Second progress report on delivering the actions in the Joint Secretaries' Statement

On 23 June 2022, the West Metro Aboriginal community shared its stories about the many challenges experienced by families in the West due to a lack of culturally safe supports, services and resources.

In response, the Secretaries of participating departments made a shared commitment to work with the West Metro Regional Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committee (WMRAJAC) to deliver twelve actions through a Joint Secretaries’ Statement (Statement). The first report back on our progress was published in December 2022.

The participating departments are:

• Department of Health (External link)
• Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (External link)
• Department of Education (External link)
• Department of Justice and Community Safety (External link)

We understand that engaging community voices in the delivery of these actions is vital to achieving the outcomes community is seeking. That is why we have committed to continuing engagement with community as we work towards delivering these actions.

We have also heard that this engagement can be challenging for community to manage alongside other complex and competing demands. In response, the departments and WMRAJAC chairs have decided to extend the life of the Statement, with a further report back later in the year. This ensures we can prioritise the quality of work we deliver on actions that need further community engagement.

This report back brings together updates that are a direct response to issues raised by the community and addressed in the Statement. It also includes updates that are directly relevant to what is happening in the West Metro area, yet which are being progressed independently of a specific response to the Forum.

Further consultation and partnership will be critical to informing and furthering a self-determined approach to addressing service delivery challenges in the West. This work will occur in the context of the Victorian Government’s broader commitment to working with the First Peoples’ Assembly and undertaking good faith Treaty negotiations.​

Consultation for a new community gathering space (action 1)

Community, in partnership with Brimbank-Melton Council, has established Cooinda, a new gathering space in Sunshine. The Department of Justice and Community Safety (DJCS) is exploring opportunities to support the establishment and fit-out to ensure the space meets the needs of community.

DJCS is also working with the West Metro Regional Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committee (WMRAJAC) to consult community leaders to make sure gathering spaces can help achieve community ambitions of self-determination, self-governance, and culturally safe service delivery.

Community capacity building (action 2)

A report back on findings from consultations on what Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations need to build their capacity will be provided at the next report back. In the meantime, there are some significant, related updates that are relevant to the West Metro area.

The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) established the Aboriginal Self-Determination and Outcomes Division. Key leadership positions have been filled, including:

• Deputy Secretary
• Executive Director
• Director West Division.

DFFH and the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA) have developed and delivered three workshops over the past six months to improve outcomes for Aboriginal children and families. The workshops were attended by:

• VACCA
• DFFH
• community service organisations.

Cultural planning, review, and learning are in place as part of a community of practice approach that supports outcomes for children. The community of practice approach encompasses a combination of:

• policies (including some legislative measures)
• procedures
• supporting advice
• tools
• communications, and
• meetings for all front-line staff.

These development opportunities focus on putting cultural safety at the heart of service delivery. They also provide networking opportunities and improved service navigation.

The Department of Health’s (DH) Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing Partnership Forum (AHWPF) is the lead decision-making body for Aboriginal health and wellbeing in Victoria. Aboriginal members of the AHWPF identified a set of self-determined priorities for reforming the health system to improve the health and wellbeing outcomes of Aboriginal people living in Victoria, which were accepted as shared priorities of the AHWPF. Government has committed to progressing these priorities.

One of these priorities was the development of a 10-year Victorian Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing Partnership Agreement (the Agreement) which was endorsed in 2023. The Agreement is a commitment from AHWPF members to work together to implement the key reforms through the development and implementation of two-year Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing Partnership Action Plans (Action Plans). The Agreement and Action Plans are strongly aligned to Victoria’s commitments under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. View the 2023–2025 Action Plan (External link)

Government is committed to ensuring all actions within the Action Plans are implemented within the two-year cycles. These actions are important steps along the journey towards a shared vision of Aboriginal people having access to a health system that is holistic, culturally safe, accessible, and empowering.

Implementation of the actions within these plans is everyone’s responsibility. The entire health sector must be committed to working together in way that is guided by self-determination, cultural safety, accountability and transparency.

New models of care (action 3)

This action responds to the message that departments and services need to work better together to intervene earlier and provide more culturally informed and complete supports.

