LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

balances and taps into behavioural economics to incentivise positive actions and nudges individuals towards their targets. Incentive vouchers can also be earned. Because it has been co-designed with our local young people and families, uptake of this Platform has been very promising, with trials doubling targets. In most of our remote communities banking services are limited so building these digital capabilities, to be in control and confident with bills and finances, and watching your own progress (in the palm of your hand) is very empowering.

This project has shown us how important it is to keep innovating through technology to improve access and opportunity, by building innovative individual and family development products.

These tech solutions are bridging the gap in uptake of opportunities and encouraging people to participate in areas where these groups may not usually get involved. While incentive challenges and nudges encourage individual action, they also embrace wider behavioural interventions that include social determinants as influential factors to self-development. For example, a fitness/lifestyle steps challenge has motivated and brought together people and groups around positive actions.

Many language communities in Cape York, through the digital innovations of Pama Language Centre, are immersing and learning through social media (YouTube) and Augmented Reality to bring language back in to homes and everyday life.

By using these active engagement platforms our people report feelings of self-esteem, power and control over their personal affairs. Our goal is to build resilience and potential to reach our young people in effective ways to enhance self-efficacy.

I would like to make special mention of Joel Johnson of Yarrabah, a CYLP Secondary Academic Leader who continued into the Tertiary Leaders Program. Joel graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from Queensland University of Technology at the beginning of this year and is now working as a lawyer in Cairns. He is one of many who spent the best part of 10 years with us as we support them (and their families) to stay on track. He is now looking forward to building a “stable life for his family”. Of our 2020 CYLP cohort, 72% of graduates are in work or undertaking further studies.

In a briefing to State and Commonwealth governments the Family Responsibilities Commission (FRC) shared findings spanning 12 years of Indigenous-led reform assisting clients and families in Aurukun, Coen, Doomadgee, Hope Vale and Mossman Gorge to address complex anti-social behaviours. The FRC provides people with early and rapid referral to supports provided by our O-Hub services (and other programs) so they have a real opportunity to take positive action to address problems before formal intervention by government.

In the briefing Commissioner Williams, the FRC’s first Indigenous commissioner (appointed in 2019), said while it is widely accepted that it would take at least one generation (30 years) to unwind the complex behavioural response to many generations of chronic levels of passive welfare, social dysfunction and economic exclusion within the welfare reform communities, the data shows positive trends emerging in these communities in half the time.

It is important to note that the FRC has been operating for less than half a generation in these communities and six and a-half years in Doomadgee, yet there is a clear and evidenced shift. A 69% decrease in child safety investigations has been reported in FRC communities in stark contrast to the statewide upward trend of notifications for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. This means our children are safer and less likely to be removed to out-of-home care, our communities have increased housing stability, and our communities are becoming safer—experiencing fewer serious offences. Through our O-Hubs we were able to advise that 81% of these clients continued to engage with the O-Hub after their FRC case plan term had expired by choosing to access further O-Hub resources, such as Student Education Trust support, or continuing to engage with the MPower program on a voluntary basis. On one hand this data illustrates the relevance of the O-Hub’s broad service offering to clients and their needs. It also highlights in positive terms the willingness and motivation of clients to seek continued support—indicative of an improved self-awareness and insight—elements necessary to facilitate long-term behavioural change.

This work is based on the principle of Indigenous local authority and is a primary example of self-determination. The leadership shown by the FRC Local Commissioners in restoring socially responsible standards of behaviour and having hard conversations with community members about the primary responsibility they have for the wellbeing of their families has reinstated Elder authority to an inspiring level. Our O-Hubs play a critical role in backing the Local Commissioners to provide the support needed to their clients.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you’d like to talk further about our work or contribute to this empowerment agenda.

Congratulations to CYLP Tertiary Leader, Joel Johnson of Yarrabah, who graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from QUT. To celebrate International Women’s Day in March, I was delighted to invite students Aaliyah Brim from Girl Academy and Myar Booth Shepherd from Djarragun College to shadow me for the day as Co-CEOs.