Latest news with #AboriginalYouth
ABC News
6 days ago
- Health
- ABC News
Basketball team resurrected to help build kids' dreams in remote WA town of Leonora
Most nights in Leonora are filled with the sound of basketballs hitting the concrete. It's the sound of a small outback town coming back from adversity. About 800 kilometres east of Perth, Leonora has many problems: limited opportunities, crime and high rates of youth suicide. It also has one basketball team, the Blazers. The Blazers were resurrected by Rene Reddingius, affectionately called "Pop" by Leonora children, who high-five him when they see him in the streets. He runs the basketball program with the help of his partner Shelley. Almost a decade ago, six Aboriginal youth took their own lives over an 18-month period in the town of about 1,500 people. So in 2017, Rene — a Pirni man — left his job with the WA Commissioner for Children and Young People to return to his country, the Goldfields, to make a change. "We were the hotspot for the world," Rene said. Rene knew what pain felt like, "having a hell of a time trying to survive 2004", after recovering from an attack. "I survived by coming to my country at my darkest hour," he said. "On my country … contemplating my future, I ended up walking back into camp, and I've become the man that I am today, and I will always walk with strong sense of purpose." And it's that sense of purpose that he wants to help young people on his country to find. Resurrecting the old Blazers team, which he founded in 1991, gives Rene a way to reach them. He says the majority of children in the remote Goldfields town are "at risk", often facing additional socio-economic challenges, but that shouldn't limit or determine what they can achieve. Rene says there's no "miracle work', it's just about giving children the skills, strength and support to make the best choices for themselves. "You've got to do the actions that will make the difference, the choices at the crossroads," he said. "It's: 'Don't jump in that stolen car, driven by your cousin'. It's: 'Don't take that substance that's been offered at the party by your boyfriend.'" The basketball program has given a new direction to the lives of many Leonora children, such as captain Amber Thomas. She lived in the neighbouring ghost town of Gwalia and used to walk one hour into town for "muck-up games" when the program restarted. Amber had a full house where she was "like a big sister to her big sisters," and a full head. "Pop" Rene and the Blazers became her second family. "He's my safe space when I don't have a safe space," Amber said. On the basketball court she stopped saying "I can't do it" and, now a youth worker, she's guiding other teens, just a little younger than her. "Push through and see how far you can get," she said. Blazers look up to Amber and the other captain, McKye Blake, who's also her partner. "When the kids think about what a healthy relationship looks, they think like Amber and McKye," she smiles. McKye used to get in trouble, but staying in the team helped him stay in school and he's now an apprentice boilermaker. Being a role model "puts a lot of pressure" on McKye, who has to "act like a leader". But basketball has taught him pressure can shape character. "Going into these areas we don't feel comfortable. Like, going through, helps you become better," McKye said. The Blazers' training starts without Rene, with the children taking it upon themselves to lead the warm-up session. Anyone who's late, including Rene himself, runs laps. It's about accountability but also hard work. "If you have the bar low, people can fall over it." Every Blazer player is expected to set and achieve goals, cheered on, and held accountable, by the entire team. It's something Leonora mother Naomi Sprigg dos Santos appreciates. "I think it's vital for children who come from trauma and often times dysfunction to know that life can be predictable and to have a routine," she said. "Rene offers that in the program. There is a predictability about his training, there's a predictability about his expectations." Ms Sprigg dos Santos thinks relationships play a huge part in the success he's having. For Rene, the "life-skill program" must try to engage families, and the whole community. "They have shared memories, and instead of dropping a kid off at a program, you can go and do stuff with them," he said. Wongai grandmother Samantha Banks is an ex-basketball player and current supporter, touring with the team when she can to see her grandchildren playing. "It keeps us all together, me, the kids," she said. "My nana comes and watches me play, cheers me on and makes me confident," Aliahky smiles shyly. Ms Banks said basketball was teaching her grandchildren how to want to be on time, organised, but, most importantly, on the right path. "He can take his little anger or whatever on the courts," she said. It is one positive message, reinforced on the court, at school, and at home, that Rene wants children to internalise. The Blazers have been touring the state. Rene says they are big opportunities for small-town children, and their peers who have fallen through the cracks are taking notice. But if the basketball program is taking them places, it's because it's a grassroots movement. Rene's father, who's also called Rene, but is better known as "Sir", taught four generations of Leonora youth. "They respond to you as the relationship you've built," he says. Families, the shire CEO and the school principal say having familiarity and continuity makes the program more successful than anything that could be offered by a visiting service. Choosing to return to his home town and stay, Rene has helped it to bounce back. Even if he decides to leave, the once under-confident Amber is ready to step up. "My dreams and hopes for Blazers is, let me just say, me working for them, being a big boss of Blazers," she smiled. "One day, I will get there."
