Newly-formed Aboriginal Community Controlled Organsation - Karla Kuliny Aboriginal Corporation - is offering community foster care to First Nations children and young people in care arrangements in Boorloo (Perth).
Karla Kuliny has created a system "grounded in cultural needs and experience, trauma informed and strength-based approaches and a strong child and family focus".
The organisation works to deliver services through what is describes as a "walk alongside" approach that includes their long-standing allies and colleagues, who share a commitment to a "trauma-informed and culturally strong therapeutic care" within the First Nations foster care system.
Established by chief executive Glenda Kickett and operating under a 100 percent Aboriginal board, Karla Kuliny is managed under a team who use their shared knowledge, connection to country, truth telling and extensive experience in the First Nations foster care sector.
Dr Kickett is a Whadjuk and Ballardong woman from the Bibbulmun Noongar Nation, with more than thirty years' experience working in the out of home care (OOHC) and child protection system. She brings not only her years of education and experience, but also her personal experience as a First Nations child of foster care.
In Noongar language, the name Karla Kuliny means 'return to campfire', which the group says underpins what they aim to achieve.
Karla Kuliny is a therapeutic foster care provider, committed to improving the outcomes for First Nations children and youth who are in their care.
When First Nations children and youth are unable to live with their birth parents, Karla Kuliny works to support, not only the child and youth but also the foster carers in building their capacity and understanding. The organisation says this is achieved by bringing together the care team of the child and developing an extensive cultural plan.
In the Karla Kuliny model, the partnership with carers allows a two-way learning experience, where the carers knowledge and expertise is valued and recognised alongside support and training; ensuring identity and cultural connectedness of the child under their care is maintained and developed.
The WA Department of Communities has declared its intent to reform the OOHC system with care arrangements that meet the "physical, emotional, cultural and spiritual needs" of First nations children and youth; in line with the framework of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle, designed to "promote policy and practice that will reduce the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the child protection system".
The Department's report 'Child Protection Activity Performance Information 2022- 23' showed that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children between the ages of 0 - 15 and above made up 59.3 per cent of children and youth in care.
More than 1500 Aboriginal children and youth currently in the WA foster care system have been so for five years or more. Karla Kuliny warns that long persistent stays within the care system have the potential to "strip the child and youth of their cultural identities and connectedness to culture".
The success of a service such as Karla Kuliny Aboriginal Corporation should assist in reducing the long term impacts the out of home care has on First Nations children and youth. Karla Kuliny aims to achieve this through the "multifaceted layers" it provides within their services that focus on educating and protecting the "physical, emotional, cultural and spiritual needs" of the children and youth under their care.
