Building Sustainable Partnerships Seminar - 11 March 2008
"Building sustainable partnerships: Aboriginal community-controlled and generalist organisations learning together "
Tuesday 11 March 2008
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
Muriel Bamblett, CEO
Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency
Building the bridge: Making partnerships real between Aboriginal and mainstream services
In this presentation, Muriel reflected on her experiences of partnership formation and reflected on the learnings so far from VACCA’s work on developing the Cultural Competence Framework with DHS and the Aboriginal Child and Family Services Network.
Download Muriel Bamblett's presentation (PowerPoint)
PANEL PRESENTATIONS
John Lawrence, CEO
Kilmany UnitingCare
Download John Lawrence's speaking notes (Word)
Helen Burt, Director of Services
MacKillop Family Services
Building respectful partnerships with Aboriginal child and family welfare organisations
Download Helen Burt's presentation (PowerPoint)
Seminar Objectives
- Document and share the key learnings to date of partnering relationships between Aboriginal community-controlled and generalist organisations, in both metropolitan and regional areas.
- Demonstrate the value of walking side-by-side in developing improved ways of working to achieve better outcomes for Aboriginal children, families and communities.
- Bring together the pool of knowledge and good practice in partnering relationships, particularly: what worked, what didn’t, what were the stumbling blocks, what strategies were used to overcome these?
- Provide an opportunity for networking and sharing effective practice.
- Identify the key steps that organisations need to undertake in developing and maintaining effective partnering relationships.
Next steps
We are currently collating the feedback from the day and will use this to inform the range of steps that VCOSS will undertake to support and strengthen the development of partnering relationships between Aboriginal community-controlled and generalist organisations.
One of the steps will be the development of a policy brief which will draw on the presentations and discussions from the seminar so as to share more broadly the key learnings from partnering relationships between Aboriginal community-controlled and generalist organisations. This will shortly be made available on the VCOSS website – so keep a look out for it.
Artist: Jodie Cadd - Gunditjmara
The tree represents our culture which stems from the land. Within the tree holds the children (yellow fruit) and the extended family (red fruit) and the community (the leaves). The black tracks that lead into the tree with the white tracks beside it represent VACCA and the Aboriginal community walking alongside with DHS and mainstream CSOs. From each of the meeting places DHS and mainstream CSOs are able to learn more about Aboriginal people and eventually appreciate and understand more about our culture and we are better enabled to navigate our way around the dominant culture.
This picture is not just about compliance to a new system of care which respects Aboriginal people and their culture. It is about creating communities of embrace and reconciliation. It is a vision of the future for a social and cultural environment where our children are loved and valued for who they are and our children’s culture and heritage is valued as a positive and vibrant part of our shared heritage as Victorians.
The Building Sustainable Partnerships Seminar is supported by:
