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Good Liaan - Kids Future
‘Liaan’ is a term used by Bardi people to express their physical, emotional and spiritual state and their relationship to the world. Around Derby it has become common knowledge that anyone visiting Jalaris on the Aboriginal Reserve is likely to feel good in their ‘liaan'.
Jasmine Francis, one of Jalaris’ Aboriginal Education workers defines the liaan feeling at Jalaris as, ‘to feel real comfortable’. Creating ‘good liaan’ in the children and families that come to Jalaris is vital, as limited employment opportunities, family breakdown, the legacy of dispossession and dislocation in the Aboriginal community has had enormous impact on individual well-being in Derby.
For 14 years Jalaris has coordinated a holistic, early intervention approach to supporting the health and wellbeing of parents and young children. Working with community health and service agencies in the region, Jalaris models ways of working with Aboriginal children by involving their families.
The Jalaris approach has been instrumental in building trust and links between Aboriginal families and the service organisations. Recognised by the Public Health Association of Australia as a “Model of Good Practice in Aboriginal Child Health and Education”, Jalaris’ success is based on sound governance and finding locally based solutions that build the capacity of others.
Jalaris’ solid track record of delivering outcomes led to the expansion of their outreach into the community after they were invited by the Department of Family and Community Services to pilot a strategy to engage marginalised children in a semi-structured learning environment. Guided by Aboriginal family perspectives on how to achieve better educational outcomes for their children, the pilot was successful in reaching the families of children not regularly attending school.
The pilot spawned the development of ‘The Kids Future Club’, an after hours school program to encourage a culture of learning. In developing the program, Jalaris adopted the same strategy that proved effective with delivering community health services by extending their outreach services to visit households involved in the Kid’s Future Club. Talking with all family members provided family and health support to households and identified issues impacting on children in the broader family and household unit.
The benefits were immediately apparent when school attendance levels increased and although funding for the pilot was only provided as a ‘one-off’ allocation from the Department of Family and Community Services, Jalaris sought to extend the program. Whilst Jalaris has demonstrated effective planning, strong financial accountability and management it does not adhere to a prescriptive, ‘one size fits all’ approach which meant that attracting other funding to extend an evolving initiative was challenging.
One aim in extending the program was to model ways educational institutions could work more effectively with Aboriginal kids and families, and as such Jalaris was successful in securing a $300,000 commitment from Caritas Australia.” Esther Bevan a member of the Caritas Indigenous Reference Group acknowledged the importance of Jalaris’ work and stated, “Aboriginal children are not empty vessels coming to school to be filled up with the standard school curriculum. Jalaris can help teachers to better understand the skills and knowledge our children bring to school. Often these things aren’t recognised and valued.”
In addition to the Caritas funding Jalaris was successful in securing arrangements with Melbourne University, Murdoch University and the Telethon Institute to assist in the collection of data and the documentation of the project outcomes and processes. Tracking the health and well-being of households over time will form an important part of the evaluation of the Jalaris' approach and establish a framework for delivering multi modal, culturally appropriate learning.
Having supported several previous Jalaris initiatives Lotterywest was well acquainted with the effectiveness of the Jalaris approach and supported the project by providing a grant of $420,000. This grant will enable the Kids Future Club to operate for a three-year period and in that time Jalaris hopes to be successful in attracting ongoing government funding to continue the program.
Creating good liaan, a place where people feel comfortable and where bridges can be built and links made, provides a basis upon which to build strong relationships. Jalaris is, as John Sanderson, the former Governor of Western Australia and the current State Government Advisor on Indigenous Affairs acknowledges, “doing important work that is part of the future in the Kimberley region.”