The Department of Families, Fairness, and Housing (DFFH) is funding a new initiative in the West Metro area – the Early Help Family Service (External link) (the Service) – which aims to better support Aboriginal families in the West. It is a joint initiative of:

• the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA)
• Anglicare Victoria
• Tweddle.

The Service trials evidence-based early help to families to support the wellbeing and development of children from birth to 18 years. This partnership provides a service to meet the needs of children and families and uphold a commitment to Aboriginal self-determination while being responsive to people’s many needs and identities.

The 2023–24 Budget includes $140 million over 4 years to expand Aboriginal-led service delivery. DFFH will report back on the implementation arrangements for this funding in the next report back.​

To support the immediate social and emotional wellbeing needs of Aboriginal communities in Melbourne’s west, Kirrip Aboriginal Corporation has been provided with one-off funding of $200,000 by the Department of Health (DH) to bolster their social and emotional wellbeing services in the region, including the Melton area. This investment will help Kirrip Aboriginal Corporation deliver culturally specific social and emotional wellbeing models of care to local Aboriginal communities in the region with the employment of three counsellors. DH is exploring ways to support the long-term sustainability of Aboriginal social and emotional wellbeing services in Melbourne’s western metropolitan region.

DH has provided ongoing funding for the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (VAHS) to support Aboriginal families in the West Metropolitan region by expanding the reach of their Aboriginal Maternal and Child Health (MCH) program. The Aboriginal MCH program aims to improve access to and participation in universal MCH services through culturally responsive and flexible service delivery for Aboriginal mothers, families and children from birth to starting school.

The Child and Family Health and Wellbeing Locals bring together partners in:

• child health
• mental health, and
• family services.

They deliver integrated care to families with children experiencing developmental, emotional, behavioural and relational challenges from birth to 11 years. A service has recently commenced in the Brimbank Melton area led by IPC Health in partnership with Western Health and the Royal Children’s Hospital. The service is committed to innovative, holistic and culturally safe care for the diverse range of communities in the area and the model has been developed through co-design with the local community. The Aboriginal community have been engaged through the Kirrip Aboriginal Corporation as a key local partner. The community continue to participate in the co-design and operation of the model to ensure that culturally safe and self-determined care can be delivered to local Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander children and their families.

DH is building the capacity and sustainability of Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) to deliver additional ‘episodes of care’ to reduce the increasingly high rates of potentially preventable hospitalisations in Aboriginal Victorian communities. The objective is to improve equitable access to health services that are culturally appropriate and informed by Aboriginal ways of ‘Knowing, Being and Doing’ using cultural models of care.

DH continues to provide Aboriginal Cultural Safety Fixed Grants and Aboriginal Health Innovation Initiative funding to health services in the West to achieve culturally safe health programs and services to Aboriginal people locally.

Funding allocations (action 4)

Information on how funds allocated to mainstream services are being used will be provided at the next report back. The update below details related work underway across Victoria, but directly relevant to this issue for the West Metro community.

The Department of Families Fairness and Housing (DFFH) has advised that child and family service organisations are embedding key practice roles to support cultural safety and connection through practice, training and partnership building.

DFFH is also looking at how our systems can better identify and act on opportunities from across the funded sector for capacity building within Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) to improve services for Aboriginal children and families.

The Department of Health (DH) has transitioned to a four-year agreement to support ACCOs to further strengthen their capacity and sustainability. All ACCOs eligible for this arrangement have been notified. Work will commence in 2023–24 to develop outcomes-based measures with funded organisation. This work aims to reduce the reporting burden for funded ACCOs through the development of an agreed monitoring and reporting structure.

DH is partnering with Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO) and five health services in a long-term collaboration focusing on cultural safety in hospitals. The participating health services are:

• Bendigo Health
• St Vincent’s Health
• Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre/Royal Melbourne Hospital
• Castlemaine Hospital
• Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital.

They will work together to:

• identify barriers and opportunities to improve cultural safety for Aboriginal people at a local level
• select priority opportunities at each location and co-design actions that will deliver the greatest impact for Aboriginal cultural safety, and
• implement tailored solutions in selected Victorian hospitals.

Learnings from this collaboration will be used to inform health services across Victoria.

Improving support for carers (action 6)

The Care Support Helpdesk has been established and is delivering support to carers, prioritising carers of Aboriginal children. The service:

• provides a dedicated contact point for new and established statutory kinship and foster carers who need help with individual issues
• supports carers for children entering care for the first time by ensuring they have the required identification documents and supports in place.

All carers in West Metro and across the Division will now also receive a Welcome Pack advising of the Care Support Helpdesk, and a range of other resources available to help support them.​

In May 2023, a once-off, supplementary payment of $650 per placement was made to support carers with day-to-day costs.​

Improving cultural safety in prisons (action 10)

In its final report, Safer Prisons, Safer People, Safer Communities (External link), the Cultural Review of the Adult Custodial Corrections System (the Review) found a lack of culturally safe supports and services is a problem in Victoria’s prisons.

The independent Review made 16 recommendations about Aboriginal cultural safety. Government agrees with the Review that long-term change is needed in the prison system, especially to:

• make it more culturally safe, and
• better support Aboriginal staff and Aboriginal people in custody.

In response to the Review’s recommendations, this year we will:

• work with the Aboriginal Justice Caucus to appoint a new Assistant Commissioner, Aboriginal Services
• start a review of all prison infrastructure to consider how we can improve cultural safety and access to Aboriginal cultural spaces
• open an Aboriginal Healing Unit at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre to give culturally safe rehabilitation support to Aboriginal women in custody (the Healing Unit will be run by an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation), and
• start work on creating a lived experience reference group, including Aboriginal members, to make sure we hear the voices of those affected by the prison system.

The Review heard from many Aboriginal people in custody, Aboriginal staff and other Aboriginal groups. The Government will continue to listen to these important voices to make sure we get this right.

The Corrections Victoria Deputy Commissioner, Offender Services presented to the West Metro RAJAC on the Cultural Review in May and has committed to further engagement with the RAJAC as implementation progresses.

Further detail on how culturally safe and therapeutic approaches are being improved in Victoria’s prisons will be provided at the next report back.

Cultural safety in schools (action 11)

You told us Aboriginal children are still experiencing culturally unsafe teaching and bullying due to racism in our schools. To address this, the Department of Education (DE) are:

• delivering Cultural Understanding and Safety Training (CUST) to schools in Brimbank-Melton and Western Melbourne. Ninety-seven per cent of schools in Brimbank-Melton have received this training
• providing refresher workshops to schools to nurture their understanding of Koorie Learners and Culture. The Koorie Education Workforce will deliver these throughout 2023
• informing schools in Brimbank-Melton and Western Melbourne about the supports available through the Koorie Education Workforce
• delivering 12 workshops to strengthen the capacity of school principals to support inclusion (SPPIKE) and 4 school-wide SPPIKE extension programs. In partnership with Leading with Strength, SPPIKE workshops will be delivered to principals in the Hobsons Bay Network, with workshops for Brimbank-Melton and Western Melbourne in 2023, to strengthen capacity to support inclusion and address bias.

Community engagement (action 12)

You told us that the way we engage with community is confusing, difficult, and doesn’t fix the issues you raise. To address this:

• we are recruiting a Community Engagement and Project Lead to drive this work in partnership with the West Metro Regional Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committee (WMRAJAC) and the West Metro Strategic Executive (WISE), which has representatives from across government to ensure we are delivering a collective response
• we will work with existing Aboriginal community engagement positions across portfolios who already help to take up community concerns, and
• once the community-driven process is in place, the WISE will play a key role developing a more responsive and coordinated approach to ensure issues are responded to in a holistic way.

Embedding lasting change

The Joint Secretaries’ Statement is the first step towards responding to the issues raised by the community. The Statement also commits to developing an action plan, in partnership with community, to progress the work we have started together. This plan will support ongoing work to embed greater cultural safety across government-funded services and programs.

We recognise this partnership with community will be ongoing and invite your feedback, questions, or reflections. There will be more opportunities for us to talk with and listen to you about how we can design and deliver services to support you better. We will keep you updated on the progress and results of our conversations through community channels such as Deadly Western Connections.

You can reach us through:

• the West Metro RAJAC
• the Department of Families Fairness and Housing West Division Aboriginal Governance Group, or
• the WISE.