Cross-border child protection hub aims to keep kids connected to families

A new hub to support families caught between three child protection agencies has been established in Alice Springs in a 12-month trial.

Ngura Kutju will help Indigenous families living in the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Lands, spanning 350,000 square kilometres across the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia, to navigate the different jurisdictions' child protection systems.

NPY Women's Council chairperson Margaret Smith said that in the NPY Lands communities and culture were closely intertwined and not bound by the lines of a map.

She said families with children in care often needed to understand three state and territory child protection laws, operating systems and contact numbers, instead of just their own state or territory.

"It's very hard for our women on the lands who want to get in touch with the welfare agency," she said.

"They'll be put onto another phone, another one, another one and then they don't get the result they want."

Mrs Smith said this difficulty and confusion could result in families not understanding where children in care were, what was happening or why decisions were being made.

The NPY Women's Council has been vocal on this issue for decades, but in 2021 Mrs Smith chaired a meeting with leaders from the NT, WA and SA child protection departments, resulting in a memorandum of understanding to work towards a better system.

"Ngura Kutju means one place,"

she said.

"It represents the tri-states … we've got three of them working as one."

Reconnecting to family and culture

Ngura Kutju is operating from the NPY Women's Council in a 12-month trial, as the first step in the council's broader vision for transformational change of the tri-state child protection systems.

Workers at the hub can advocate for families, providing a range of support such as ensuring the clear communication of information between families and the three child protection systems or making sure children have appropriate opportunities to be connected to their wider family, their country and culture.

NPY Women's Council director Wanatjura Lewis said she hoped the service could be extended beyond the pilot, to improve outcomes for NPY children and their families.

"When the kids are taken away, we all feel broken-hearted and the spirit is lost," she said in Pitjantjatjara, interpreted by Ms Smith.

"When them kids has been taken away from welfare, or in somebody's care, they've grown up in that world, just speaking in the English tongue, and they don't know where they come from, where their land is and their language, and they are lost.

"Ngura Kutju is the best place we got so far and it's going to bring many families together."

NPY Women's Council director Maureen Baker said she had already had positive outcomes from the hub since it opened.

"I'm really happy because I got my Tjamu, my grandson, in Warakurna," she said.

"He lost his language in other people's care, lose everything; slowly he's learning the family, culture, and language, but we're still teaching."

Ms Baker encouraged other NPY families to reach out to Ngura Kutju for help navigating the child protection system.

"We are proud, because we've been talking about this for a long time and now we've got that one place," she said.