Final Thoughts

As we get ready to head back to the United States, we are left with many new ideas to implement back home. From what we saw during our agency visits, Australia’s mental health and child welfare services are both similar to and different from these services in the United States. Australian social service agencies tend to receive adequate funding from government programs and typically do not rely on philanthropic funding or payment by consumers. This means that access to these services is not limited by high healthcare costs and inadequate funding like it so often is in the United States.

Some of the facilities we visited were brand new and had state-of-the-art technology, whereas in the United States social services agencies often make do with inadequate facilities. This reflects the emphasis of Australian values on mental and physical health and wellbeing rather than the United States’ focus on money.

At the same time, there were definite similarities between agencies and services in Australia and the United States. For example, the process of responding to allegations of child abuse or neglect is very similar in both countries. Agencies in Australia also use the DSM-V diagnostic codes and many of the same evidence-based interventions as agencies in the United States.

Australia and the United States both are guilty of responding to people of color and indigenous populations in different ways than European-descended populations. Some agencies like the Bouverie Center made a huge effort to include dolls, artwork and family structures that were inclusive of all individuals of Australia; but most of the others that were predominately run by white or European descended individuals lacked an inclusive atmosphere and staff. In the United States, the same unbalanced service delivery can be seen.

Ashley Casey and Sarah Leonard

Week 1

Our first week here was amazing. On our first day, we did a walking tour of Melbourne, and on the following days we visited the Melbourne museum and the Old Melbourne Gaol (gaol=jail) to learn about Australian history, particularly related to the Aboriginal people who originally lived on this land long before European colonists. The people here are really friendly and the coffee is delicious. There are coffee shops everywhere, and almost none of them are Starbucks. The city’s architecture is a fascinating mix of older colonial designs and modern new construction.

After getting a feel for the city and its history over the first few days, we visited VACCA (the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency) for a cultural awareness training. Before the training, we knew very little about the history and culture of Australia’s Aboriginal people. As we learned about this population’s history, uncanny similarities to our treatment of Native Americans in the United States became apparent. Like in the United States, European colonists in Australia attempted to eradicate the Aboriginal people by taking away every aspect of their culture, from their language and art to their land. Additionally, Aboriginal children were taken from their parents and put into out-of-home care so they could be raised with European customs and culture, preventing Aboriginal parents from passing on their culture to the next generation. This generation of individuals who were taken out of their homes is known as the Stolen Generation.

Today, efforts are being made to acknowledge the Aboriginal people as the original owners and inhabitants of the land. Many public gatherings begin with acknowledgements and many agencies, museums, and other public settings have acknowledgement plaques on display to recognize the original owners of the land. Despite these efforts, Aboriginal individuals still face a host of negative effects from years of violence. Child welfare with Aboriginal individuals is a particularly difficult field because these individuals have, with good reason, a level of distrust of service providers, and this is accompanied by a disruption of family structure stemming from the Stolen Generation. This means that child welfare needs are high in this population, but high levels of cultural competence are necessary in order to ethically and effectively work with these individuals. It was fascinating to learn how VACCA works to train practitioners to be culturally competent and to provide child welfare services to Aboriginal children and families.

Until next time,

Sarah Leonard and Ashley Casey