman,Reversing colonial practices with Indigenous peoples’
Christine Fejo-KingLet’s Talk Kinship.
English, Peter.  ‘Land rights and birthrights, (the great Australian hoax) : an examination of the rights of ownership of former Aboriginal land in Australia’.
Aileen Moreton- Robinson, Whitening Race, Aboriginal Studies Press, Australia.
Robyn Lynn, Rosamund Thorpe, Debra Miles, Christine Cutts, Anne Butcher, Linda Ford   Murri Way! Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders reconstruct social welfare practice.
Tom Calma & Emily Priday, Putting Indigenous Human Rights into Social Work Practice’Australian Social Work.
Elizabeth Fernandez, ‘Child Protection and Vulnerable Families: Trends and Issues in the Australian Context’Social Sciences.

Contact Sammi at sammililli(at)gmail(dot)com

Image: Bernard K Edwards

‘The Earth is our Master Teacher’ with Bernard Kelly-Edwards

This week on ‘Talk the Walk’ I sit down with Bernard Kelly-Edwards in the middle of his tiny art shop in the thriving alternative community of Bellingen.   Bernard is surrounded by paintings, expressions of who he is, a local Gumbayngirr man, and symbols of the deep spiritual connection to country that he shares with others.

Bernard began his own journey of self-discovery attending a cultural program called Red Dust Healing and now reaches out to other individuals and groups to support Closing the Gap in cultural understanding.   It is his passion for promoting mental health amongst Indigenous young people using the healing capacity of Miimga (Mother Earth) that is the focus of our conversation today.

His business, BKE Consultancy is a unique mix of multi-media platforms of art, photography, short film, poetry and storytelling.  Bernard brings all these talents, along with skills of deep listening and knowledge of Aboriginal Lore, recognising sight and the feeling of cultural sites, passed down to him.

A few times in this conversation, Bernard speaks of the spirit being, the one with no mouth.  He is describing the image in the painting, he is seen holding here.

This is what we explore in Episode 22 of ‘Talk the Walk’:

  • Bernard’s approach to ‘counselling’ using the tools he has found most effective from his own experience and gifts from Mother Earth
  • What deep listening really looks and feels like, for our own and others’ health and wellbeing
  • Easy practices you can try at home to develop your spiritual connection with Mother Earth and your self
  • The elements of life such as water, animals and wind that make communication and connection possible
  • Lessons for how we are living our lives, from the Earth’s perspective
  • Awareness – Balance – and Integration; Bernard’s 3 step strategy for healing of the planet beginning at home
  • How Bernard uses the concept of perceptual positions to assist individuals to take responsibility in their own healing process
  • Making deadly choices and being in the present moment, using the model of awareness, balance and integration
  • How Bernard works with the triggering emotions of individual’s past traumatic experiences to change belief systems and move people forward
  • Bernard’s sparkling moment – a good news story of healing
  • Bernard’s painting and it’s interpretation of his own spiritual form

Image: Bernard K Edwards

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

We apologise for some of the human-made background noise at the beginning of this interview.   That’s what happens when you are talking with real people on the job in the heart of their community.   Sometimes you just have to go with it.   Enjoy!

Things to follow up after the episode:

Connect with Bernard K Edwards on Facebook

Connect with BKE Consultancy on Facebook

Contact Bernard by email at bkeconsultancy79(at)hotmail(dot)com

Anni presenting in Lisbon at the Contemporary Drug Problems Conference 2015

‘Acknowledging the suitcases that Aboriginal women carry’ with Anni Hine Moana

Anni Hine Moana, my guest this week on ‘Talk the Walk’ has over 40 years of experience from counselling in alcohol, drugs, gambling and mental health to supervision, lecturing and curriculum development.  This is a fascinating conversation with a researcher whose passion is to see tangible outcomes for Aboriginal people accessing appropriate counselling services.

Anni completed a Masters of Counselling in 2011 exploring the case for the inclusion of Narrative Therapy in counselling for Indigenous AOD clients.  Anni is now undertaking her phD on the ‘relationship between the self-conscious emotion of shame and alcohol, experienced by Australian Aboriginal women living in urban and regional areas’.  In this episode, Anni talks about her early research findings and the implications for social workers and other allied health professionals in their clinical work.

