Spotlighting a star in ATSICHS Brisbane’s child protection work

For Family Connections Specialist Vicki, a proud Wiradjuri woman, who works within our Brisbane Nyanya Munjindei (Delegated Authority) team, this role combines all the most meaningful elements from across her extensive career into a job that feels made for her.

Our Brisbane and Logan Nyanya Munjindei teams work directly with children and families involved with the child protection system, through support and advocacy that puts the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples first, and provide recommendations to our CEO Renee Blackman who has authority to make important decisions around connection, reunification and family planning.

Every afternoon, Vicki has a visit scheduled with one of the children she works with, where she yarns with them about how the contact is going with their mum or dad and what they’d like to happen next.

“I always say that the children are our bosses. Their views and wishes drive the work they need me to do.” 

Speaking about one of her cases, Vicki described how she was working with the family to do kinship mapping and arranging a trip so that the father and son could get their feet on Country and connect with the community they come from. On her visits with the little one, they call his father so the two can catch up, providing regular reconnection. Through these efforts, Vicki is “trying to change his trajectory, to change his pathway.”

Delegated authority means that certain areas under the Child Protection Act 1999 can now be overseen and decided upon by First Nations organisations rather than the Director-General of the Department of Families, Seniors, Disability Services and Child Safety.  

“We don’t see it as power being handed over by the department, we see it as being able to bring the family’s voices back in and creating a space where we can ensure that their voices and wishes are what’s leading their case management.”

“In this space, I feel so privileged to be able to work with families and draw that out and make this a different experience for them. And to work with the department and help them understand what changes should be made there.”

Since 2024, ATSICHS Brisbane has returned eight children to their families, where they belong, connected to community and culture.

Our Brisbane and Logan teams are currently working with 36 children who are subject to protection orders. If an initial short-term order does not have a successful outcome in reuniting the family, the case goes to long-term orders (whether kinship, foster or residential care arrangements) that span until the child turns 18.

“The work that we do manages to get those children home way before they are 18, as soon as we can, by looking at how we can get them home, what’s needed, where are the safety concerns and how do we mitigate those concerns. It’s absolutely possible.”

Vicki is an advocate at heart, which has shone through in every role she has worked since starting out in early childhood education and care, where she became a team leader before leaving to establish her own home daycare.

From there, she became intrigued about early childhood development and how parental traumas impact parenting and intersect with diagnoses in children, so she started doing a lot more study around early intervention, child, youth and family.

Vicki’s experience gives some insight into how the pathway to delegated authority was slowly paved through understanding that self-determination improves outcomes, giving strength and meaning to the phrase, “nothing about us, without us.”

While working in the community services sector, she began advocating for identified positions at early years centres. “There were no identified roles and understanding that when we work with Aboriginal families, there is a distinct way that we engage with our families, that we need to see through a lens to see where they are at, their strengths and their needs. Back then there was a lot of judgement.”

Vicki’s next chapter saw her working in early intervention with community organisations, but growing frustrated by a lack of progress, she set about influencing change from within the system by taking on a role as Cultural Practice Advisor with the Department of Child Safety.

“That was an insightful role for me to understand where those bigger ticket barriers are, where policies need to be changed and where attitudes need to be changed.”

She explains how intergenerational trauma impacts people’s behaviours and the pathways they take, with challenges magnified for parents who were once traumatised children and are now adults still healing from their own emotional wounds.

Within the department, she did a lot of work training Child Safety Officers around “understanding Aboriginal rights and the journey we’ve been on” including how negative impacts from experiences of societal and systemic racism come through the generations and how that translates down through parenting.

Her message was, “You need to be continually learning from families, you don’t come into this as the expert. They are the experts, and they can provide you with a lot of insights, you’ve just got to be willing to loosen your power and let that knowledge come in.” 

“It’s about understanding the journey people have been on, hearing the voice of the family, hearing the voice of the children.”

When the child’s wishes are outside of ATSICHS Brisbane’s delegated authority, the teams become advocates, making sure the voice of the child is heard by the department.

Along with working with the department on information sharing and case planning, our teams are part of stakeholder meetings that bring together all the key figures in a child’s orbit, including teachers and therapists, to better understand their holistic lives.

ATSICHS Brisbane also wraps support around the families, informing them of all the ways we can walk alongside them, if they choose, linking them with our programs and services that promote health, wellbeing and a thriving community.

Our Nyanya Munjindei program reflects a shift in the child protection landscape stemming from a new approach to child safety that recognises self-determination and respects cultural authority in decision-making that affects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. 

Given her years of advocacy, it’s no wonder that Vicki feels like she’s ‘found home’ with ATSICHS Brisbane. 

The Brisbane Nyanya Munjindei team recently grew with two new Family Connection Practitioners at the beginning of their careers who represent the next generation of child protection advocates. They will be well-placed to learn from Vicki’s experience and tenacity as they work together to change the trajectories of more First Nations families.