Emergent Drivers for Building and Sustaining Capacity in Australian Indigenous Communities

Abstract

The perceived need for capacity building for Indigenous¹ families and communities in Australia by policy-makers is based on the persistent negative indicators on all the relevant social, economic and health statistics. This results in the provision of ‘help’ to lift the capacities of Indigenous communities to overcome the conditions in which they live. We take little issue with capacity building per se in this chapter. Rather we wish to unpack how this ‘help’ is provided and with what results. This chapter will ‘background’ the debates about the deficits purported to be associated with Aboriginal people and communities (for that is how much of the capacity building policy and practice is constructed) without ignoring them, and ‘foreground’ the strengths, capabilities and resiliencies found in Aboriginal communities, as a way, not of denying the fragile state of First Nations Australian society, but of offering a picture that differs from that usually portrayed. As recently noted by Maddison (2009), this is the view that is almost always offered to a public which vacillates between interest and care, disinterest and accusatory blame. We provide an argument which, like Maddison’s, is not about ‘dysfunctional communities, welfare dependency, child abuse, alcohol or violence’ (2009:xxvi), but recognises Aboriginal people as ‘resourceful, creative and persistent’ (2009:xxvi) in the face of the many challenges they face. We apply a well known framework from the Brotherhood of St Laurence to discuss three case studies of capacity building in Indigenous communities to tease out what we have found ‘works’ in policy and practice. We end by making suggestions for inclusion into policy and practice to enhance Indigenous peoples’ and communities’ own journeys of wellbeing.