The Guardian
6 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
‘Genocide': Patrick Dodson condemns Australia's Aboriginal youth incarceration rates
Former Labor senator Patrick Dodson has condemned the country's Aboriginal youth incarceration rates and child removals as an ongoing genocide against First Peoples and an 'embarrassing sore' on the nation. 'It's an assault on the Aboriginal people. I don't say that lightly [but] if you want to eradicate a people from the landscape, you start taking them away, you start destroying the landscape of their cultural heritage, you attack their children or remove their children,' Dodson said. 'This is a way to get rid of a people.' Dodson said there was no other word for it than genocide. 'It's to destroy any semblance of any representation, manifestation in our nation that there's a unique people in this country who are called the First Peoples,' he said. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Indigenous families are over-represented in child-removal statistics. In 2024, more than 44% of all children in out of home care were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. In Dodson's home state of Western Australia, Aboriginal children make up more than 60% of all children in care. First Nations children are also 27 times more likely to be in detention than non-Indigenous children and young people. The Yawuru elder, whose traditional country centres around Broome, spoke to Guardian Australia before the release of his Reconciliation Memoirs, an annual event held by Reconciliation Australia in which they produce the memoirs of a longstanding champion of the reconciliation movement. Often referred to as the 'father of reconciliation', Dodson has tracked these worsening statistics in his decades in public life. He served as a commissioner on the 1989 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, as chair of both the Central Land Council and the Kimberley Land Council, and as co-chair of the parliamentary inquiry into constitutional recognition, before being nominated for the senate in 2016. He retired from politics last year due to ill health, but has not given up the campaign, calling on prime minister Anthony Albanese to use his overwhelming victory in the federal election this month to press ahead with a national truth telling commission and a treaty process, despite the failure of the voice referendum in 2023. Those three priorities – a voice to parliament, national truth-telling, and a Makaratta commission to oversea treaty-making – were outlined in the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017. Albanese has previously said he endorses the principles of truth-telling and treaty-making but stopped short of committing to establishing a commission. Dodson said now is the time to revisit the issue – and stressed that doing so would not undermine the referendum result. 'He's got time. It's time for us to take stock,' he said. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'There are two other destinations. They can all be pursued by way of legislation, but that requires commitment and will not only of the government but of the people.' He said a national truth-telling process would allow the nation to move away from culture wars and grapple with the history of the land and its contested foundations. 'There's no hidden traps in the whole thing,' he said. 'It's a facing up to an honest way to deal with the First Peoples of this nation, to deal with a contested history, with a view to trying to come to a common narrative about whom we are as Australians in this modern age.' Dodson's Reconciliation Memoirs, written in conjunction with journalist Victoria Laurie, detail his early life growing up in Broome and the loss of both his parents in childhood, followed by his public life which began in the priesthood. It also tackles his disappointment at being unable to take on a greater role in the referendum campaign due to treatment for cancer. The memoirs series has previously featured former senator Fred Cheney, Noongar writer and songwriter Dr Richard Walley, and former head of Reconciliation WA, Carol Innes. Dodson said that the process of examining his long legacy in public life allowed him to reflect on the unfinished business of reconciliation, in a country that is yet to reckon with the legacy of colonisation and dispossession, and yet to afford First Nations people an equitable seat at the table. 'It's a great country, but it's just that the First Peoples are not enjoying a lot of the greatness,' Dodson. 'We should pick up and resolve these issues that are a blight on us as a nation. Our relationship with the First Peoples has not been settled, has not been agreed to between First Peoples and the nation and we've got to do that.'
