Speaker 0 00:00:02 Welcome to the emerging minds podcast. This podcast is part of a series called listening to the stories of healing within the series. You will hear stories from community and the very diverse experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and how these narratives have shaped the amazing work that is happening in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia here at emerging minds, we like to call it the sacred garden, the stories and experiences that non Aboriginal people don't always get to see or hear whilst these stories include sadness and hurts and sometimes can feel uncomfortable to listen to it is through listening to these narratives that you will get a glimpse of the deep wisdom, knowledge and healing practices of families and communities, and understand why our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples a part of the oldest continuing culture in the world.
Speaker 0 00:01:02 Welcome everyone. This is Donna Shen an Aboriginal cultural consultant working with emerging minds, becoming a parent is exciting, but it can also be hard, particularly for parents who have experienced difficulties in their own childhood, which can have long lasting effects on physical, social and emotional wellbeing. The effects may be triggered during pregnancy and the transition to becoming a parent causing distress and challenges for creating a nurturing environment for the new baby. On the flip side, growing research shows that becoming a parent offers a unique lifetime opportunity to heal from this childhood hurt and provide a nurturing environment for children. Catherine Chamberlain is an associate professor with Latrobe university and currently leads a large community based participatory action research project called healing the past by nurturing the future, which aims to co-design perinatal awareness recognition, assessment, and support strategies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents experiencing complex childhood trauma. So firstly, thank you for joining us today and welcome. Do you want to tell me a little bit more about yourself?
Speaker 1 00:02:09 Yes, sure. So I'm a descendant of the tall white people from the Northeast coast of Tasmania around the bay of fires area, beautiful beaches. I trained as a pediatric nurse and a midwife about 30 years ago, and I've really worked all over the place in disaster settings, like Rwanda smelly assess sedan as a midwife where I met my partner and then we worked in the Kimberleys for awhile and with the Royal flying doctor service. So really right around Australia with that job. And then I moved to Melbourne to start a family and had my two beautiful boys around 20 years ago. And that's when I started getting involved in public health research and mainly around this pregnancy and birth and what we can do during this really critical parenting time to, you know, improve the health of fat parents and babies. Can you
Speaker 0 00:02:58 Tell us a little bit more about the healing, the past project and why it's been important for you to work on this project?
Speaker 1 00:03:06 I will explain a hugely important project. You know, for me, as I said, it's been a combination of different threads of information coming over the, over the years that it's a lower tier Institute and national health medical research funded project, working with incredible bunch of colleagues that are here with a psychological background or mental health background, social work, statistics, research, maternal and child health, parent training, really exciting. And the aim of the project is to work with communities and community organizations, to co-design strategies, to identify and support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents experiencing complex trauma. They've been working really hard the past three years to look really carefully at the international evidence. Talk with elders and parents. We've had three really amazing workshops co-design workshops and to co-design and assessment tool and different strategies to support parents. And at the moment we're working through some input, we've got parents that are currently helping us to validate an Aboriginal complex trauma and strengths questionnaires, and we're really, you know, hugely grateful for that.
Speaker 1 00:04:19 I guess it's been important for me to work in this area for both professional and personal reasons. So professionally as an epidemiologist and new evidence for this compounding intergenerational effects of complex trauma impacting on health of our mob is just overwhelming. The more we learn, the more important it clearly isn't, it shows up in the numbers all the time. You know, the, that quarter of people who smoke is attributed to childhood trauma, a huge proportion of people with obesity, a huge amount of violence. And some studies are suggesting that the effects of adverse childhood experiences or complex trauma may be as much as poverty or being poor, which has always been the huge, you know, the thing that's had the biggest impact on public health that is the elephant in the room. Um, but it's clearly looks aside. Childhood trauma is also another really big issue that we need to be understanding a lot more about.
Speaker 1 00:05:14 But personally it's always pretty important. Like I really struggled when my kids were young and I ended up having an acute psychotic episode in vain in voluntarily made a DAS spittle, which was huge for me. I hadn't ever imagined anything like that would happen. I had like six months off work and 12 months on any psychotic medication. I was just like being hit by a bus. I didn't see coming. I never expected it. And it was when I was in the recovery phase, the psychiatrist was asking lots of questions about, uh, about my history and because I had been removed from my family, I was told that was likely to be a contributing factor. And I was really shocked because I was working in this area, public health and thought that I knew all the risk factors and things, but I'd never even heard of this as an issue at that time.
