International Conference 2024 | Keynote - Prof Tom Calma & Panel - Gods of the Court

The 10th International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health (ICSWHMH) was held in November 2024 in Melbourne. This significant event in successfully brought together social work professionals, researchers, educators, and students from around the world to discuss and share the latest developments in the field of social work in health and mental health.

Keynote Presentation: Keynote Presentation: Professor Tom Calma AO

Professor Tom Calma AO FAA FASSA FAHA FANZSOG is an Aboriginal Elder from the Kungarakan tribal group and a member of the Iwaidja and Woolwonga tribal groups in the NT and he lives on Ngunnawal country in Canberra. Graduating in social work and community development in 1978 he has a long and distinguished career in academia, public service bureaucracy, social justice and community development.

He is the National Coordinator Tackling Indigenous Smoking (2010-present), a Professor at the University of Sydney (2015-present) and Patron of the five national Poche Centres for Indigenous Health (2010 to present). Professor Calma was a former senior diplomat to India and Vietnam (1995-2002), Chancellor of the University of Canberra (2014-2023) and he previously served as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner (2004-2010) and the Race Discrimination Commissioner (2004-2009) with the Australian Human Rights Commission. Tom is chair of an Indigenous company, Ninti One Ltd and has been a Board member since 2009 and Chair of Ninti One Ltd since 2011 and is a director on the Ninti group of entities. He co-chairs Reconciliation Australia and the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation and chairs the Living First Languages Platform Company that facilitates the recording of First Nations Languages.

Professor Calma has a special interest in Indigenous and non Indigenous health, mental health, SEWB and suicide prevention, education, aged care, economic development and social justice. His 2005 Social Justice Report on First Australian’s health inequality led to the creation of the Close the Gap Campaign and governments’ Closing the Gap response that is still the predominant Indigenous Health policy today.

Professor Tom Calma was the 2023 Senior Australian of the Year and he is an inaugural member of Cancer Australia’s Indigenous Cancers Leadership Group a member of Genomics Australia Independent Advisory Board and the Australian Medical Research Advisory Board.

Panel: Gods of the Court - The Power of Social Work in the Courts

Presenters:

• Uncle Widdy Welsh, Kinchela Boys Home Survivor and Chairperson Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation
• Aunty Lesley Franks, Descendant of a Kinchela Boys Home Survivor and Kin Connect Worker, Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation
• Christine Clarke, Critical Incident Clinician BSW, former President Monash University Student Social Work Association, Advocate for the Kinchela Boys Home and Aboriginal children, seeking justice for children placed in out of home care

This presentation will critically examine the role social work has played in the ongoing removal of Aboriginal children from their families and communities. A Truth Telling session will begin this presentation. Kinchela Boys Home Survivor Uncle Widdy Welsh and Descendant of a Kinchela Boys Home Survivor, Aunty Lesley Franks, sharing the ongoing legacies of the Stolen Generations and yarning about the crisis we are in with the Aboriginal children being removed now at higher rates than when the policies that created the Stolen Generations were in place. This is not a ‘second wave of the Stolen Generations’ but rather a continuation of a system that does not support Aboriginal children, young people and families and families looking after their children.

The presentation features a short film, ‘We were just little boys’ created by the Kinchela Boys Home Survivors and Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation. Christine Clarke will then provide an overview of how social work has played a significant role in the removal of Aboriginal children, both in the past and now. In 2022 The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare stated that 19,400 Aboriginal children were in out of home care (published February 2024). This is notwithstanding the strong evidence that ‘children and young people who have been in out of home care are at higher risk for developing long-term psychosocial challenges, including poor mental health outcomes in adulthood’ (Mendes & Chaffey, 2023; Seker et al., 2022). Where have we gone wrong? Have we been right in all 19,400 cases? This presentation seeks to understand this question.