Indigenous Programs

The Family Action Centre has a growing commitment to supporting indigenous communities and service organisations to deliver strength based approaches when working with families.

The Family Action Centre as a mainstream organisation, employs an indigenous worker, and builds partnerships with indigenous organisations in order to promote strength based approaches, disseminate the outcomes and develop culturally appropriate resources.

Our main current programs are:

• The Nar-un-bah and Thou Walla Engaging Aboriginal Fathers Project which will enhance the capacity of Aboriginal men who have current or future parenting responsibilities (e.g., fathers, pops, and uncles). The project will engage Aboriginal men in a range of local informal and formal healing activities, events, and workshops with a focus on reconnecting to culture and the role of fathers in growing their children strong. (Funded by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation.)
  
• Brothers Inside and Outside which is working with the Muswellbrook Aboriginal community to engage Aboriginal fathers. We are providing facilitation training to local Aboriginal community workers, two Brothers Inside workshops in St Heliers Correctional Centre (at Muswellbrook), two Brothers Outside workshops (which is a community based version of Brothers Inside), and consulting the local community about further strategies for engaging Aboriginal fathers. (Funded by the Aboriginal Development Consultative Committee.)
  
• Supporting the trial of Healthy Dads, Health Kids for Aboriginal fathers.
  
• Working in the Dubbo community to develop a set of posters targeting Aboriginal fathers.
  
• Brothers Inside, which conducts fathering workshops with Aboriginal prison inmates is run whenever we have some available funds.

Past programs include:

• Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) "Parenting and Men: Posters for Aboriginal and Islander communities"
  
• Kia Kia Engaging Aboriginal Fathers project which ran three workshops for local family, health and community workers on strategies to successfully engage Aboriginal fathers, and conducted a series of focus groups to explore challenges faced in engaging Aboriginal fathers and successful strategies.
  
• So Now You're A Dad was a DVD produced by Craig Hammond. In the DVD, aimed at first-time Aboriginal fathers, men from all walks of life candidly discuss their mixed feelings, from fear for their partner's health to their sense of joy at becoming a father. These dads all embrace fatherhood and demonstrate the strengths and skills that helped them through this emotionally draining but exhilerating moment in their lives. This collaborative project was coordinated by Craig and funded by UnitingCare Burnside, a member of the UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families Services of UnitingCare NSW/ACT.
  
• The Researching Indigenous Fatherhood in Australia Seminar

Through these strategies the Family Action Centre assists organisations, communities, families and individuals to strengthen their capacity to achieve sustainable outcome for indigenous children.

For more information contact Craig Hammond on 4921 6821 or craig.hammond@newcastle.edu.au