Speaker 1 00:06:04 And it was actually quite opposite to what, you know, a lovely case manager at the time. Do you say lovely reassuring things. Like if you can get through this, you can get through anything that kind of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger type thinking. But now I've learned that actually, that wasn't true, even though it probably helped me to feel like that. Um, and I'd really love to do now what I can with this project so that other parents, um, and hopefully, you know, not get hit by that bus and, um, you know, really was pretty terrible time, fine, awful experience. So really important to do what we can to try and make that transition as less distressing as possible,
Speaker 0 00:06:48 Such an important thing. And thank you for sharing that. Kath, why is understanding the perinatal period really important for parents during this time?
Speaker 1 00:06:58 Well, it's hugely important. Having a baby is a huge life transition for both mums and debts and apportionment costs also for babies. So both in death are the biggest events that we celebrate. We've known this for thousands of years. It's part of all of our history. It's critical for every dimension of our wellbeing. So physically, spiritually, emotionally, and relationally, as we welcome this new baby into the world and people who have that experience in a knowledge of traditional knowledge, talk about it being a gift and a connection to our ancestors and from a research point of view, there's overwhelming evidence that pregnancy in the first couple of years after birth, or first thousand days as Carrie Aerobahn talks about is absolutely critical for time for healthy starting life. And what we, what happens at this time can have lifelong consequences, the health and wellbeing and the world health organization. Certainly talk about the critical importance of nurturing care in this time. And it's more effective. You know, any support we can provide at this time is way more effective than if it's provided later in life. So it's a hugely important time and, and worth it. Anything that can be done well, you're setting a foundation, aren't you? Absolutely. That's a good way of putting it. So
Speaker 0 00:08:17 Do you want to talk to me a little bit more about complex trauma and expand on what that means?
Speaker 1 00:08:23 So I, most of the trauma research that's been done has been around post-traumatic stress disorder and war, but there's growing recognition that most of people are not traumatized by war, but by their own childhood experiences. And there's been recently been international consensus to recognize a cluster of distress symptoms that people may experience following what's described as traumatic experiences of a prolonged nature or repeated adverse events from which separation is not. And most commonly, this is childhood maltreatment and it's called and they're calling this, um, complex post-traumatic stress disorder or complex trauma. It's only been included in the ICD 11, the international classifications of diseases, version 11 by the world health organization in 2018. So it's all quite new in terms of Western scientific understanding, but of course it's playing something, but Aboriginal people have been talking about for a long time and Judy Atkinson and others have been talking about for decades.
Speaker 1 00:09:28 So these symptom clusters include what they call them. These are technical terms, so I'll discuss them sort of affect or emotional dysregulation. So having, you know, blowing up easily, a negative self-concept or low self-esteem, so not feeling good about ourselves and relational disturbances. So having trouble, keeping meaningful, deep relationships that are so important for us. So in addition, and these, those three things, in addition to the previous recognized PTSD symptoms from other one-off events, such as really the re-experience experience events or reliving the memories that keep coming back the flashbacks avoidance. So that's trying to avoid anything that resembles that initial threat and having this constant sense of threat that the world's a dangerous place to live in. There's still a little bit of disagreements. We don't know exactly how many people experiencing complex trauma. And there's lots of different terms when use such as relational, developmental trauma, but we think it's possibly somewhere around one in five people in Australia might be experiencing this based on some studies of PTSD symptoms that we've read. Could
Speaker 0 00:10:45 You share with us a little bit about why it's important for parents to understand trauma in relation to parenting?
Speaker 1 00:10:52 So there's three main reasons why it's really important to understand parents' trauma in relation to parenting. First of all, there's an increased risk of those complex trauma related distress symptoms being triggered during the transition to parenting. So having a child might stir up some of those childhood memories and responses. There's a lot of things that happen when we're pregnant, when we're giving birth and breastfeeding, particularly in maternity care settings that can be triggering. Women can also have heightened fear responses due to the physiological changes during pregnancy. And that's actually naturally a protective response to protect the baby. They may have had previous birth trauma that can also be triggered. There may be increased risk of family violence that is well described in the increased financial insecurity. If people are losing their jobs and all those additional stresses like housing and things like that. And at some parents actually described their experiences of maternity care as being reminiscent of some aspects of childhood trauma.
