Culturally appropriate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led strategies are critical to improving the educational outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students (Graham et al., 2022). Recognising the role trauma plays in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives and communities is essential for safe and respectful practice (Tujague & Ryan, 2021). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture is a source of strength and resilience, integral to developing effective models for working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, staff, families, and communities (Tujague & Ryan, 2021). It is crucial that school staff are trauma-informed, as implementing culturally safe, trauma-informed practices creates a safe environment for everyone, fostering respectful, kind, and caring interactions. Additionally, acknowledging that staff have their own trauma histories that may influence their interactions is important.

At the Murri School, we recognise that to implement culturally safe trauma-informed practices across the school, we must prioritise the wellbeing of our staff. This presentation will share the journey of developing our culturally safe trauma-informed staff wellbeing model, which is an integral part of the Murri School Way. By focusing on staff wellbeing, we aim to create a supportive and resilient school community that can better serve our students and their families.

This presentation features the production and evaluation of a film for educators: challenging the mainstream narrative and stimulating critical reflection to develop ‘context-informed’ teacher agency for those new to remote schools.

Time Trails: Kowanyama
History & Families in Remote Far North Queensland

This resource aims to address some of the major challenges for teachers in remote schools – adapting to new cross-cultural postings, understanding the difficult behaviours they experience in the classroom, and developing authentic relationships with students and community members.

The film was created in Kowanyama in 2021. Framed by a socio-historical presentation by Dr Ernest Hunter, community members share stories from their lived experiences of events featured in the presentation.

In it, Dr Hunter responds to a common school and clinical presentation – a fourteen-year-old student from a home context of instability and disadvantage in crisis – expanding the scope of understanding to encompass three generations of dramatic social change, highlighting the far-reaching impacts of socio-historical factors on family life and child development. The story is framed within a history of the Queensland Government’s management of Indigenous populations in Cape York and integrates 30 years of locally-specific mental health research findings.

TAKE TWO: Performative evaluation of Time Trails: Kowanyama

Nobody knows where the saying it takes a village to raise a child originated, other than from somewhere in Africa. But it applies to communities around the world and is perhaps most obvious where it is the ties of family and bonds of tradition, rather than the social accoutrements of privilege, that are foundational – such as remote Aboriginal communities like Kowanyama on the western coast of Cape York.

The institutions of the wider society that are tasked with supporting optimal child development can only effectively do so through relationships of trust that are built on respect and reflection. To support such relationships the SUN program has engaged teachers in workshops to clarify the intercultural historical contexts that inform the current circumstances – and challenges – confronting contemporary students and their families.

Time Trails is a digital record of that process in which the presentation is grounded through the voices of Kowanyama residents across three generations. The performative evaluation seeks to document that process and explore the challenges of integrating the historical record with lived experiences. It is as much – if not more – about the process that brought us together, as the digital product that resulted.

Taikurrendi is a calm, kind and grounded place of learning. The name Taikurrendi was gifted to us by Elders before we were built, and comes from the Kaurna language meaning, ‘to be mixed together’ which has provided the songline of, learning, culture and community mixed together.
We have developed over time a range of teaching and learning approaches which support inclusion and diversity, embedded with cultural responsiveness and humility. This is informed by our desire to delve deeper with our understanding about brain development, trauma informed practice, ethics and rights based education and educator responsiveness and reflection. We draw on the expertise within our team and across disciplines, always guided by the provocation of ensuring we bring to our context what our own First nation knowledge holders can inform. Our whole site approach to learning has been informed by engagement with the DfE Trauma Informed Schools Initiative, Berry Street Model of Education including a collective of aligned approaches which we draw on to scaffold and drive learning outcomes for children. We recognise the strengths of our community and are also tuned into the very real challenges which exist. We make a commitment every day for every child to provide an environment for them, to be ready to learn, to experience wonder, and have connection and a sense of agency in their learning.
The Taikurrendi interdisciplinary team consists of educators and administrative support, allied health practitioners and DHS family support team of an Aboriginal family practitioner and community development worker.
We offer full time preschool for 60-80 children and sessional occasional care, and early entry 3 year olds ( Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children, children in out of home care) and children with additional rights. We are a site which has a large cohort of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children and families who engage with our education and care and family support programs.
When I reflect on the impact on children’s learning in our site, how our families engage and fostering a learning community, it is always in the context of the work the Taikurrendi team undertake together. In the workshop I look forward to sharing, with a sense of reciprocity, trauma informed strategies that we have embedded in our practice, challenges and delights we have experienced as an interdisciplinary team working alongside our children, families, colleagues and community and how we aspire every day to honour children in our learning environment.

This workshop will explore the principals of cultural safety when working with First Nations peoples from both a macro and micro perspective. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in reflective practice to understand what Cultural Safety means in the education setting and how we can move away from tokenism and into meaningful engagement. This workshop will support participants to identify current gaps in policy and practice, and provide strategies for education professionals on how to increase Cultural Safety for First Nations young peoples.