• Table of Contents
• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• Methodology
• Service provision
• Service coordination
• Indigenous families and children
• Factors facilitating or hindering service provision and outcomes
• Sustainability
• Conclusion
• Appendix A: Stronger Families and Communities Strategy 2004–2009 model
• Appendix B: SFCS 2004–2009 National Evaluation Indigenous Themed Study Reference Group
• Appendix C: Themed study methodology
• Appendix D: Stronger Families in Australia tables
• Appendix E: Indigenous themed study focus group guide
• Appendix F: Indigenous themed study phone consultation and Indigenous-specific CfC interviews questionnaire
• Appendix G: Interview schedule for CfC fieldwork sites
• List of shortened forms
• Endnotes
• References
• List of tables

Indigenous families and children: coordination and provision of services
Stronger Families and Communities Strategy 2004–2009

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6. Factors facilitating or hindering service provision and outcomes

6.1 Cultural appropriateness
6.2 Staffing availability, skills, qualifications, background and enthusiasm
6.3 Community context

A number of practical issues can facilitate or pose challenges to the effective engagement of Indigenous families. These include cultural appropriateness; staffing availability, skills, qualifications, background and enthusiasm; and community context.

6.1 Cultural appropriateness

The importance of culturally competent and appropriate services features prominently in the literature; most sources agree that services catering to Indigenous families need to be ‘culturally competent’ and provide services that are sensitive and appropriate to the culture of their clients (FaCS 2005; FaCSIA 2007b; OATSIHS 1998; Penman 2006b; SNAICC 2004; Turner, Richards & Sanders 2007; Weaver 1999). Cultural appropriateness and cultural competency are well-used phrases, but what does this actually mean for services? To be culturally competent, services need to consider both the organisation’s processes and policies, and the level of cultural competency among individual staff members.

Broadly, culturally competent services consult with and involve family, extended kin, Elders and community members in service delivery, and include structures which are flexible, non-threatening, informal and low cost. These services also embrace strategies that are culturally tailored, incorporate Indigenous cultural artefacts, teach Indigenous language(s) and offer education and support to parents. These elements are discussed in more detail below.

Organisations

At the organisational level, service delivery should consider the structure, practices and strategies used. Concerning structure, the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) suggests services should be low cost, non-threatening and informal. Services also need to be flexible in their location and in the manner in which they are provided. SNAICC maintains that service engagement would increase if service providers offered access to services away from formal, institutional settings, such as in a person’s home (even initially), and adapted the teaching and dissemination of information accordingly (SNAICC 2004). These principles are not exclusive to engaging with Indigenous families and children, and can equally be applied to other hard-to-reach groups (Cortis et al. forthcoming).

The practices and strategies an organisation or service uses can also affect the level of cultural appropriateness. For example, a child care centre could include cultural identity as a part of its curriculum (FaCS 2005),⁶ or culturally tailor specific programs offered by the services (FaCSIA 2007b). FaCSIA (2007b) has also suggested that children’s services incorporate Indigenous cultural artefacts into both Indigenous-specific and mainstream child care centres. For this strategy to be effective, however, it is necessary for services to not only budget for and acquire these artefacts, but also to use them and integrate them into everyday activities so they are part of teaching and learning practice. Teaching Indigenous language(s) is another strategy used by some early childhood services, even if the proportion of Indigenous children is low (FaCS 2005). Some CfC playgroups, for example, teach children’s songs in the local Indigenous language. Respondents reported that these activities made Indigenous families feel more comfortable and were also popular with non-Indigenous families. Blagg (2008) talks about the interface between mainstream and Indigenous programs and describes a ‘liminal’ space at the threshold between Indigenous and non-Indigenous domains, where change and transfer can occur.

As family and extended kin networks and community play an important role in Indigenous children’s lives, it is important that services consult and involve these groups in service delivery. Several sources stress the importance of family involvement in services, and advise the extension of childhood services to include the education and support of parents as well (Health Canada 2000; Penman 2006a; SNAICC 2004; Turner, Richards & Sanders 2007).

Community engagement with, or ownership of, early childhood services is also emphasised in the literature (Health Canada 2000; Higgins & Butler 2007; OATSIHS 1998; Penman 2006a; SNAICC 2004). Research suggests that successful non-Indigenous service providers meaningfully engage Indigenous families by consulting with community members and involving them in service operation. This could be informal, or involve formal governing, reference group or advisory roles or inviting Indigenous Elders or community members to the service.⁷ Involving community members not only helps to make services more culturally appropriate, but also creates employment and training opportunities for local people and improves the chances of sustainability (SNAICC 2004).

An additional incentive, which is commonly used to engage people of all cultures and from all different backgrounds in services, is providing meals as part of the service delivery (Engeler 1998; SNAICC 2004).⁸ This not only helps increase attendance and facilitate engagement, but is also a way to promote healthy food consumption (Engeler 1998).

Many respondents stressed the importance of working with Indigenous communities in culturally appropriate ways, and most of their examples involved organisational factors. Participants felt strongly about the importance of flexibility, and of organisations being there for ‘the long haul’, allowing for traditional ways of doing things, and building local ownership into programs.

