Aboriginal Child Case Study

In this essay we will try to provide a brief overview of educational issues of Aboriginal communities in Australia and Victoria and the elements that influence the educational outcomes of young Aboriginal people, such as culture and contemporary challenges. In addition to this, the inclusion of Aboriginal content in the Victorian curriculum and classroom practices will be explored as well as contemporary government policies.

Improve outcome for Aboriginal client Partnership and consultation with the elders o the leader of the community. More participation of complex need/marginalized client. Number of staff that have received culturally sensitivity training. Increase the number of Aboriginal /Torres

The Indigenous culture was viewed as inferior and unable to adequately provide for the needs of their children, which was fully fuelled by disproportionate poverty rates as well as the repercussion of residential schools (Russell, 2015). Due to not being able to maintain the standards of European child-rearing practices and common values, social services workers attempted to rescue these children from the conditions they were living in (O’Connor, 2010). These issues have detrimental effects on the families of survivors of the residential schools for generations, also known as multigenerational trauma. Instead of addressing this social policy concern the government was contributing and controlling it, where Indigenous people had little power to address

Despite the challenges and changes that still need to be made to insure no Aboriginal Child is left behind, there are changes currently being made that show the benefits of a culturally responsive program and bring hope to the future of Aboriginal early childhood education. The Aboriginal Head Start early childhood education program is slowly expanding. As well other programs have developed, like Awasisk Cultural Development Program in Prince George, British Columbia that uses Metis curriculum and Mannawasis AHS programs that teaches both Cree and English (Nguyen, 2011). I believe that these programs are the foundation for a future where all Aboriginal children have an opportunity to be educated through their cultural traditions and language.

Unfamiliar with extended family child-rearing practices and communal values, government social service workers attempted to ‘rescue’ children from their Aboriginal families and communities, devastating children’s lives and furthering the destitution of many families. Culture and ethnicity were not taken into consideration as it was assumed that the child, being pliable, would take on the heritage and culture of the foster/adoptive parents (Armitage, 1995). The forced removal of children and youth from their Native communities has been linked with social problems such as “high suicide rate, sexual exploitation, substance use and abuse, poverty, low educational achievement and chronic unemployment” (Lavell-Harvard and Lavell, 2006, p.144). Newly designated funds from the federal to the provincial governments were “the primary catalysts for state involvement in the well-being of Aboriginal children…as Ottawa guaranteed payment for each child apprehended” (Lavell-Harvard and Lavell, 2006, p.145). Exporting Aboriginal children to the United States was common practice. Private American adoption agencies paid Canadian child welfare services $5,000 to $10,000 per child (LavellHarvard and Lavell, 2006). These agencies rarely went beyond confirming the applicant’s ability to pay, resulting in minimal screening and monitoring of foster or adoptive parents (Fournier and

Government policies authorising the removal of Aboriginal children have caused extensive and unrepairable damage to every aspect of Indigenous culture. It could be argued that the emotional turmoil which occurred as a result of this policy, is greater than any physical abused ever faced by the Australian Aboriginal people. The act of child removal would be a scarring experience for parents and children of any race or culture. This policy had a particularly damaging impact on the Indigenous people as their identity is based within a set of strong traditional guides and teachings. These lessons are not recorded, but can only be taught through speaking with elders and learning through a connection to others within the mob, connection to art forms

What historical forces have contributed to the situation of Tom and his family, and how do you, as the social worker see yourself implicated in this historical overview.

Over the past few years there has been an increase of Aboriginal juveniles in the justice system. The current law in Australia does not adequately protect these Aboriginal children who are caught in the system and must immediately be reformed. The issues with the current law is that it does not conform with the United Nation’s Convention’s on the Rights of the Child and the courts and police officers are not arresting or sentencing Aboriginal juveniles in conjunction with the current law. In order to address the over-representation of Aboriginal juveniles in the criminal justice system, current state and territory legislation that do not conform to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, article 37 and 40, needs to be amended. Furthermore,

Most of the crimes Indigenous children were being arrested are unreasonable; for example Girls falling pregnant young were taken away from their families where the Boards ‘advertise children for fostering: 150 on public offer and 90 for non- Indigenous parents’ (Haebich and Mellor, 2002, p. 259). As a result to the Aboriginal Affair Act 1958, over 200 children were being adopted into white families; to the government was a way of keeping them out of poverty or other negative circumstance. However, in my opinion stripping a child away from their parents will negatively impact the child; they are more likely to misbehave and come in contact with the police. Also the children will feel vulnerable as they could be exposed to sexual, physical and emotional abuse from their adopted families. This form of force assimilation can be considered as the process of cultural genocide, as Aboriginal children are taught to conduct themselves similarly to Europeans and reject their people and culture leaving them detached from their

It is clear that Aboriginal people are in critical need of the proper services to cater to their trans-generational trauma. Understanding the Aboriginal’s culture, spirituality, and values will provide the social work counsellor the tools needed in being culturally competent. This paper will examine the historical background of the Aboriginal people, the conflicts social workers face with cultural differences, as well as methods to overcome these challenges

This case study focuses on the health status of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. There are different factors that impact their health for example social factors and health problems, in the community some of the people fail to seek medical attention due to difference in beliefs and culture. This has made majority of the people to live undiagnosed illness. In this case after the review of systems of Uncle Jim, he has many problems concerning his health which calls for immediate medical attention but this has been disabled due to poverty and ignorance especially concerning nutrition and effects of smoking which has resulted in many other severe medical problems.

Throughout the last fifty years two diametrically opposed views have played out. H.C. Coombs argued that the priority was to use the curriculum and teaching methods to rebuild and sustain traditional Aboriginal culture destroyed by colonisation, racism and oppression. He supported Moira Kingston’s view that all Aborigines had a “world view derived from the Dreaming and irreconcilable with the demands of a modern industrialised market economy.” Sir Paul Hasluck represented the opposing assimiliationist view that schools should give priority to literacy, numeracy and technical and scientific knowledge to asssist integration in the workforce.Many theorists and practitioners have focused on the one third of students in Aboriginal schools with a specifically Aboriginal education rather than the majority attending the same schools as non-Indigenous children. In either case major problems were indentified with Aboriginal education by 2000.

For decades, Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families and upraised in poorly funded residential schools throughout Canada. The purpose of this school system was to assimilate Indigenous children into the Canadian society by destroying their native culture. When attending these schools, Aboriginal children also suffered from sexual, physical, psychological, and/or spiritual abuse which had a negative impact on their overall well-being (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2012). These detrimental events endured by an Indigenous child were portrayed within the novella, Wenjack, written by Joseph Boyden. Throughout the novella, it explores the experiences undergone by a First Nation student, Chanie, whose

Both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal had valuable and reasonable arguments against the federal government’s decision. The technique the federal government should have used instead was to keep the rule that Aboriginal people have a right to fish when they wanted without a license and keep the fishing industry continuing their success. Since the fishing industry has been running for hundreds of years and Aboriginals come from a family of survival and fishing, then why not both work with each other in the same industry. This means that Aboriginals will still have a right to fish when they want and the fishing industry will still be running, therefore Aboriginals would find more employment.

The European settlers regarded themselves as a more dominant group compared to the Aboriginals. This was presumably due to the belief that they were more advanced and knowledgeable in contrast to the Aborigines whom they compared similarly to animals, moreover they believed they had more superiority towards them. Those who arranged the forced removal of children from their families thought that it was necessary for multiple reasons. To begin with, they regarded half-caste children as a generation that was falling behind in comparison to young children from other ethnicities. They believed this was due to the lack of education that the children received, that they were malnourished or simply that they were being neglected by their caregiver.