ABC News
08-05-2025
- ABC News
'Missed opportunities' for urgent psychiatric assessment of teen, coroner finds
A First Nations teenager experiencing mental ill-health who took his own life after being released on home detention bail "would have been better placed had he not received bail" and remained in prison, a coroner has found. The teen died on September 14, 2019, just three days after being released from the high dependency unit (HDU) in Yatala Labour Prison, in Adelaide's north, on September 11, 2019. In findings handed down this week, South Australian Deputy State Coroner Ian White said that while in prison on charges of affray and property damage, the 18-year-old was "physically safe from taking his own life". "It pains me to say that, from what we know now and his observed behaviours and words, [the teen] would have been better placed had he not received bail and remained at Yatala in HDU at that time in September 2019," he said. "This goes against every principle concerning the detriment to Aboriginal people of being in custody awaiting their outcome of criminal charges against them. He said the teen was a "very troubled and disadvantaged young Aboriginal man". The findings note the teen was granted release on electronically-monitored bail during a hearing at Elizabeth Magistrates Court, but that the court was not told of his "struggles" while in custody. Mr White said prison health staff had identified the teen as "clearly experiencing psychotic symptoms" requiring constant supervision, placing him in the HDU. "Inadvertently, [the teen] was released without any referral to see a psychiatrist," Mr White said. The day after his release to live with his sister, the teen attended a Department for Correctional Services office and "almost immediately" began making "concerning statements including about harming others and being possessed by the devil". A compliance officer made a referral to the Acute Crisis Intervention Service, who advised the compliance officer to call SAPOL and request a welfare check. But, Mr White said SAPOL "did not honour the request". "SAPOL never conducted this welfare check, thus losing the chance to change the course of events by making a potential assessment and ensuring follow-up care," he said. Meanwhile another referral was made to the Northern Community Mental Health Service about 5pm on September 12, 2019, but not allocated until midday the next day, Friday, September 13. The allocated staff member attempted to visit the teen, but had an old address and discovered his new residence fell outside the team's catchment area. According to the findings, the staff member had resolved to find the correct address the following Monday, because a response had been triaged as "non-urgent" despite the teen having symptoms which "would ordinarily necessitate a rapid response". The findings note two other DCS staff members visited the teen on the Friday, and noted his "quiet and withdrawn" demeanour and that he was "suffering from some kind of mental health condition" but said the teen repeatedly assured them "everything was fine". Mr White said an expert consultant psychiatrist who gave evidence at the inquest had identified "missed opportunities to obtain urgent psychiatric assessment and treatment" for the teen. He made three recommendations around improved information sharing between the state's youth and adult prisons and between public health clinicians and prison health, and to permanently implement improvements made since the teen's death. In a statement, Health Minister Chris Picton extended his sympathies to the teen's family. "The State Government will give serious consideration to the recommendations in the Deputy State Coroner's report," he said. A Department for Correctional Services spokesperson similarly said any death like the teen's was "sad and tragic". "The Department has received the Coroner's report and will give his recommendations active consideration," the spokesperson said. South Australian Police (SAPOL) also said it was considering the findings and will "make further assessment regarding the relevance of the findings to SAPOL's current policies and practises". "As the incident took place around six years ago, some findings made during the Inquest were regarding SAPOL practises that have since been changed," SAPOL said in a statement.
