Bringing Them Home (BTH)

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About the Bringing Them Home program

The Bringing Them Home (BTH) Program, which supports a national network of counsellors to provide a support service for all Aboriginal people who have been affected (either directly or indirectly) by past government policies and practices regarding the removal of children from their families, is one component of a number of Australian Government initiatives addressing issues related to the social and emotional wellbeing of Indigenous peoples ^[1]. The other main components are the Mental Health Program, the Link-up program and the Social and Emotional Wellbeing Regional Centres (SEWB RC) program.

The Bringing Them Home (BTH) Program was established in 1997 as a part of the Australian Government’s response to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s publication Bringing Them Home that reported on the findings of an inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.

The BTH Program supports BTH counsellors to provide counselling to individuals, families and communities affected by past practices regarding the forced removal of children from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. There are 100 BTH counsellor positions nationally, situated within Aboriginal community-controlled health services that are run by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The Australian Government’s initial allocation of $63 million over the four year period 1998-2001, provided:

• $16m for the BTH Program
• $17m for education and training, including the SEWB RCs
• $11.25m for the establishment of a national network of Link-Up services
• $5.9m for parenting support programs
• $9m to support Indigenous languages and culture
• with the remainder to support smaller projects relating to archiving, preservation of records and oral history recordings.

Funding for the BTH Program, the Link-up Program and the SEWB RCs has now been rolled into the base funding of the Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA), and is allocated on an annual basis.

For 2006-2007, $24 million was allocated for the four programs: BTH Program, Link-Up Program, the SEWB RCs, and the Mental Health Programs. Of this, $11.11 million is allocated to the BTH Program.

The BTH Program was included in an independent evaluation undertaken by Urbis Keys Young for OATSIH. The report ‘Evaluation of the Bringing Them Home and Indigenous Mental Health Programs’ was publicly released on 9 May 2007. The evaluation found that:

• the Link Up and Bringing Them Home Counselling (BTHC) programs provided services to a large number of Indigenous clients, generally in culturally appropriate ways, who in most instances would not have received services otherwise;
• there is a generally high level of client satisfaction and positive outcomes for clients of the Link Up and BTHC Programs, and Mental Health Service Delivery Projects and a lower level of satisfaction with the Regional Centres;
• there is a significant level of unmet demand for the services, and services are under-resourced for the high workloads currently experienced;
• given the trans-generational impact of forced separation, the demand for services is likely to continue to be at least the same level for the foreseeable future;
• Mental Health Service Delivery Projects have long waiting lists and have limited capacity to respond to clients’ full range of needs; and
• there is a need for greater national consistency in service delivery in each of the programs.

Bringing Them Home counsellors

As noted above, the Australian Government initially allocated $16m over a four-year period for BTH counsellors. Due to additional demand, the initial commitment of 50 counsellors has now increased to over 100 BTH positions allocated across all States and Territories. The vast majority of the BTH counsellors are located in Aboriginal community-controlled health services (ACCHS). Two positions in Queensland (Cape York and the Torres Strait) are located with the Queensland Department of Health.

BTH counsellors provide counselling to Indigenous individuals, families and communities affected by past practices regarding the forced removal of children. BTH counsellors have a broad clientele as they respond to the needs of those removed, those who were left behind, and the children, grandchildren and relatives of all those affected by family separation practices.

The separation practices were widespread and caused emotional harm throughout families and across generations, so entire Indigenous communities are potentially in need of counselling.

BTH Counsellors had 39,300 client contacts in the 2004-05 financial year, up from around 36,700 in the previous year. These figures are probably an underestimate of the actual number of contacts, as data exclude contacts in group work and some services experienced difficulty with the reporting of the number of contacts.

Ideally, each BTH counsellor possesses both formal mental health qualifications and cultural sensitivity skills. This may not always be possible, but it is advisable that both skills are available within a BTH team.

The majority of BTH counsellors is Indigenous, though the proportion has declined slightly over the years, from 72% in 2001-02, to 62% in 2004-05. For 2006-07, 23% of BTH services reported operating without a BTH counsellor. This was a significant decrease over the 29% reported for 2002-03. At least in part, these data reflect the difficulties of recruiting and retaining appropriate counselling staff.

References

1. Wilczynski A, Reed-Gilbert K, Milward K, Tayler B, Fear J, Schwartzkoff J (2007) Evaluation of the Bringing Them Home and Indigenous Mental Health Programs, final report Canberra: Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health