CfC, ItG and LA CPs and services used a number of the strategies and practices listed in the literature to facilitate cultural appropriateness. They also elaborated on a number of strategies that had not been well documented in the literature. A number of respondents in regional and remote settings described the importance of flexibility in delivering services to Indigenous families and children based on both their individual needs and those of their communities. The inherent flexibility of the CfC model, therefore, was perceived as a key strength of the initiative:

[The model] allows us to be flexible and creative in being allowed to deliver the program the way that we want to. (CP)

Intrinsic to flexible service provision is ensuring that services are readily accessible to service users. This means, not only the ways in which services are provided, but also where they occur. In one CfC site an organisation successfully engaged Indigenous families because it provided families with access to professionals in informal settings. Professionals attended informal playgroups on a weekly basis to build rapport with local Indigenous families; by taking services and supports to the community they were able to engage families they had not previously accessed. Other respondents had considerable success engaging Indigenous families by providing transport:

You have to be proactive. Going to [clients’] houses, giving them transport, that’s what made the program what it is. It wouldn’t have been nearly as successful without it.

A number of ItG programs specifically developed for engaging Indigenous families identified and responded to specific needs within the Indigenous communities in which they were based. A child nutrition program employed Indigenous staff, consulted with the community and used what they described as a culturally appropriate action research service model, based on the local needs of the community. This included thinking, listening, deliberating, looking, watching, making and doing. It treated culture as both an asset and a context for intervention, was guided by senior Indigenous women, and ensured responses to protecting children were grounded in the community. As well as advocacy and coalition building, the project helped community members try new foods, provided cooking sessions, picnics combined with bush tucker collection, and free age-specific travel packs (nappies, food, disposable hygiene and feeding aids) to overcome shortages of stock in stores for travelling families. It also developed a culturally appropriate nutrition manual for mothers and children, and a music video.

Consistent with the literature, many participants described cultural appropriateness as sensitivity to language and culture. Those in remote areas especially emphasised the importance of delivering support services ‘in language’ (in the first language of local people), or failing that, having translators or people who could speak Aboriginal or Torres Strait Creoles or plain accessible English. This was seen as important, not only to engage Indigenous families to participate in services, but also to show respect by placing the responsibility for adaptation onto the service providers rather than the Indigenous families.

A CP described the impact of addressing Indigenous people respectfully and in their own language as ‘profound’. For many Indigenous community members, the CP’s public health DVD presentations were the first examples of professional presentations in their own language. An ItG program manager reported success in engaging Aboriginal families by developing and providing information about a range of services in Aboriginal English and with culturally appropriate visual guides. Other CfC services personnel discussed the benefit of using Indigenous artefacts as part of their service delivery. Staff from an ItG program described how they amended their program and communication materials to be more culturally appropriate for Indigenous families.

SFCS 2004–2009 service providers also reinforced local Indigenous knowledge and culture. One CP aimed to reinforce the strong role that parents have in passing on information in traditional Indigenous culture:

We [the service provider organisation] are intentionally trying to restate and reinforce the importance of traditional ways, like the advantages of eating bush tucker and seafood ... It’s about restating cultural pride and cultural identity.

Another respondent used existing Indigenous knowledge and examples in service delivery. Her service not only translated Western words into local Indigenous language, but also attempted to take Indigenous world views into account to ensure the examples they used were culturally appropriate and resonated with respondents. The respondent described this as a process of ‘removing stumbling blocks’ to understanding and ‘providing an evidence base’ based on culturally relevant examples and analogies.

Several respondents described learnings that they felt were important to enable them to deliver services in a way that encouraged cultural awareness. For example, one FP described differences in parenting styles and behaviours she had observed. She commented that:

An Indigenous child is quite autonomous and can turn around to its parent and say you’re not the boss of me. A 5 year old can say that to their parent and their parent can’t do anything about it. A child can be in an authoritative relationship over their parent and that’s often not known by educators. Teachers in schools make some huge blunders in how they teach Aboriginal kids. This is why Indigenous-specific programs are really important.

This explanation demonstrates that without an understanding of the cultural norms and values within Indigenous society, mainstream programs may completely miss the mark simply because the intended audience does not connect with the values being expressed in the program. Further, the idea of adapting a mainstream program to an Indigenous context may well fall short of the potential that could be derived from building a program from the ground up. This was not an isolated example. A number of respondents noted the need to ensure cultural appropriateness and sensitivity to service users’ and committee members’ cultural norms to ensure that organisations or individuals did not cause offence. To be completely culturally sensitive, some suggested that merely understanding Indigenous community cultural norms and values was insufficient, but that these values needed to be internalised and integrated into service practice.

CfC has changed service delivery to Indigenous communities by enhancing the flexibility of service provision, by using local knowledge in decision making about programs, and by embedding community engagement and consultative processes into structures. This is not to suggest that the organisations involved would not have incorporated these elements into their service delivery practice without CfC. Rather, respondents indicated that CfC improved the opportunity for flexibility and community engagement to be included as a standard part of the process of service delivery.

Individuals

Even if services implement many of the strategies discussed above, services are also reliant on individual staff members to act in a culturally appropriate manner. Weaver (1999) identified a combination of knowledge, skills and values as prerequisites for culturally competent practice by individual staff members. To be culturally competent, Weaver argued, service providers must have:

• knowledge (of the diversity among and within Indigenous populations, history, culture and contemporary realities)
• skills (communication, problem-solving and ‘containment’ skills—refraining from speaking where appropriate, patience, listening and tolerance of silence)
• values (‘helper wellness’ and self-awareness of biases, humility and willingness to learn, respect, open-mindedness, non-judgemental attitude, social justice values).

Weaver’s categories are especially applicable to service provision in remote Indigenous communities where child care services often perform a range of services beyond narrowly defined, traditional ‘child care’ (FaCSIA 2007b).

