Aboriginal Engagement

Connections has a strong commitment to Aboriginal people and their community. We are actively working to develop culturally appropriate services that are guided by the Aboriginal community.

We are forging and building partnerships to ensure that we are improving our understanding, responsiveness and work with Aboriginal families.

Connections is actively improving cultural awareness and competencies at all levels of the organisation from the Board of Governance, Senior Management and all staff.

    We have...
  • Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA) co-located at Connections Blackburn office, creating an interface at Inner East Child FIRST and co-working of cases across the Eastern Region,
  • a part-time position based at the Dandenong & District Aboriginal Co-operative Ltd,
  • involvement in the Indigenous Health/Healing Expo with VACCA supporting Aboriginal communities ability to access services,
  • plans for an Indigenous garden for the Aboriginal community to foster a welcoming environment at Connections Blackburn office,
  • formed a partnership with Playgroup Victoria to run a Koori Playgroup at the Autumn Place Kindergarten in Doveton. This successful partnership has enabled Indigenous families attending the Koori playgroup to have access to and become familiar with a kindergarten environment,
  • an organisational commitment to recognise Aboriginal people through acknowledgment at meetings and events and plaques and flags in the entrance to every Connections office that acknowledge Aboriginal people as the traditional owners of the lands and waters,
  • a commitment to mutual learning and professional development exchange with Aboriginal organisations,
  • a commitment to provide ongoing cultural awareness training to staff and to incorporate cultural competence as a core underpinning in our policy development and strategic planning, and
  • an aim to develop linkages, improve understanding and professional practice, and provide a reciprocal learning exchange to provide leadership and modelling of collaborative partnership relationships.

In an effort to highlight our work we have developed two very interesting case studies of people working with us, including with the VACCA/Connections co-located staff member and also with the VACCA representative working with us on cultural awareness training. Download the case studies here:

 Case Study Vicky Peters

 Case Study Megan Cadd-Van Den Berg

Family Services Information

As well as reading the case studies (above) and as a way of providing a link to the Connections core-business and a fantastic resource provided by VACCA we suggest obtaining a copy of the publication:

Working with Aboriginal children and families: A guide for child protection, and child and family welfare workers.

This publication (that links to a workshop for mainstream child and family welfare services working with Aboriginal children and families) and other very useful resources can be found and purchased at the VACCA website www.vacca.org

Find out more about the organisations we are working with to ensure that we develop culturally appropriate services that are guided by the Aboriginal community (click on their names below).

Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency

Dandenong & District Aboriginal Co-operative Ltd

Uniting Church Information

Connections is keeping a close eye on the progressive and important steps being discussed and taken by the Uniting Church in Australia acknowledging and recognising traditional owners, including changes to the Preamble of its Constitution.

Rev. Alistair Macrae, President National Assembly, Uniting Church in Australia, has written an opinion piece describing the acknowledgement and recognition of traditional owners.

'The Uniting Church recently became the first major Christian denomination in Australia to commence processes to formally acknowledge, in the Preamble to its Constitution, Australia's traditional owners and their pre-existing relationship with the Creator God. The church also acknowledged its complicity in dispossessing the First People of Australia from their land, culture and spirituality,' said Rev. Macrae.

Rev. Macrae was installed as president of the Uniting Church in Australia at the 12th triennial Assembly in Sydney on 15 July, 2009. He has further said that we need '...to address more effectively the massive challenges facing Australia's Indigenous peoples, and to identify and overcome the significant obstacles to meaningful reconciliation in this land.'

Connections is keenly aware of the importance of the changes and commentary in Crosslight (newspaper of the Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania) highlights this. 'Adopting a new Preamble places the tragic history of the invasion of Australia at the centre of the Uniting Church's witness. The church now defines itself in terms of its relationship with people dispossessed by colonization,' the publication noted as part of the discussion on these changes.

It should be noted that the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC) is formally recognised and enabled within the Constitution of the Uniting Church as having responsibility for oversight of the ministry of the Church with the Aboriginal and Islander people of Australia.

For more information on the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress can be found on the UAICC website www.uaicc.org.au

Download a copy of Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners featuring a painting by Jodie Cadd (Gunditjmara) called 'The Right Path'.

 Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners