Our Troubled Youth – Some Answers

David Cole is the co-founder, with his wife Mim Cole, of the Northern Territory’s Balunu Foundation, an organisation that helps Indigenous youth at risk to break the negative cycle that leads to Indigenous disadvantage. The name Balunu comes from the Luritja language of Central Australia. Balunu means creation and this is what Balunu is about: the creation of strong youth, strong culture, strong leaders, for a strong future by breaking negative cycles and creating positive ones. On Tuesday 10 March 2015, David Cole joined Wendy McCarthy AO, Chair of Headspace, Matt Noffs, Founder of the Street University and Lane Hinchcliffe, Managing Director and Program Co-ordinator of Project 15 to speak on his experience of helping Australia’s troubled youth.

OUR TROUBLED YOUTH – SOME ANSWERS

 DAVID COLE

Firstly I’d like to pay respect to the local tribal owners, the Gadigal People.

As a nation, there is no question about the appalling state of affairs of the original tribes of these lands. I am the founding director of the Balunu foundation which is the Darwin based local Aboriginal charity that delivers cultural, therapeutic healing programs to at-risk youth and families in the Northern Territory. Balunu has been a vision of mine and my wife’s for the past 20 years. About 20 years ago, I asked my wife if we should pursue this journey; if we saved one life over 20 years was it worth it? Her response was, yes.

Our second pilot program, which we held over seven years ago, resulted in a young boy sitting on the beach with us after a healing session. As I turned to him, I could see the tears running down his eyes in the moonlight. I asked him, “How are you feeling?” His response was, “Uncle, thank you for bringing me out here. This weekend I planned to kill myself. By bringing me out here, it’s the first time I realised I could be kind to others; it’s the first time I realised others could be kind to me. And this was the first time I realised in my life that I have a purpose. Thank you Uncle for bringing me. You’ve saved my life.”

I stand here today and can say I’ve lost count of how many times that’s happened with our program. Today I bring to you a message from our elders. I share with you the desperation of our plight and, most importantly, I bring the voice of our children. They’re the ones who are often unheard.

A child once said to me, “Uncle, if I am so special then why am I alone. I just wish to be loved.” We must offer them guidance, protection and love, if we are to offer them hope. At present, we have reached a point of desperation, one which requires an urgent response and immediate action. The social challenges for Indigenous Australians which threatens every aspect of our lives, families, communities and cultures has reached a perilous position.

The escalating negative social indicators, which are consistently reflected in the government’s own report, must end. There has to be real accountability for the failures that continue. We must reverse the detrimental decline in the physical, emotional and mental wellbeing of Indigenous Australians. And no one is more at risk than our children.

Since first contact, the deterioration of the societal structures and cultural foundation has resulted in many forms of social dysfunction we confront today. The transfer of the intergenerational trauma has manifested into various forms of suffering through the generations. The social challenges are both complex, and difficult to resolve – with current efforts failing Indigenous people miserably. This must no longer be tolerated. It requires an intricate understanding of the two world views to implement effective solutions. It is very important that communities are provided with adequate resources to implement culturally appropriate solutions. This is the only way.

For far too long, Indigenous people at the grass roots have been ignored. They have had policies and solutions forced upon them which have failed. I often ask, when you have an issue with your car do you take it to the mechanic or the baker? You know, we’ve had enough of the bakers.

This is not to say that all solutions rest only with Indigenous people and Indigenous solutions. We’ve heard some great solutions here today. However, the current attempts are failing us miserably and government resources should be supporting programs that can display real and tangible outcomes. I’m aware of Headspace doing that rather than any tokenistic, easily attainable measures which look good on paper but don’t actually deliver any sustainable outcomes and thus the failure.

An industry has been created off the continued expansion of Indigenous social disadvantage. This industry is growing parallel to the increased trauma confronted by Indigenous Australians. In 2011, $25.4 billion was spent on Indigenous Affairs for just over 500,000 people, 2.6 per cent of the population and still we are achieving negative outcomes. In 2012-2013, the budget increased to $30.3 billion yet continued showing negative outcomes. A recent cost analysis of this expenditure revealed that less than $2 billion actually made it to the grass roots where people could actually touch, feel and benefit from the investment.

I raise the question as to how an industry can be built on the backs of Indigenous suffering, ignore the needs of the people and force solutions that fail and not be held to account. Governments need to be held to account not only by themselves but by the Australian people, while the voices of Indigenous people at the grass roots continued to be ignored, we must listen to them.

Even if you are able to ignore the humanistic factor of such failure you cannot deny the fact taxpayers dollars are being squandered on miserable attempts, achieving negative results with no accountability. Whether you read this from humanistic or financial positon, the fact is we must not accept this failure any longer.

The broad range of social challenges which affect Indigenous people are clearly highlighted in the government’s Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage reports. The areas of improvement in the recent OID report is drastically outweighed by the negatives that continues to expand. The negative results will ensure the continued destruction of Aboriginal culture, families and society. The Balunu foundation has identified through our statistics the various risk factors that children face. 90-95 per cent of youth participants were abusing alcohol. This is not only detrimental to their health but also leads to violence, crime, and antisocial behaviour, resulting in many of the kids coming into contact with the police, the justice system and ultimately detention.

A young boy said to me, “Uncle, I drink a bottle of rum every day so I don’t have to think about how dumb I am. I’m going to be nothing.” Too many of these youths see no future for themselves and lack self-esteem. Balunu strives to rebuild that self-esteem. 80 per cent of the kids who’ve entered our program are abusing drugs. Again, the health implications are enough and many youth are involved in crime or are placing themselves at high risk to access drugs.

This is resulting in many young girls being taken advantage of and being abused and far too many children are desperately trying to escape their reality through drugs.  Ninety per cent are smoking cigarettes. A report released by the Menzies School of Health said that tobacco smoking was responsible for 20 per cent of the national Indigenous deaths and 12.1 per cent of total national Indigenous burden of disease in 2003. The adverse distresses we see in the withdrawal from smoking among the youth in our program are very concerning and the risk of chronic diseases is very high in their future.

We will only see an increase in the death of Indigenous people through smoking cigarettes. A youth on the program actually said to me, “Uncle, it’s hard going without marijuana and grog. But the cigarettes are the only thing that are getting me through out here.” And they’re really desperate for it; it’s so scary.

Ninety per cent of the kids who enter our program are failing education. This is alarming because the government’s own reports identify that education is the greatest contributor to closing the gap. And what we’ve witnessed with the children in the current education system is the system’s failing them more than they’re failing the system.

The figures on violence show that 70-80 per cent of the kids are involved in violence. The Canadian healing foundation did a ten-year study and actually identified that any human being only has to experience two violent episodes in a 20-year lifespan to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The sad reality for most of our kids is they experience this in less than a week.

The violence can be from home, extended family, friends, school and community. A youth told me, “Uncle this program has helped me understand my problems. And I know now how to deal with them better. I feel stronger from coming out here.”

Youth suicide figures show that 80-85 per cent of the youth who attended our program have either tried to suicide or had suicidal ideology at the time that we met them. The Northern Territory has the highest youth suicide rates per capita in the world. In 1991, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Northern Territory represented five per cent of the suicide population. By 2010, this had increased to 50 per cent. The highest “at risk” category are 10-24 year olds. Our children. In 1991, the 10-24 year olds represented five percent of the suicide population. By 2010, this increased to 80 per cent. And what’s really scary is these statistics have increased over the last four years, they haven’t diminished. And that’s the reality that we face with our kids.

The Balunu Foundation has worked with over 650 youth and families and to date no youth who has completed are program has suicided. Although a number have attempted and many have self-harmed, many remain at risk and require greater follow up support which is not available due to a resource constraint. What we face is nothing short of an epidemic of youth suicides across Australian.

In the Northern Territory, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders represent 30 per cent of the population. However, we represent 98 per cent of the child imprisonment rate and 86 per cent of the adult imprisonment rate. This is 15 times the rate that non-Aboriginal people are being locked up.

I’m not surprised that people feel the Indigenous arena is a lost cause and financial support from mainstream philanthropic and corporate entities quite often think it’s a wasted cause. I assure you the cause is not lost. The resources are simply not directed to real and meaningful outcomes.

A people without knowledge of their past, origin and culture, is like a tree without roots. Identity is critical in this process. An extract from the elder’s report which is conducted by Cultures Life Campaigner, of which Balunu is a partner, promotes healing through culture, but I’d like to read a statement from a community leader and elder in Yuendumu – Uncle Harry Nelson:

There is no attention paid to young kids. There is no set program aside from what is worked out by the community to keep them busy. People are frustrated by what has happened since the intervention was introduced five years ago. We have been trying to convince the government that this was the wrong thing to do. In the opinion of the politicians they thought they were doing a good thing, but they have created a lot of damage in the history of the assimilation for our people. The power has to come back to the tribal people living on the land itself. We have been forced into living in two cultures. We must be able to maintain our culture and with that the responsibility of looking after our country, our land and our people, Knowing culture and country is so important to our people, the government’s ongoing approach is killing our people, because the power and responsibility has been taken away by the leaders and the elders.

I’m pleased to announce that we have been successful with the Indigenous advancement strategy funding announcement made recently by the federal government. Unfortunately for us, it’s still less than 40 per cent of what we need to deliver our program effectively. Balunu has partnered up with Papulu Appar-Kari in Tenant Creek which has a program called the Pace program. We’re going to be working with a lot of the kids in remote and regional areas who are having troubles in school. We’ll be bringing those kids to our healing retreat and working with them out of their environment. These part initiatives are critical in allowing us to maximise our potential with minimal resources. By partnering with key local stakeholders in the community, it also allows us to partner for the partnerships that will result in outcomes that are achieving success. We must find the resources to continue delivering programs that prevent the suicide, that’s critical.

Why does it work? We provide local solutions to local problems. However, Balunu offers a process that is transferable to any location. What brings power to the process is the local people, culture and knowledge. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr Bruce Parry, a world renowned child psychologist. I explained to Mr Parry that the government was looking for squares and we’ve had a circle. What do I do? I asked him Do I reshape the circle into a square. Bruce’s response to me was, “No. No. Whatever you do don’t do that.” He told me it had taken him over 30 years of working through science and the chemistry of the brain to work out what the American Indian elders were telling him 35 years ago. That it was simply relationships. It was about the relationships that you build. Ii is relationships that has brought Balunu’s greater success – we build relationships with the kids. We’re not there to help them, we build relationships and we support them through the process.

I’m a big believer that we are all born the same; we enter into this world as open spirit beings ready to absorb our experiences which shape our reality. I also believe there is no such thing as a bad child. There is only bad experiences which shape their reality. With the collision of two world views and ways of life conflicting at nearly every turn, our culture and connection to the land of which we are caretakers is very important to us. That is who we are and that is our ancestral right of retaining this identity and responsibility. It’s critical for Aboriginal people. But it is also important for you. Because your ancestors too once roamed the land, once were caretakers of the land. I really believe that by keeping our knowledge alive is not just for us but for the future generations. We also remind and connect you to who you are. We are all connected to mother earth and when we heal, so will you. You must remember who you are also. Cultural identity is not about physical appearance but rather a deeper spiritual connection and understanding of oneself, which is the foundation for personal growth. Without it we are lost, without purpose.

This country has been established at the expense and detriment to Aboriginal culture, people family and the tribes. The consequences of colonisation continue to maintain the dysfunctional position we find ourselves in, at no choice of our tribes. The social challenges are complex and can only be addressed through Aboriginal people and solutions with the support of non-indigenous people. We have to do this together. We cannot do this alone, we need your support.

However, you cannot do this for us, for you do not understand the issues and the challenges. What we need is a collaborative approach that is guided and delivered by Indigenous people with the support of non-Indigenous people. This is really about a partnership. We have had enough of the bakers. Allow us some mechanics, to take control and fix the problems and sort this broken vehicle out.

We cannot place complete responsibility on government funding alone to address the issues we face. A great deal of wealth has been derived from these lands and we ask the Australian people, corporations and the philanthropists to support us to help save our children, our families, our tribes and our culture from complete extinction. This is a social and moral responsibility and we welcome you on this journey.

I developed Balunu foundation as you would a railway system. The tracks have been laid, the destination has been chosen, healing, anyone is welcome to get on this train and travel this journey with us. I call it the train of hope as we add on as many carriages as we need to bring you on this journey. The cab has been built, we know the destination and we welcome you aboard.

In order to save the lives, strengthen our people, retain our culture and take advantage of education, training opportunities and employment, we must first allow for individuals to heal. Only then can they raise their heads above the suffering of pain and only then can they see opportunity before them. Opportunity to hold onto whom they are whilst they walk in two worlds, balanced and strong individuals who will break the negative intergenerational cycles of trauma and build strong health cycles for the future generations to come. We cannot rely solely on government.

We require financial support to improve on the great work we have achieved today. We have the solutions, all we lack is the ability. If you can support us, step forward, we do need your help. Balunu is a vision, from and for Aboriginal people. However, the journey and responsibility belongs to us all. We welcome all non-Indigenous people the opportunity to walk with us. I believe the past has brought us to where we are today but it is our collective actions today that will determine our tomorrow, if we are no better off tomorrow, because of lack of action today then we are all guilty here today.

The Balunu foundation provides solutions and aid to our youth, families and people. I once read, “A country is not a nation until all it’s people are walking unison.” Walk with us and together, let’s undo the injustices of the past by building a better tomorrow and transform this country into a nation which carries the pride and respect for the oldest living culture on this planet.