Almost all respondents stressed the importance of individual qualities and competencies in providing culturally appropriate services and effectively engaging Indigenous families and children. As well as the knowledge, skills and values noted by Weaver, these included making a commitment and taking time to develop relationships. While many individual qualities are important attributes for service providers—whomever they are working with—there are key dimensions, such as taking substantial time to develop relationships and build trust, in which Indigenous cultural paradigms differ from non-Indigenous paradigms.

To develop trust and relationships with Indigenous families, service providers spoke about the extensive time this could take and the need for patience. One service provider described how her persistence and patience paid off in eventually engaging Indigenous families:

I don’t just go ‘OK, you don’t want to be involved’ ... I’ll keep encouraging them [service users]. Eventually they’ll come along to groups, and really kick themselves for resisting [initially]. It really works ... I get most clients [eventually], but it can take up to eight [attempts].

The different concept of time in Indigenous culture and the need for patience was especially emphasised by a few respondents working in remote locations. Respondents acclaimed the virtues of adapting to ‘local time’ and listening intently when engaging Indigenous communities. To achieve positive outcomes and engage Indigenous families effectively, they contended that service providers needed to take the time to get to know people at their own pace:

[The way to effectively engage Indigenous families is] not coming in [to communities] with an expectant, big city attitude of ‘I’m here to talk to you, so see me now’.

Service providers also discussed the importance of demonstrating a personal interest in families and respect for them. When asked what factors helped her engage Indigenous families, one service provider in a regional centre replied:

Making it personal; personalised visits, making time for them [service users].

Another respondent reiterated the need to demonstrate commitment to families and described the flexibility necessary to engage them effectively:

You’ve got to be flexible ... All of those things that show the client that you are taking a personal interest in them. You have to show them that you actually care about them and their children, because when they see those sorts of things, they can see that you genuinely want to help them.

Sincerity and respect was a fundamental principle of effective engagement espoused by several service providers. One CP working in a remote community described it as being transparent in what she was trying to do and explaining her agenda to the families using her service. A number of other service providers talked about demonstrating through actions and words how they value the people using their services.

Other participants reinforced the importance of sincere engagement. One respondent noted that ‘community members watch the actions and body language of service providers carefully as well as their words’, and said that they would not engage with services that did not demonstrate sincerity and respect. This service provider highlighted the importance of subtle, non-verbal cues in demonstrating sincerity and respect and noted that these characteristics are difficult to simulate.

The knowledge, skills, values and traits of service providers all contributed to building the key success factor—trust between individuals, communities and organisations. A number of respondents noted that the reputation of their organisation and the rapport and trust they had built up with local communities were fundamental to their success in engaging Indigenous families.

Almost all participants took a significant length of time to gain the trust of local people, and to ‘embed’ programs in communities. Respondents noted that this is true in any community, but that the length of time needed to develop trust and foster relationships is greater in Indigenous communities than in the mainstream. One respondent in a regional centre reported that it had taken six years to establish rapport with the community; another organisation reported it had taken three years (since the establishment of CfC):

It’s taken this long [for the program] to take off and get big numbers [of participants] ... Things are improving, but the lesson is that it takes a lot of time to gain the trust of a community.

Many service providers described periods of mistrust, but noted that trust levels were improving. This comment from a CP in a regional area was typical of the responses:

There was lots of animosity and resentment [when the service began], but things are changing ... It’s taken a long time but things are getting easier.

This further reinforces the limitations of a four-year funded program, if initiatives like SFCS 2004–2009 are to engage and improve outcomes for Indigenous families and children.

Summary

• To be culturally competent, services need to consider the organisation’s structure, practices and strategies, and the level of cultural competency among individual staff members.
• The literature and the SFCS evaluation 2004–2008 suggest that culturally appropriate services have structures that:
  • are non-threatening, informal and low cost
  • are flexible in where and how services are provided
  • offer access to services away from formal, institutional settings, such as a person’s home
  • consult and involve family and extended kin networks and community members in service delivery.
• The literature and the SFCS evaluation 2004–2008 suggest that culturally appropriate services have practices and strategies that:
  • adapt the teaching and dissemination of information, as needed
  • include cultural identity as a part of the curriculum
  • culturally tailor specific programs offered
  • use Indigenous cultural artefacts in everyday activities
  • teach Indigenous language(s)
  • invite Indigenous Elders to participate in some service delivery
  • offer education and support to parents
  • offer incentives, like providing meals.
• The literature and the SFCS evaluation 2004–2008 suggest that culturally appropriate services have individual staff who have:
  • appropriate knowledge
  • appropriate skills
  • appropriate values
  • a long-term commitment to building trusting relationships and engaging families.

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6.2 Staffing availability, skills, qualifications, background and enthusiasm

Staffing availability, skills, qualifications, background and enthusiasm play an instrumental role in supporting, or alternatively hindering, any human service delivery. The literature shows that early childhood services face particular staffing challenges in regard to pay and conditions, training, the cost of paying qualified workers, high staff turnover, and poor governance and management.

In some cases, these issues have a more significant impact on Indigenous-specific early childhood service providers than on mainstream services. FaHCSIA found that staff in Indigenous-specific child care services are commonly promoted beyond their capabilities and given too much responsibility without sufficient training or experience (FaCSIA 2007b). In general, Indigenous child care workers are not as highly qualified as non-Indigenous ones, and many staff in rural and remote areas do not have formal qualifications. This problem is further compounded because, once in employment, Indigenous child care workers are less likely to have access to formal training or ongoing on-the-job support from mentors (FaCSIA 2007b). In other cases, people have formal training, but may lack the skills and traits that are important in working with young children: empathy, enjoyment of children and strong connections to the community. FaHCSIA recommended that these skills and traits are as valuable as formal qualifications in the recruitment process (FaCSIA 2007b, p. 15). If this were followed, services should provide opportunities for formal training.

