Indigenous people take the lead in healing the trauma of the Stolen Generations
The forced removals of children from their families have brought trauma to generations of Indigenous communities.
But there’s now hope a groundswell of Indigenous-led healing programs, which are culturally sensitive and acknowledge how history has shaped collective identity, will help these communities on their healing journey.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article may contain images of people who have died.
The abuse, including sexual abuse, that these children suffered after being taken from their families and placed in institutions was documented in the 1997 Bringing them Home Report.
In 2008 then prime minister Kevin Rudd gave a historic apology to the Stolen Generations survivors.
While these were important steps towards healing and reconciliation, there’s still a long journey ahead. So far, governments have been struggling to ‘close the gap’ when it comes to Indigenous mental health.
The healing programs, however, seem to be making a difference in bridging this gap.
And 81-year-old Stolen Generations survivor Aunty Lorraine Peeters is a pioneer here.
This Weilwun and Gamilaroi woman from western NSW has been on a long journey of healing after being taken from her family at the tender age of four.
Mainstream mental health care has often failed Indigenous people, she says, by focussing on behaviours like drinking rather than what’s driving them.
“So being assessed for my behaviour, not for what I’m feeling. Not for my story. They’re not interested in that.”
Indigenous psychologist Kelleigh Ryan, who specialises in trauma healing, combining Western and Indigenous knowledge systems, agrees with Aunty Lorraine.
“We know a lot of the symptoms that we treat — and that we’re funded to treat — are not the problem. They’re merely the symptoms of the problem,” says Ms Ryan, who is a descendant of the Kabi Kabi people of south east Queensland and of Australian South Sea Islanders.
She says problematic behaviour such as addictions are normally the coping behaviour of deep pain, usually trauma.
“So I can teach you all sorts of cognitive and behavioural skills to manage that addiction. But if I don’t heal the pain now, that pain will come out some other way.”
The legacy of trauma
The trauma of the estimated 17,000 survivors doesn’t just sit with them — left unhealed it can pass from parents to children. And there are about 100,000 second generation descendants of survivors spread across Australia.
This intergenerational trauma caused by past forced removals has been linked to higher rates of family violence, suicide and incarceration in today’s Indigenous communities.
Ms Ryan sits on the board of the Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association and says assessment and treatment often miss the mark because a lack of trauma awareness and lack ofcultural sensitivity.
Mainstream approaches can also misunderstand Indigenous grief processes, which might for some include seeing or hearing spirits of deceased aunties and uncles, she says.
“So, if that person is actually in a grieving process and that’s quite normal, then treating them like they have psychosis or schizophrenia would further harm them.”
Community-led programs
One move to counter this is the training of more Indigenous psychologists like Ms Ryan. Another is bettertraining non-Indigenous mental health care practitioners.
In 2016 the Australian Psychological Society offered its own apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People, vowing they would listen more to them in the future, collaborate more and follow more.
Meanwhile, Indigenous communities themselves have been taking the lead, including Aunty Lorraine who set up the Marumali Program of healing based on her own experiences 20 years ago.
Ms Ryan says there are an eclectic range of healing programs around today, which makes sense because addressing intergenerational trauma is not one-size-fits-all.
In 2012, a review of Indigenous healing programs from around the world was released by The Healing Foundation, which is a government-funded body that supports Stolen Generations and their communities.
It found that such programs tended to focus on collective approaches to healing — not just of the individual, but the community they are connected to.
They also drew strongly on Indigenous healing knowledge and the idea that connection to culture is important in wellbeing.
Working with communities
The trend today is for governments to fund researchers and practitioners to work with communities to “co-design” programs.
The idea is to use the community’s knowledge about the problems they’re facing to find the likely most effective solutions.
“[For example], is it running men’s groups? Is actually giving the men somewhere to be so that they’re not drinking, not getting violent, not being frustrated … not having to act out their pain and sorrow in their community?” says Ms Ryan.
But, she says, proper co-design can be challenging.
“The person who has the funding has to actually be prepared to give up some of the power.”
They have to build trust with the community before they can get a working relationship going, she adds.
And then they have to design a program, including measures of success, which are guided by what’s important to the community.
“That’s not easy, especially if it’s your funding, and you also have KPIs to meet and you also have a belief system.”
Culturally-appropriate evaluation key to success
The Healing Foundation found in their 2012 review that the most effective healing programs addressed local community issues, valued cultural connectedness, and empowered the community.
Ms Ryan argues a successful healing program is one in which individuals use what they learn to influence others in their community, to understand and heal their collective trauma.
But she says mainstream models of evaluation focus on counting things like how many people were trained, and ticking off what symptoms were treated.
Just as assessment and treatment needs to be culturally appropriate, she argues so does evaluation of healing programs.
Ms Ryan is also concerned about the short-term nature of funding, that undermines building of trust.
“Trauma is not a quick fix,” she says.
“A lot of programs are funded for one year. Intergenerational trauma needs more than six sessions.
“Why would someone from the Stolen Generations trust you? You have to be reliable and build that trust.”
Common ground?
Trauma psychologist Professor Richard Byrant from the University of New South Wales agrees long-term funding is necessary.
He stresses the importance of valuing both western and Indigenous knowledge systems, adding that in his experience of working with Indigenous communities there is “common ground” here.
For example, he likens traditional practices like yarning and listening to the wisdom of ancestors as being similar to using cognitive behavioural therapy to emotionally process, contextualise and reframe experiences.
“In the west we think that’s very important, but ancestors have been doing that for thousands of years.”
When it comes to evaluation, he says this can be difficult, costly and time-consuming, but we have an ethical responsibility to make sure programs are working.
How best to evaluate healing programs is an evolving space. But meanwhile, the Marumali Program reports it has just had a new review that has given it a big tick.
And Aunty Lorraine is not wasting any time getting on with her mission.
She’s been using the COVID-19 slowdown to get on with writing her book called The Years That Never Were.
And looking to the future.
“What I would like to see is our children or my grandchildren to have a voice to become part of the solution to break the cycle of trauma.”
