A basis for our work:

1. Gunawirra is a model of Excellence: That means using senior, skilled professionals in the mother/infant mental health field. It means limiting the project to a smaller rather than larger number, to have real emotional depth and research applied.
2. Gunawirra excellence is Repeatable: We work in strategic partnership with government agencies that can leverage our “small models of perfection” and re-iterate them into the broader community. It’s why our partnering with Aboriginal Health, Southern Cross University, Macquarie University Multi Lit, DET, National Catholic University Social Work Department, La Trobe University Melbourne, Catholic Care Enmore, and others, is so important to Gunawirra.
3. The real value of Gunawirra work to Aboriginal women and their babies does not come from viewing them through racial, economic, social or political prisms (though these inform who they are) but from treating each mother and child as individuals whose needs are special to them.
4. Gunawirra contracts Aboriginal and non Aboriginal workers who know their communities, the people and the culture.

What are Gunawirra’s aims?

Gunawirra’s programs target families who are in danger of current and future abuse through drug and alcohol, physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse and especially mental illness. The 2004 Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey found that 24% of all Aboriginal children were at high risk of clinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties. We know that these statistics are not unique from one state to another and continue to be at a similarly critical level in NSW.

Gunawirra has been accepted to make a presentation at the United Nations Conference in August 2010, to be held in Melbourne. Its focus will be the value of early intervention and prevention as a better alternative to care than treatment.

Gunawirra as an Early Intervention Model

Gunawirra’s premise is that unless the cycle of mental health related abuse is broken, the gap that separates Australia’s indigenous and non-indigenous people can never be closed. The future will have no inbuilt preventative models and methods — parents will unconsciously visit on their children what was done to them. Parents and children need to be assessed and treated simultaneously in order for mental health to be improved within a family.

Further, our experience has been that alcohol and substance abuse are inextricably linked to mental health. And, unless Aboriginal (or indeed non-Aboriginal) families are healthy — both physically and mentally — the resulting trauma to children greatly impedes their most basic capacity to learn. Without that learning, Aboriginal children will never be empowered to break the secondary cycle of poverty condemning them to the fringes of Australian society.

Consultation with Community

Our 20 founding members all have anything from 10 to 30 + years experience in their field of expertise, individually — many have worked over many years at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Aboriginal Maternity Unit and/or the Children’s Hospital Camperdown. We continue to consult with the Aboriginal experts in DET, early education and health on a weekly basis.

Additionally, we work in tandem with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal professionals from the childcare, health and education sectors — all of whom are given continuing professional training to help deliver Gunawirra’s programs. The ongoing consultative process also includes our clients — particularly the young mothers who are our focus. Indeed all Gunawirra’s programs work on a consultative basis with community and large Departments, as an integral part of their operation.

Aims

• Harm Prevention — reduced likelihood of trauma and/or destructive behavour being passed from generation to generation.
• Support  communication between worker and parent to explore both the parent’s strengths and under-developed capacities, and so protect themselves against drugs, alcohol and family violence.
• Trauma Recovery — reduced impacts of trauma and grief on individuals and communities
• Short Term Crisis Response — increased stabilisation of the immediate wellbeing of people in crisis
• Relationships — improved linkages and/or relationships between professional agencies and individuals with a role to place in the healing
• Develop the basics of attachment between infants, children, mothers and fathers
• Think about the traumatic effects of the parents’ early life, with the aim of changing their future in a positive manner.
• Improve parenting skills by observsing parent/child interactions; teaching parents how to better respond to and understand their child’s needs (see Marte Meo)
• Involving the children’s family and the greater community in the care, education, development and growth of the parent as a person
• Creating a greater understanding of the importance of and commitment to nutrition, physical care, parent-teacher interaction and other family planning and life skills
• Providing children and families with the opportunity to connect with their Aboriginal culture and the land, to learn about nurturing and growth, the dreamtime and bush tucker.