Training of Indigenous early childhood providers also faces challenges, as current training packages and programs are limited and they are not tailored to Indigenous-specific providers. Even where staff are appropriately skilled and qualified, services are often insufficiently resourced to pay qualified workers (FaCSIA 2007b), which means that after workers are trained, some employers cannot afford to keep them.

Recruiting and retaining staff

Most CfC and ItG service providers consulted in this research found recruiting and retaining good staff difficult. They reported difficulties recruiting and retaining appropriate Indigenous workers, with positions being left vacant for periods of time, having to readvertise and high staff turnover. While a number of these issues were structural, the funding and flexibility of the CfC model assisted urban-based CfC service providers (none of whom reported problems with poor pay or working conditions, finding qualified workers and paying these workers, poor governance or management). This does not mean these challenges were not experienced, but that these problems were not perceived as significant factors hindering CfC service delivery in urban areas.

Services in remote locations, however, experience significant challenges. The number of people with the necessary skills and qualifications was more limited than in areas with higher populations. There was intense competition for qualified and skilled staff between industries. This was more problematic in areas with large-scale, high-paying industries, such as mining. Service providers in this situation called for additional funding to compete with companies for qualified, high calibre staff. Even where mining companies were not luring skilled Indigenous workers away from the early childhood sector, there were other human services with which to compete. Thus, while remote locations had funding to hire staff, it was not always sufficient to attract skilled workers.

Enticing people from other areas to apply for and accept positions in remote locations did not increase the small staffing pool. There was little incentive for people from other areas to work for remote service providers. To do so, they would have to move away from family and friends. Moreover, remote locations lack the ‘excitement’ of urban environments, and workers face challenging conditions, among them limited and poor accommodation (some CPs reported extreme difficulty finding housing for staff living in remote areas); the need to work long hours with little support because of limited staffing and high staff turnover; and the need for self-reliance. One respondent who worked in a remote site described his need to be self-reliant:

The living is very bare. There’s no accommodation or bedding available [for visiting fly-in/fly-out service providers]. The food in shops is really expensive and limited anyway, so you often have to bring your own supplies.

Even when staff had been successfully engaged, it was far from certain that they would remain in their positions. Respondents reported that staff turnover was extremely high, and that workers in remote areas were notoriously transient and ‘whitefellas usually only do it [work in remote locations] for one or one-and-a-half years’. Another responded noted:

[Service workers generally last] two years if you’re lucky.

Service providers had more success recruiting and retaining local Indigenous workers than non-Indigenous workers from other locations.

As finding and retaining staff was extremely challenging for a number of services, organisations often had to operate with inexperienced and unqualified staff. Understaffing also meant that service providers were unable to complete both the administrative requirements of the initiative and run programs.

Although many respondents described difficulties recruiting and retaining staff, once they found key staff members, their presence was critical to the success of projects. Service providers were willing to take a long time to fill vacant positions if that meant getting not just any staff, but the right staff.

One respondent described the ‘right’ staff as ‘people who want to be there’. A CP in a remote site described the experience of attracting the ‘right’ staff:

My staff are fabulous, really great ... It’s taken me ages to find them, though ... I had 14 other staff members before I found the right ones ... They [the previous staff members] realised that it’s really hard work [and left]. I had one that only lasted one day, one a week ... Now I’ve got good staff; they motivate families [who use the service].

A number of respondents reported that finding workers with diverse skills and the specific skills appropriate for early childhood service delivery was more important than qualifications. One respondent in a remote site described how she looked for ‘strong women’ who, of their own accord, are taking in children to care for:

Knowing the community and finding people who take on the role naturally makes it much easier [to engage them as service providers].

A number of respondents, particularly those in remote areas, also stressed the importance of employing local people and providing opportunities for families. Many called attention to the importance of recruiting and training Indigenous staff members, and of providing mentoring and support, which increased skills, local capacity and motivation.

Mentoring was commonly used to train local Indigenous workers and therefore make service more sustainable. One service provider used formal training and mentoring to support a local Indigenous worker to eventually run the service alone. The CfC funding provided the opportunity for this to occur over the four years, by which time the trainer wanted to make herself ‘redundant’. This mentoring process was used in a number of locations. Numerous respondents saw their roles as short to medium-term, and they aimed to provide local people with the skills and confidence to manage the services themselves.

While mentoring took place in a number of locations, formalised training was not always readily available. This meant that informal on-the-job training could take a substantial time (several months to a year) to get workers ‘up to speed’. For example, local women in one remote area were informally trained over time to identify children with developmental delay. The CfC model was important in providing a supportive environment from the FP and other CPs to assist with training, mentoring and staff development.

The difficulty in recruiting and retaining Indigenous workers was also addressed by offering a range of roles under different conditions; for example, employing a number of people part-time rather than full-time, seconding Indigenous workers from other sectors, training Indigenous people to increase their capacity as mentors in the community, creating Indigenous support roles (such as family support workers and Aboriginal Support Assistants to work with employees with professional qualifications, like health workers), and offering traineeships.