In episode 12 of ‘Talk the Walk’, we explore:

  • Anni’s emerging themes of the impact of shame and the ‘white gaze’ on Aboriginal women’s lived experience
  • How shame presents itself in the counselling room
  • The one basic skill every therapist can do to be respectful and develop a meaningful therapeutic relationship with Aboriginal women
  • The relationship between Aboriginal women’s shame and alcohol use; and the stigma associated with drinking
  • How Anni’s Maori culture has influenced her research; and the connection to experiences of shame within her own family
  • Key findings from Anni’s research and support for a narrative therapeutic approach to practice
  • The importance of listening for the ‘injustice part’ of women’s stories, the effects of racism on Aboriginal women’s lives and the role for counsellors in naming this
  • looking at your own ‘history book’
  • Challenges Anni has found in her work and research, how this impacts on her and what inspires her about the future

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

‘Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native’ by Patrick Wolfe

Stan Grants speech on racism and the Australian dream

Tree of Life by Ncazelo Ncube

Aborginal Narrative Practice: Honouring Storylines of Pride, Strength and Creativity by Barbara Wingard, Carolnanha Johnson and Tileah Drahm-Butler

David Denborough

Aunty Barb Wingard

Violet Bacon

Maya Angelou

Ben Harper singing ‘I’ll rise’

Our Own History Book: Exploring culturally acceptable responses to Australian Aboriginal women who have experience of feelings of shame and are seeking counselling for problems with alcohol’ by Anni Hine Moana

Re-storying alcohol use amongst Aboriginal Australians. by Anni Hine Moana

Follow Anni Hine Moana on academia.com or email at annihinemoana(at)gmail(dot)com

sunset

‘Magic Wand Dreaming’ with Emily Hapea

What’s it like to walk in two worlds, as a non-Indigenous social worker in a remote Aboriginal community, fresh out of university?

While that might seem daunting, Emily Hapea saw the opportunity for growth, developing authentic relationships and honouring the truth of First Nations Australians.

Emily lives and works in Cairns in northern Queensland.   In this episode of ‘Talk the Walk’, Emily shares the journey that has shaped her understanding of trauma-informed practice influenced by experiences of institutional racism and a denial of Australia’s black history.

Like many social workers who are expected to wave a magic wand, Emily prefers to draw on deeply engrained values of equality, compassion for others and a sense of justice, to create a way of working that sustains her.

In this refreshing conversation, we explore:

    • The beginnings of Emily’s social justice journey from childhood; the influences and myths that have shaped her ethics and values in life and work
    • Why Emily believes that it is impossible to be born in Australia and avoid being racist
    • Seeing intergenerational trauma as a truth, not a theory
    • Emily’s framework for social work practice
    • Beginnings and sparkling moments from working with vulnerable Aboriginal women seeking to get Child Protection out of their life, working within Noel Pearson’s Welfare Reform agenda for Cape York, and an innovative accommodation and early intervention support service for new mums
    • The biggest learnings of being thrown in the deep end, fresh out of university into Cape York communities
    • What can help when starting work in a new cultural context and the importance of developing relationships with cultural mentors
    • Differences between social work in Indigenous and mainstream contexts
    • The knowledge and skills Emily developed that she wouldn’t have, if she hadn’t worked with Indigenous communities
    • Advice for social workers new to the field
    • The sickness of denial about Australia’s true history and owning our racism, contrasted with Aboriginal people’s resilence and passion
    • What Emily would do if she had a magic wand

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

Trauma Trails’ by Professor Judy Atkinson

Why weren’t we told’ by Henry Reynolds

Jackie Huggins

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‘The Reconciliation Dance’ with Pamela Trotman

Get your dancing shoes on as we head into Episode 7 of Talk the Walk with Pamela Trotman.
Pamela has been dancing around Reconciliation circles since the 1967 Referendum, granting Aboriginal people the vote and removing the White Australia policy.   Pamela’s whole life has been about appreciating the diversity around her, since the days of growing up in Gunnedah and hanging out with the kids in the ‘blacks camp’.  Starting out as a young, twenty-something social worker in Redfern, Pamela’s career spans 50 years in child protection, mental health and policy working in a variety of non-government organisations in NSW and the Northern Territory.  She has authored and presented on the areas of Aboriginal affairs and trauma, both nationally and internationally.
Come join us on the dance floor as Pamela reflects on five decades of the most memorable steps, lessons from mentors and learnings for life.

