Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome former Senator Crowley, a great South Australian senator, to the chamber. I rise to inform the Senate of the outstanding work being undertaken by Red Cross in South Australia, especially in relation to its Aboriginal program. I recently had the privilege of meeting with one of Red Cross’s South Australian board members, Adelaide solicitor David McLeod, as well as the office’s executive director, Kerry Symons. They kindly brought me up to date with the organisation’s latest activities. Red Cross has adopted a new strategic approach to services and programs in response to emerging research findings on disadvantage in Australia. For Red Cross, this has meant a greater focus on working with marginalised and vulnerable people, in particular Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia.

Red Cross does not see itself as substituting for Aboriginal led and controlled services but rather sees itself as part of an interim strategy that contributes to achieving an outcome where communities direct their own services and responses. The organisation does not move into a community, do its work and then leave just as quickly as it arrived. Rather, it adopts a long-term approach, works side by side with the community and does not actually begin working until it has been invited to do so. In this regard, it works at quietly chipping away, communicating with communities and partnering with communities by invitation.

While Red Cross recognises that Aboriginal poverty and disadvantage are widespread and deeply entrenched, it does not believe that these are intractable problems. Red Cross has committed itself to a long-term, constructive and collaborative role in addressing these issues. Red Cross strongly recognises and acknowledges the strengths and commitments of many Aboriginal people, organisations and communities to address the array of complex and challenging issues that they are confronted with. There is community resilience that must be supported and built upon to ensure sustainable and positive change.

The Australian Red Cross Indigenous strategic plan for 2008-10 has a number of key objectives and strategies. The organisation is working in partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, communities, organisations and stakeholders in a variety of ways. It is strengthening and building community capacity, governance, leadership and organisational development in addition to complementing the work of communities in locations of high need and vulnerability. Red Cross is also working closely with these communities and increasing the employment opportunities and retention of Indigenous staff across all levels within Red Cross. It is strengthening the ability of individuals, families and communities to break the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage and reduce vulnerability through the expansion and delivery of emergency management services and the establishment and development of an evidence based approach to its work through research and evaluation. All these services and programs are accessible to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Red Cross in South Australia is strongly working in partnership with local communities to build capacity and reduce vulnerability through a range of early intervention and prevention programs in key areas such as nutrition and food security, financial literacy, families, youth, and social and emotional wellbeing. It is also keen to partner with key government and non-government agencies to ensure service integration and to avoid duplication. In this it is succeeding admirably. In South Australia, its work with Aboriginal communities has developed over the past four years through consultation and collaboration with Aboriginal-led agencies, Aboriginal communities and government and non-government agency providers.

Red Cross provides vital assistance in a variety of areas, including community nutrition programs and emergency services, where it partners with specific remote Aboriginal communities to educate about community preparedness. It also assists with community first aid training and, for Aboriginal students, this provides the capacity to undertake work that counts towards their tertiary qualifications. Red Cross assists in the provision of social and emotional training and provides packages that are individually tailored to community needs, including well-known programs such as save-a-mate, Mental Health First Aid and Talk Out Loud. It also links communities to other resources and agencies and works with others to find solutions, and it provides advocacy, especially in relation to accessing services and food. Finally, Red Cross assists the recruitment, training, support and employment of local Aboriginal people. These services span a massive area, including Ceduna; Port Pirie; Port Augusta and the Flinders Ranges area; Coober Pedy, where a regional office is currently being established; the APY lands; Murray Bridge; and the Kaurna Plains School at Elizabeth. Red Cross also has further plans to expand its services to Point Pearce, Riverland, Whyalla, Copley and Nepabunna and to increase its presence in Ceduna, the APY lands and Coober Pedy.

An important part of the Red Cross work relates to the Community Nutrition project. Approximately 30 per cent of socioeconomically disadvantaged Australian households experience ‘food insecurity’, where they regularly run out of food. Within remote Aboriginal communities, food insecurity leads to as many as one-third of children experiencing malnutrition, a condition normally associated only with developing countries. Further, 25 per cent of Australian schoolchildren regularly miss breakfast and up to 40 per cent regularly have nutritionally poor breakfasts, leading to behaviours that can adversely affect their short- and long-term health outcomes.

The Community Nutrition project is delivering and evaluating an intervention in two locations with a high proportion of Aboriginal people, one in a metropolitan setting at the Kaurna Plains Area School at Elizabeth and the other in the remote area adjacent to Coober Pedy. The intervention targets children and their families through the delivery of a school breakfast program and a food and lifestyles program capacity building initiative. The project is being implemented over three years with annual review periods to measure the progress of achievement of the outcomes. These reviews are showing positive outcomes.

The school breakfast program draws on the well-developed model and expertise of the Good Start Breakfast Club, which Red Cross has been delivering nationwide since 1991. The program is delivered by volunteers drawn from within the community who, in addition to serving breakfast, provide community education to the children and their families regarding nutrition and social and living skills. Good Start Breakfast Clubs currently operating in South Australia are located in the Adelaide metropolitan area, including primary schools in Campbelltown, Elizabeth Downs, Enfield, Hackham South, Hendon, Mansfield Park and Kaurna Plains, and Christies Beach High School. In regional South Australia, the Good Start Breakfast Clubs operate in the Ceduna Area School, and primary schools in Murray Bridge South, Port Augusta, Port Pirie, and Coober Pedy, while, in the north of the state, the breakfast clubs operate in eight remote APY lands schools.

Red Cross also operates a food and lifestyles program, adapted from the WA government’s FOODcents program, which offers practical community education to parents, carers and families on shopping, budgeting, food preparation, nutrition and healthy lifestyles, including physical activity. The program works in partnership with key services and is delivered with the assistance of community volunteers, with the program seeking to increase nutritional and health outcomes and contributing towards reducing food insecurity.

At a time when we are all feeling the pressures of the world financial crisis, it is inspirational to know that Red Cross is playing a vitally important role, especially among the disadvantaged. The way in which Red Cross tackles this extremely important task, which is financed by and large from its own funds, is to be highly commended. As a volunteer organisation, Red Cross is using its resources on these projects very sensitively and compassionately and I, for one, would like to congratulate it.