Associate Professor BJ Newton is a proud Wiradjuri woman and one of Australia’s leading researchers in child protection policy and outcomes for Aboriginal children. She leads the ‘Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home’ research program – the first international study examining restoration rates, outcomes and lived experiences of Aboriginal children in out of home care. Associate Professor Newton is the recipient of the NHMRC Sandra Eades Investigator Grant Award for her research into understanding systems abuse and Aboriginal resistance in child protection contexts.
The overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in out of home care is at crisis point. This is very well known, exemplified most clearly in the failing Closing the Gap (CTG) target 12. We have a significant problem where Aboriginal children enter out of home care, positioning removal as the solution to family struggles as opposed to support. This creates irreparable damage by being separated from family, culture, country and identity, and very rarely are children restored back home.
Child removal is most often a one way pipeline to severe adversity, socioeconomic disadvantages and further systems abuse. The flip side of this is what happens in the shadows where no one is looking - the fierce and enduring resistance of Aboriginal families and communities to mitigate these harms and safeguard our children.
This Investigator Grant is the culmination of the last 5 years working alongside Aboriginal community organisations for my research program Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home. This was world first research, uncovering the rates, influential factors and experiences of Aboriginal families navigating the child protection system to bring their children home. With the launch of our groundbreaking Know Your Rights website resulting directly from the research, this work is supporting Aboriginal parents to understand their rights, hold systems to account, and know they are not alone.
This Investigator Grant enables me to take everything I learned through Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home and extend it much further and deeper. Conceptualised with Aboriginal community controlled partner organisations, and a range of Aboriginal community and professional stakeholders, it will pioneer the knowledge base about systems abuse, its harmful health impacts, and how families, communities and organisations navigate, resist, and disrupt these harms.
It will provide crucial evidence for practitioners, and interdisciplinary academics. By exposing systems abuse and addressing the structural determinants of health, the project will strengthen evidence to improve interagency policy, practice, and system reform toward CTG target 12.
This research is for those most impacted by systems that harm: Aboriginal children caught up in a system designed to remove them based on race, and their families who never give up fighting for their children’s return.
For children, families, and communities, the research will deliver a framework of resistance to elevate Aboriginal self determination and expand Know Your Rights with a dedicated resource for Aboriginal children and young people.
For early career researchers, especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders considering an Investigator Grant application, I offer the following advice: Go for it.
Let your values lead you. Academia will tempt you to play safe and to follow paths paved with gold that aren’t your own, but this won’t create the change our communities need. Carve your own path that you know is most needed. Surround yourself with people who lift you up and understand why this work matters. Back yourself, and your vision.
I had to pinch myself a few times when I was awarded my Investigator Grant, and not just because this is such a competitive and prestigious fellowship, but because my success demonstrated that the Australian Government recognised the immense importance and urgency of my research.
My work is confronting, complex, and controversial, yet as a society we can no longer afford to ignore the harm that Aboriginal children and families face within and because of child protection systems.
Over the next 5 years, I get to dedicate all my time and energy to research that supports my long term vision for Aboriginal children, families and communities: Liberation from child protection systems. I am grateful beyond words.