Understanding the community

Respondents working in urban, rural and remote Indigenous communities emphasised the importance of taking the local context into account when delivering services to Indigenous clients. Cultural knowledge, understanding local kin, having community networks and knowing what other services were available were perceived as important in recruiting and engaging Indigenous families and delivering culturally appropriate services.

Experienced staff who have long-term knowledge of working in their communities, and have gained the trust of the local people, were frequently cited as a crucial factor in effectively engaging Indigenous communities and in the ultimate success of early intervention programs. This is unsurprising as it is consistent with the literature on employing culturally appropriate staff who are knowledgeable, skilled and hold certain values (Weaver 1999). This research also found that connections with local people were critical.

Participants described these experienced, appropriate staff as either ‘insiders’—Indigenous people from the local community; ‘outsiders’—Indigenous or non-Indigenous people from outside the community; or ‘gatekeepers’—local Indigenous people who provide a communication pathway between service providers and potential or current Indigenous service users. People from all three of these groups could potentially have the required knowledge, skills and values, and in some circumstances members of any of the groups, including the ‘insiders’, could potentially hinder service delivery. Outsiders had more difficulty establishing connections, but this could be achieved given enough time.

Local knowledge and connections with local people were advantageous and most likely to be found among insiders and gatekeepers. One CP in a regional centre described how her local knowledge and connections were important in gaining the trust of families:

[They] know you aren’t a threat.

A number of CfC stakeholders stipulated employment of ‘insider’ Indigenous liaison workers as a condition for effectively engaging and supporting Indigenous families. Yet a number of respondents reported that being too closely connected to a community could present challenges for service providers. This was the case where community and/or family conflict occurred.

A number of respondents identified community conflict as a problem, claiming internal strife and power struggles hampered service provision in a number of areas. One respondent in a regional centre explained:

If [community members] are engaged in conflict with [the area’s Indigenous organisation], they won’t get any service. They’re complex local issues ... [that] aren’t easily resolved.

Although internal family and community conflicts are not unique to Indigenous communities, they were reported as a source of problems in some CfC communities. For example, while an Indigenous liaison worker in one site provided an excellent link to Indigenous families because she had grown up in the area, she also faced considerable challenges. She not only faced antagonism from one particular Aboriginal service provider in the area (that may have perceived her work as a threat to its own), she was also under pressure from family for preferential treatment to services and resources. This placed her in a difficult position because she could not agree to unreasonable requests, but in refusing them she could cause extreme offence to her family members and potentially harm her relationship with the community more broadly. This situation jeopardised her position and, at the time of interview, it was uncertain whether she would continue working for the service provider organisation.

A few other respondents also reported that some ‘insider’ service providers gave preferential treatment to their own families and excluded those with whom they were engaged in conflict. The respondents described instances where family members had made inappropriate requests, asking Indigenous service provider workers to borrow vehicles and equipment for personal use. In these situations, it was often easier for the Indigenous workers to blame the non-Indigenous supervisors for their inability to give preferential treatment or share resources, than to refuse family members’ requests themselves. In these instances, it seems that having some non-Indigenous staff was useful.

Having this ‘little bit of distance’ as an ‘outsider’ could help service providers ensure transparent and equitable distribution of services without conflict. One respondent came from an organisation that employed Indigenous staff without any long-term relationship with the community in which they worked. This person said that the staff being slightly outside the community was a positive factor because they were not involved in family or community politics or conflicts.

The ‘outsider’ therefore can successfully provide services, but to engage families and offer culturally appropriate services, they still need cultural knowledge and a deep understanding of local issues. It appears that, in practice, it was the combination of ‘insider’ cultural knowledge and ‘outsider’ perspective that helped staff effectively engage Indigenous families. A non-Indigenous respondent, who provided services in the community in which she grew up, believed her understanding of local issues and connections with Indigenous families was as much an advantage as her ‘outsider’ qualities—a non-Indigenous background, tertiary education and early childhood service provider occupation. The combination of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ qualities, rather than either one in isolation, seems to effectively facilitate engagement with Indigenous families. Conversely, being too close to the group can be as much of a problem in providing services as being too distant or disconnected.

Gatekeepers or ‘cultural brokers’, who act as a bridge between services and local Indigenous families, also reinforced the benefit of services using ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ to engage and support families. They had the advantage of local knowledge and connections to local families, but were not necessarily undertaking direct service delivery and therefore were one step removed from possible tensions regarding conflicts and service provision.

One non-Indigenous respondent who had spent considerable time with Indigenous men in his community, and had built rapport with local people, described the gatekeeper function he had adopted. He saw his role as an intermediary, providing a viable point for Indigenous men to access family services, and correspondingly introducing mainstream service providers to Indigenous men who might otherwise be difficult to engage. ‘I see myself as a “bridge”, as a way of giving other services an “in”’, he explained.

Other participants cited Indigenous workers with family connections as the most viable way to access ‘grassroots people’ in local communities. This was especially important in remote locations when communication was challenging. As few Indigenous families in some remote locations have their own telephones, fax machines and/or email accounts, messages have to be relayed by an individual in the community who has access to communication devices. The ‘gatekeeper’ also needs to have sound English and (sometimes) literacy to ensure messages are relayed.

The difficulty for gatekeepers in some communities is that they often work in isolation. This means assuming the burden of managing substantial communication between service providers and community members. Relying on a single person to be sole point of contact may also create problems if the contact person is unreliable or reluctant to share information. There is a danger that gatekeepers can filter information rather than facilitate communication. While this was not found to be a widespread problem, a non-Indigenous respondent in one remote community did report it.