In this episode of ‘Talk the Walk’, we explore:

  • Pamela’s early days working in Redfern at a time of great political activism
  • How our white privilege has us acting and behaving in ways that are racist
  • How Pamela came to view her own culture of English aristocracy through the eyes of Aboriginal people to become an effective social worker
  • Reconciliation being a journey of white recognising their internalised dominance and black recognising their internalised oppression
  • Memories of Pamela’s childhood growing up in a segregated town and being one of few who ventured into the blacks camp
  • The influence of family values and class privilege on Pamela’s life and work
  • How Aboriginal people are treated as second class workers in our organisations
  • The normalisation and legitimisation of internalised dominance and internalised oppression
  • Pamela’s time with the AASW working on the Indigenous Portfolio and setting up the first Indigenous committee
  • The Social work profession as a reflection of society whose heart has hardened in recent times
  • reflections on the NT Emergency Intervention
  • how social workers can reflect on their own internalised dominance
  • the principles of peace and non-violence that have shaped Pamela’s life and work
  • Pamela’s biggest challenge and what it means to be a human
  • Why Pamela loves living and working in Darwin
  • The healing powers of the Reconciliation dances, a metaphor for living one’s life and work
  • The Dance Creation Story and its influence on Pamela’s social work practice
  • An inspiring story of the impact of Pamela’s work discovered 45 years later
  • The role of mirror neurons in empathy and understanding the woundedness of the other
  • Acting with integrity

To listen to this episode simply click on the Play button below.
Subscribe to episodes of ‘Talk the Walk’ by email via our Home Page.  We hope to have ‘Talk the Walk’ listed on popular podcatchers like iTunes very soon.

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

‘ The Locals, Identity, Place and Belonging in Australia and Beyond’ by Robert Garbutt

‘Heterosexism:  Addressing internalized dominance’ by Robin DiAngelo

About Paulo Freire  

‘Transcending Internalised Dominance’ by Pamela Trotman in ‘Reconciliation and Australian Social Work’ edited by Dr Christine Fejo-King and Jan Poona

About Mahatma Ghandi

‘The healing powers of the reconciliation dances’ by Pamela Trotman in Reconciliation and Aboriginal Health, edited by Dr Christine Fejo-King, Dr Aleeta Fejo and Jan Poona

‘Mirror Mirror, our brains are hard-wired for empathy’ by Babette Rothschild

‘Trauma and Recovery’ by Judith Herman

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‘Just Start with the Little Things’ with Tony Kelly

Do you remember the first time when you heard your favourite song?

Anthony Kelly, co-author of ‘With Head, Heart and Hand: Dimensions of Community Building’

I remember very clearly the first time I was introduced to Paul Kelly’s ‘From little things big things grow’.  I was sitting in a lecture on ‘Working with Indigenous communities’ with Tony Kelly.  I was moved, confronted and teary.  It was the moment that a small flame was sparked in me.  I remember it so clearly.  Unexpectedly, the voice in my head piped up and said ‘this is the work you will do’.  So I latched onto Tony as an idol and from there a little spark grew.

It was an absolute privilege (and entirely nerve-wracking) for me to reconnect with Tony Kelly recently and bring you this conversation.  That same gentle and invitational demeanour of Tony’s took me back to where my heart for this work began.  To revisit, the ‘head, heart and hand’ dialogical community development approach which Tony espoused, reconnected me with the principles that I fell in love with, all those years ago and which has shaped more than any other modality, the practitioner I have become today.

Tony brings over 40 years of experience in community development work both in Australia’s indigenous communities and globally.  I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Episode 5 of ‘Talk the Walk’ explores:

  • How Tony came to be working in the Northern Territory after the acknowledgement of Indigenous Land Rights
  • Learnings from entering Aboriginal communities for the first time
  • The foundation, principles and technicalities behind the dialogical approach to community development
  • The skill of really listening
  • The delight of big things that grow from little things
  • How participatory development programs differ from service delivery; and why governments rarely get it right
  • Small first steps for social workers in getting started in a dialogical approach to your work
  • How Tony’s ‘head, heart and hand’ approach differs from other community development approaches
  • Tony’s struggles of witnessing ‘white on black’ racism, ‘black on white’ racism and ‘black on black’ racism, and how these experiences shaped his international work
  • Tony’s biggest learnings from the Northern Territory and its influence in global community development
  • A funny story about a pet kangaroo!
  • Essential tools for your communication toolbox
  • The mentors that helped Tony develop an international perspective to his work
  • Making sense of the text of people’s complicated lives

Just click on the Play Button below and enjoy!  We hope to have ‘Talk the Walk’ listed on popular podcatchers like iTunes very soon.  Or subscribe by email via our 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 this episode

‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ by Paul Kelly

‘With Head, Heart and Hand’ by Anthony Kelly

Lilla Watson

Bruce Alcorn

Ernie Stringer

Rosalie Dwyer

Darryl Kickett

Carol Martin

Matt Foley

‘The Wretched of the Earth’ by Frantz Fanon

Contact Anthony Kelly via LinkedIn