Biographies & Abstracts S-Z

Tauto Sansbury is the winner of the 2015 NAIDOC Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2015 Dr Yunupingu National Indigenous Humans Rights Award. He raised the importance of Treaty at the Towards 3% conference on Indigenous over-representation in the prison system in South Australia.

A Narungga man and well known advocate, he has worked for Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system at a national and state level for more than 30 years. His part time private consultancy work allows him to devote most of his free time to addressing the needs of his community, with particular focus on law and justice.

To date, all efforts to reduce Aboriginal incarceration and recidivism have been a dismal failure. Things have gotten worse. I believe that this is due to the fact that we are not equal partners, rather are subject to policies and legislations that are imposed on us by a dominant culture. Government has always chosen to consult with a select few rather than meaningfully engage with Indigenous Australians as a whole. It has been said by an eminent Maori politician “If you’re not at the table, then you’re the menu.” It is long overdue for us to have the power to make decisions about the issues that affect us. Australia’s First Peoples can only be “at the table” as equals in discussion and decision making on all aspects of our lives if a Treaty is made with the Australian Government.

Janette Saunders is a Dharug First Nations Woman, Mother of five and Grandmother of five with twenty years plus experience in education and currently working as a Family Support Worker.

Abstract: Aboriginal Family Group Conferencing AbSec (Dhum Djirri) model.

‘Keeping our children and young people safe and on Country’

Strong Cultural and Kinship connections are important parts of identity. Knowing who we are, where we belong and who can help us, nurtures our spirit and strengthens our foundations for healthy growth.

I feel strongly about keeping our kids connected to Kin and Country, growing strong in cultural knowledge and having their Elders to guide them proper way. History should teach us lessons and parts of history should never be repeated. AFGC should be used when assessing that a child or young person is at risk or needs to be removed to keep them safe. ‘It takes a Community to raise a child’ is not a new strategy for First Nations Peoples’.

Natasha Mace Urbano, from the Hymba Yumba Community Hub has big dreams. “This conference is the place I can plant the seed and watch Indigenous education pave the way to closing the prison gap. My dream is to see schools like Hymba Yumba established and run by communities under the Hymba banner. Communities have a wealth of knowledge and we have the curriculum. Together we can achieve big things”.

This presentation is on embedding Indigenous knowledge and practice into schools to assist jarjums to achieve the full potential and ultimately build strong, resilient and articulate future generations.

Dr Bruce Watt is a Forensic and Clinical Psychologist, an Assistant Professor with Bond University. He is the Program Director for the Master of Psychology Forensic program. Commencing his career researching interventions with incarcerated people convicted of violent offences, he has subsequently investigated family based interventions for antisocial youth, predictors of juvenile violent recidivism, community correlates of violence and psychopathy, animal cruelty and fire-setting among juveniles, and juvenile fitness for trial. Currently he is investigating arson-related homicides, high risk psychotic phenomena, and juvenile threats of harm to others. Beyond academia Dr Watt provides assessments for Children’s Court, Criminal Court & Family Law.

Fitness/competence to stand trial is necessary to ensure a fair trial. While international research establishes that younger juveniles in particular have difficulties with adjudicative competence relative to adult counterparts, limited research has been conducted within the Australian context pertaining to Indigenous young people. The current paper presents survey results from lawyers and youth justice workers, regarding juvenile potential unfitness for trial. Among 133 juveniles who were identified as potentially unfit, just over half were of Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander descent. Despite the overrepresentation of potentially unfit Indigenous young people involved in the justice system, they were less likely to be referred for mental health evaluation. This raises concern about young Indigenous people progressing through Queensland Children’s Court, who may lack the prerequisite abilities.

Dr Megan Williams is a Wiradjuri descendant on her father’s side, and also has English and Irish heritage. Megan began working in needle and syringe programs and running blood-borne virus education projects on the Gold Coast in the early 1990s, including in correctional centres. Megan then did extra training to specialise in Aboriginal health research and evaluation, as well as teaching at UQ and UNSW. Her key research project ‘Connective Services’ was supported for a part-time PhD by the Lowitja Institute, looking at the support provided and needed to prevent re-incarceration among Aboriginal people in an urban area.

Together with Murri Watch, ATSIWALAS and ANTaR Qld, Megan worked on Project 10% campaigning for renewed justice policy in Queensland, and documenting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples efforts to reduce prison rates. Megan is a research partner of Mibbinbah Ltd, an Aboriginal health promotion charity, assisting in the development and evaluation of the ‘Be the Best You Can Be’ group program to go with the Australian feature film, Mad Bastards. Through that she earned the nick-name MegBastard, which she uses on Twitter, as one of the team members for #JustJustice, an online campaign who have provided over 70 articles about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s leadership and solutions in the criminal justice system. Megan is currently a Senior Research Fellow in the Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing Team at Western Sydney University, continuing to research re-incarceration issues. She is linked to the NHMRC-funded Centre for Research Excellence on Health at UNSW and an ARC-funded project led by UNSW and Ted Noffs Foundation looking at young Aboriginal people’s after they leave residential rehabilitation.

First Peoples Research Leadership

The doubling of incarceration of Australia’s First Peoples in the last decade highlights that current policies and strategies are not working. Countless times First Peoples have recommended “what works” however decision makers, as well as many service providers and philanthropists, often say “we need better evidence before we can implement your ideas”.

This presentation explores a range of issues with current evidence, including gaps, lack of evaluation of government policies, shortcomings of current research approaches, and the need for better translation into practice. In discussing these, examples of community practices are explored, ranging from research advisory roles, to action research successes, and the #JustJustice social media action to share and critique information. Beyond calling for “being involved in research” this presentation outlines key ways First Peoples’ research leadership could both reduce incarceration and improve the wellbeing of people of all cultures in Australia.

Ken Zulumovski is a ‘Kira-dhan, Kabi Kabi nation’ graduate of the ‘Djurawang, Bachelor, Health Sciences, Mental Health. His career spans 20 years in Indigenous community health and includes time in the military. He is the founder of the NFP, Gamarada Indigenous Healing and Life Training Ltd, in Redfern NSW. This organisation responds to the therapeutic and educational need for culturally sensitive community healing and life skills programs targeting, family violence, addiction and suicide. It also works to improve access to justice, education and health care.

In 2010 Gamarada was recognised by the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet with an Excellence Award for Building Leadership in Indigenous Communities www.gamarada.org.au . He is founder and managing director of ‘GUIR’ a consultancy delivering specialist programs in the human resources and people development arena. www.guir.com.au

Abstract: Dadirri and DBT modified for the Australian prison context

Gamarada meaning comrades or friends with a common purpose in the Gadigal Language (Sydney) is the name of a community healing and life training organisation tackling the hard issues surrounding trauma and incarceration. The Gamarada approach to peer support works through developing skills in Dadirri, (deep listening), based on the work of former school principal, educator and elder Miriam Rose Ungunmerr-

Baumann, Nauiya, NT. Gamarada works on the front line, providing therapeutic skills training with cultural support. The team at Gamarada Universal Indigenous Resources (GUIR) are developing programs and workshops using parallels between Indigenous methodologies for healing and the work of Marsha Linehan, founder of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Dialectical means the practice of holding opposites together emphasizing validation and change. DBT is an empirically supported treatment for people at risk of harm to self and others. Dadirri is an emerging wisdom practice gaining international recognition.