The respondent described the challenges of obtaining genuine community representation when a gatekeeper was reluctant to involve other community members:

Gatekeepers can get in way ... [When we were setting up the CCC in the area] there was a white man in one community who wanted to be on the committee and didn’t want any Indigenous women from [his community] to be involved.

Regardless of individual gatekeepers’ efficacy, it seems that it is extremely important for services to take time to build rapport with gatekeepers to gain their trust and eventually establish additional relationships with other community members. Those with both ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ qualities appear to be successful in engaging and supporting Indigenous families. Some ‘outsiders’ were reported to have benefited from cultural awareness training and from spending substantial time building relationships and trust with locals (called ‘professional loitering’ by one non-Indigenous respondent). At the same time, many SFCS 2004–2009 respondents maintained the importance of employing experienced people who understand local issues and have connections with local people.

Summary

• Staffing availability, skills, qualifications and enthusiasm play an instrumental role in supporting or hindering service delivery.
• Generally, early childhood services, including Indigenous-specific ones, face staffing challenges such as pay, conditions, training, staff turnover, and poor governance and management.
• The funding and flexibility of the CfC model may have helped partially address some of these problems in urban areas. For example, CfC funding could be used to develop Indigenous-specific training programs for Indigenous early childhood providers.
• Most SFCS 2004–2009 services found recruiting and retaining good staff difficult. This was especially acute in remote locations, which meant some services were operating with inexperienced and unqualified staff.
• Workers with diverse skills, and skills specifically matched to the needs of the target population, were considered more important in early childhood service delivery than qualifications (when people with both skills and qualifications were not available).
• Recruitment and retention problems were addressed by employing, training and mentoring locals; offering flexible hours and secondments; creating Indigenous support roles; and offering traineeships.
• Employing Indigenous locals in SFCS 2004–2009 programs and providing formal and/or informal training and mentoring support helped increase local capacity and skills, and improved staff retention rates and program sustainability.
• The CfC model was found to provide a supportive environment, and helped facilitate training, mentoring and staff development.
• Cultural knowledge, understanding local kin, having community networks and trust, and knowing what other services are available are all important in recruiting and engaging Indigenous families and delivering culturally appropriate services.
• Staff can be categorised as:
  • insiders—Indigenous people from inside the community and, sometimes, non-Indigenous people from inside the community
  • outsiders—Indigenous people from outside the community and, sometimes, non-Indigenous people from inside the community
  • gatekeepers—local Indigenous people who provide a communication pathway between service providers and potential/current Indigenous service users—sometimes also known as ‘cultural brokers’.
• Staff from all these groups could work well with Indigenous families, if they had the appropriate knowledge, skills and values. But insiders and gatekeepers had a distinct advantage in having pre-existing connections, local knowledge and trusting relationships, which helped engage Indigenous families in service provision.
• While outsiders took considerable time to establish trusting relationships, unlike insiders and gatekeepers, they were not potentially hindered by community or family conflict.
• In practice, the combination of ‘insider’ cultural knowledge and ‘outsider’ perspective helped some SFCS 2004–2009 staff to effectively engage Indigenous families.
• Gatekeepers can be very useful to service providers, but they are at risk of becoming overburdened with managing communication and relationships between service providers and community members.

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6.3 Community context

Within the community context it is important to consider the physical space available in communities to run programs as well as transport constraints, remoteness, community distress and past and current government policies.

Physical space

According to some participants, flawed venues and limited physical space within communities affected service provision. A number of CfC-funded services (mostly small, volunteer-run initiatives) did not have a dedicated space to deliver their services, or were located in venues with layouts inappropriate for young children, or both. Some respondents claimed an increased commitment from some local councils would address these problems. Place is important; the simple, inexpensive intervention of changing the venue at which a service takes place was reported to dramatically increase service use in a number of sites.

Physical space was also challenged in cases where patterns of Indigenous family life conflicted with mainstream service provision. In some communities, many parents brought several children to services, as well as spouses and extended family, making groups larger than anticipated. This was problematic for services where attendance was usually limited to individual children attending with one or both parents. Challenges such as this reflect the need for project flexibility and responsiveness to context, to ensure appropriateness in a range of settings.

Transport

The literature commonly cites a lack of private, public or community transport as a hindrance to families’ access to early childhood services (FaCSIA 2007a, 2007b; SNAICC 2004). This is especially problematic for Indigenous families since they are more likely to live in geographically isolated areas (ABS & AIHW 2008).

Transport problems were commonly reported by SFCS 2004–2009 respondents. Several respondents stated that many parents were unable to access services because they did not own a car or have a drivers licence, or they did not have adequate public transport in their community.

Several service providers overcame this problem to some extent by providing community transport (pick-up/drop-off services) and mobile services. This proved to be highly effective and many respondents reported that providing transport to clients greatly enhanced their services’ accessibility and increased the use of services.

Despite the clear benefits of providing community transport, many service providers were unable to do this, usually due to budgetary restrictions. A number of providers complained that, although transport is a huge issue, most current funding arrangements do not allow for purchase of capital assets, such as motor vehicles. Respondents noted that at present no state/territory or federal funding schemes allow for purchase of capital assets, and highlighted what they saw as an urgent need for community-wide planning.⁹

Another respondent in a regional area described a program that her service had initiated to support parents to get drivers licences as a way of improving service access.¹⁰ But this did not address the problem of poor public transport, nor did it improve the situation of families who did not have a car.

Transport problems were most acute in remote areas where it was not always viable to provide community transport to local services (FaCSIA 2007b). Where people living in remote areas needed to visit larger communities for services, service providers not only had to ensure access to flights, but also transport to get people to the planes. Hence, transport was not only a challenge for Indigenous families in remote communities, but also for service providers.

Remoteness

Remoteness poses significant challenges for service providers working in four of the five sites with the highest proportions of Indigenous children aged 0 to 5 years. Many areas in these sites are only accessible by air, with minimal, if any, on-site service providers. Consulting with communities, delivering services and collecting evaluation data, are all logistically complex and expensive.

Transport


Transport was identified as a major challenge for service providers working in remote communities. Respondents reported that travel was time consuming and expensive, and this was compounded by the unavailability of scheduled flights in many areas and so flights had to be chartered. The combination of inflated travel expenses and scheduling challenges could be frustrating for service providers:

Often, you’ll arrange to visit a community and spend $600 on a charter flight [to get there], and when you arrive, people are not there.

This may also reflect the cynicism and disillusionment that Indigenous families may have with the service system and the relatively low value they may place on early childhood services.

A number of respondents providing fly-in/fly-out services in remote sites reported occasionally sharing flights with other service providers. This had a number of positive outcomes, as coordinated visits by service providers caused less disruption to communities and achieved major savings on transport costs. However, despite the considerable benefits of service coordination in remote communities, this practice was not particularly widespread. Many respondents servicing these areas cited logistical complications as the reason, saying that it was not always convenient to coordinate service visits. There is considerable scope to expand this practice, and it is recommended that coordinated visits and shared flights be encouraged and written into service agreements as far as possible.

Besides organising flights to remote communities, ground transport could also be difficult to access. This was especially the case in areas where large-scale mining was taking place and mining employees were using the limited number of rental cars available.

Resourcing


A number of respondents in remote communities complained that the high costs involved in providing services to these communities were not factored into CfC funding. Remote sites face not only increased living costs for accommodation and food, but also the expense of transport and service delivery for small numbers of people. The problems caused by these high costs were compounded by the inability to compete financially with the salaries offered by mining industries. Some respondents claimed that the high costs affected provision of effective services.

Weather


Weather created a number of problems for service providers working in Northern Australia, and sometimes contributed to cancellation of meetings and events. The weather changes dramatically between the dry and the wet seasons, and major climatic events, such as tropical storms and cyclones, commonly disrupt service provision:

Things often have to be cancelled. You have to book months in advance and then there’s a cyclone and the whole thing is off.

In addition, the seasonal variation in population distribution (moving south in the wet season and back to coastal and tropical areas in the dry season) made service delivery and planning difficult.

Scheduling


The time it took to develop a rapport with Indigenous communities was exacerbated in remote areas where contact and consultation was difficult, time consuming and costly. Trust was also difficult to establish when the program was short-term. One respondent noted that:

... the community has seen providers come and go [in the past] without lasting change. Why should they think that this time will be any different?

Remote sites often had great difficulty planning and scheduling services. Although urban and regional sites also had problems with erratic and unpredictable service-user attendance, planning and scheduling in remote sites was more problematic because service providers often did not have a permanent presence in communities to provide services, and they were facing communication, distance, transport and weather challenges. These external factors were coupled with the likelihood that people would not necessarily access the service, even when the service providers were able to get into communities:

You can plan things as much as you like, but things don’t work out the way you want them to ... Often you do a lot of planning and when you get there something has happened, such as a death, and everyone is at the funeral.

Communication


Aboriginal languages are spoken in most of the communities with high proportions of Indigenous children, and many families in these areas speak little or no English. In 2002 just under 40 per cent of Indigenous people living in remote areas reported speaking an Indigenous language at home, compared with 2 per cent of Indigenous people living in non-remote areas (ABS 2004, cited in ABS & AIHW 2008). Use of multiple Indigenous languages was also common in many of the remote areas where CfC was being delivered. One respondent reported 14 different language groups and clans within her site and said service users commonly spoke four or five languages. Other communities had a single dominant language.

Despite the predominance of Indigenous languages in remote communities, most service providers working in these areas communicated only in English. A number of respondents bemoaned the fact that many service providers did not speak ‘in language’ and continued to communicate with Indigenous people in a manner that was not culturally appropriate. One respondent referred to an ‘ignorance of how to adequately communicate’, and went on to say that Australians have a particular reluctance to learn Indigenous languages and culture. She felt that Australians were usually willing to accept that foreign cultures were different from their own and to adapt their language and behaviour accordingly, but that they seldom made the same effort to understand and accommodate traditional Indigenous culture. It is difficult for service providers to learn languages when different languages are spoken in the areas in which they travel and deliver services. Where possible, some understanding of the local language would certainly aid service delivery, but the communication difficulties reinforce the importance of working with trusted local people.

The challenge of effective communication was further exacerbated when service providers did not have a permanent presence in remote communities. Many people in remote locations did not have their own telephones or access to email. Consequently, telephone, fax and (occasionally) email messages have to be relayed by the person/people in the community with access to communication devices and a fluent command of English (often staff at the local store, post office or other workplaces).

Community distress

A number of respondents said that some of the communities they worked in suffered considerable distress, and this made it difficult for service providers to convince families to prioritise early intervention and prevention service use. Typical sources of distress in a number of communities were poor living conditions, transient populations, family disputes, tenancy instability, mental illness, domestic violence, substance abuse and gambling. These social stresses also made it difficult for the families who did access services to sustain their participation. These problems are compounded in remote areas by the scarcity of services and resources.

Funerals (or ‘sorry business’) also had an enormous effect on Indigenous communities and, in turn, service provision:

The entire community attends funerals. Kids are pulled in and out of services ... [Service providers] can’t do any work when funerals are taking place.

Funerals made it difficult for service providers to maintain momentum in service delivery. When momentum was interrupted, service providers reported a decline in positive outcomes because services were disrupted by absent staff, children had disjointed participation in programs, and there was a need to continually rebuild relationships with families:

It can go through stages ... [Sometimes] you maintain a high level of contact, then a few people will die and there’s a series of funerals and it’s like you have to start all over again!

This sentiment was reiterated by a number of people working in communities with high proportions of Indigenous families.

Service providers have to expect breaks in service provision as a result of funerals, but the prevalence of other areas of community distress pose significant challenges for the success of early intervention and prevention models. Families cannot be expected to prioritise early intervention services if basic needs, such as stable, secure housing and adequate living conditions, are not met. If early intervention and prevention initiatives, like SFCS 2004–2009, are to be successful in communities under distress, social issues must also be addressed.

Past/current policies

Past policies


A number of respondents spoke of the legacy of history and of how past policies and practices, such as the forced removal of members of the Stolen Generations, shaped current opinions and behaviours of families, and of how this affected service use; for example, two of the most common barriers to using services were fear that the children would be taken away, and fear of disease and death. This was particularly the case with health services, which ‘were traditionally places to die or places that removed kids’. The fear of child removal presents a particular challenge to engaging Indigenous people in early intervention and prevention services, including those provided by SFCS 2004–2009. Indigenous families may be reluctant to take up offers of individual home visiting, parenting support, counselling or educational or health services. This further reinforces the need to develop and build trust slowly. As one respondent put it:

Lots of things that have happened that can’t be changed overnight ... It takes time to build people’s trust again.

Current policies


SFCS 2004–2009 services faced additional challenges in building and maintaining trust with Indigenous families in the Northern Territory after June 2007 and the introduction of the Australian Government’s Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER).¹¹ During the focus groups and telephone consultations undertaken in early 2008, respondents noted that the NTER had at times strained the relationships between SFCS 2004–2009 service providers and community members, and complicated delivery of early childhood services, especially when the NTER was in its initial phases.

Many CfC stakeholders said community members found it difficult to differentiate between CfC service providers and NTER taskforce staff. Despite the CfC’s community development approach, in contrast to the NTER’s ‘top-down’ approach, both were perceived as ‘the authorities’ or ‘the government representatives’. Many community members were sceptical of service providers’ sincerity after the intervention began, which made it difficult to build and maintain community trust. This was evidenced by the decrease in CfC service attendance, the absconding of community members who were ‘running to the bush scared’ or avoiding service contact, and the difficulty in recruiting staff (because of competition from the taskforce).

After the election of the new Federal Government in November 2007, despite the continuation of the NTER until a review is completed (FaHCSIA 2008), the negative impact of the NTER on SFCS 2004–2009 service provision declined and community members became less reluctant to engage with SFCS 2004–2009 services.¹² It is unclear whether this decline was due to the election itself and the consequent change of government, or whether it was due to the communities’ increased familiarity with the NTER’s presence.

Summary

• Inappropriate venues and limited physical spaces within communities could affect service provision.
  • Changing venues and making council-owned venues available for services are simple, inexpensive actions that could increase service use in SFCS 2004–2009 sites.
• Lack of private, public or community transport hinders many Indigenous families’ access to SFCS 2004–2009 early childhood services. Services offering community transport (pick-up/drop-off services) and mobile services were successful in increasing access and engagement of Indigenous families.
  • Community asset mapping and planning should examine transport as well as service provision.
  • Services need flexibility in funding rules, such as purchasing of capital assets, for example, motor vehicles, to help facilitate transport and mobile services.
• The CfC model is substantially hindered in remote sites because remoteness implications were not factored into the funding or modelling:
  • poor accessibility to people with some places only accessible by air
  • the expense and scarcity of transport (limited flights and the unavailability of rental cars)
  • high living costs
  • high service delivery costs because of smaller and more geographically dispersed population
  • inability to compete with mining industry’s high pay for skilled staff
  • difficulties of scheduling meetings, events and appointments in tumultuous weather and wet seasons
  • use of multiple Indigenous languages and limited levels of English.
• The remote area issues could be partially addressed by:
  • ensuring future national or state and territory-based programs have different funding formulas and timelines for remote areas
  • encouraging fly-in/fly-out service providers to share flights to remote areas to decrease disruption to communities and offer savings and support networks for service providers
  • helping providers gain some understanding of the local languages
  • engaging a trusted local to support the service provider.
• Severe socioeconomic disadvantage and social problems (poor living conditions, transient populations, family disputes, tenancy instability, mental illness, domestic violence and substance abuse) make it difficult for families to prioritise early intervention and prevention service use:
  • Social problems need to be addressed before early intervention and prevention initiatives (or in association with them) if these programs are to be successful.
• Service providers should be mindful of the time needed to develop trusting relationships, and of how policies and practices, both historical and contemporary, can jeopardise trust and service use.
• Projects need to incorporate some flexibility to adapt to community context.
• There is no ‘one way’ to adapt programs to Indigenous contexts. Each community is different, and programs need to be adapted to local needs.
• Previous: Indigenous families and children
• Next: Sustainability

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