Speaker 1 00:11:56 And it's really important that we understand this and as care providers that we do, what we can to recognize and minimize those risks, but also as parents to understand that we're not going crazy, that these are natural responses that can happen at this time, because otherwise, if you're not aware of it, and most of the time people haven't linked these experiences to those early childhood experiences because they happen been such a long time ago, that can be experienced as you know, distressing. The most important thing of course, is that despite all of these risks, which are huge, becoming a best apparent is the absolute best time for healing from complex trauma. So parents, we know from studies almost exclusively report post-traumatic changed at this time to be positive rather than negative, which is other times the life, they would describe it in different as both positive and negative.
Speaker 1 00:12:50 And we know from longitude and all the studies of youth in detention centers that have been done in America, not in Australia, that this is a real really once in a lifetime blip that people can really turn their lives around and really have some positive change. And there's lots of possible reasons for this and still some really exciting research being done, but it's really around the love that babies bring into the world with them, that we've always known as midwives. And, you know, we're all geared to attach and to love our babies and babies have all these magical things that they do to make us want to look after them and love them. That's, that's how they survive. And it's this mutually reinforcing process of nurturing love. That is the healing self of trauma. And that is really the inspiration for the project. We call it healing the past by nurturing the future, because it's that process of healing through loving and nurturing. We want to really try to support her in during this work. Um, and the other third thing of course is that it's the first time since childhood, that people see care providers and service providers. So we really wonder, you know, make the most of those opportunities to make sure that they're positive and helpful, not distressing and damaging
Speaker 0 00:14:03 Yes. And reinforcing past bad experiences with services.
Speaker 1 00:14:07 Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Could
Speaker 0 00:14:09 You tell me a little bit more about attachment from an Aboriginal worldview perspective?
Speaker 1 00:14:14 So attachment or bonding is a really, it is a bit of a controversial thing. Not everybody quite agrees with the Western wise, so that is described, but in the Western way that it's described as you know, the important survival mechanisms for babies are dependent on adults for a long time. And this increases chances of survival and it's in, there's all different things that babies do when they come in. It's just magic. If you know, they'll will literally climb up for mum tummy and find food and do all these things and Google and, you know, it's really lovely. So that is the sort of Western construct of attachment, essentially in the, you know, in, as they say in a secure nurturing relationship, you know, parents respond sensitively to the baby and responds to all their needs for food and security and comfort. And if it's confusing or hostile, this can create problems, but it's, it's around that secure attachment.
Speaker 1 00:15:19 That's really important. The concept of connectedness is more of a Aboriginal concept and it's seen as absolutely central to social, emotional wellbeing for Aboriginal people. So it's this connectedness to our body, our spirits, our ancestors, each other country and community. And really, it's something I'm learning about myself in this project because coming from Tasmania, I don't have that traditional knowledge or Aboriginal knowledge, and I'm really grateful to be learning a lot about it, but it seems to me to be more of a sophisticated and nuanced understanding about a lot more than the attachment explanations that I've had with all the scientific things. That's really the deep, rich, spiritual understanding and a feeling about how important all this is. That's really core. And there's so many cultural practices that are built in to help this important process of connecting this to happening. I'm really interested in, I think in relation to complex trauma, it's essentially a relational trauma. So this deep wisdom, expertise and knowledge about connectedness is something that's central to healing. And I really believe it's something that most useful for, you know, obviously it's critical for us as Aboriginal people, but it's something that Aboriginal people really are the international experts in. And, you know, we should really be celebrating this and everybody needs to lie. This, when this,
Speaker 0 00:16:55 You speak about a deep ancient wisdom in Aboriginal parenting. Could you tell me a little bit more about what you mean by that?
Speaker 1 00:17:03 Yeah. Again, this is stuff that I'm still learning about to myself, but from people like Michelle McMahon and <inaudible> and others, but, you know, it's really important to remember that prior to colonization, Aboriginal children were far healthier and happier than European children were at the time. So we didn't send our kids down to work in mines. We didn't send them off to go to boarding schools, you know, where they were harshly premise and treated quite cruelly, you know, for just behaving naturally those, these were things that Europeans brought with them with colonization, those practices. So when I think this is an area it's been really seriously suppressed that we really need to try to relearn. I mean, there were punishments for practicing culture that have been, you know, one of the threats for practicing it was in Victoria and I, that I've heard about is having the youngest child taken away.
Speaker 1 00:18:01 And those have really seriously undermined people's confidence and it's done a huge amount of damage. And I think it's an area that we desperately need to be reclaiming and relearning because there's so much wisdom there. And like I mentioned, there's Aboriginal scholars in this area now like yadda yadda woman, Michelle McMahon, and younger woman now from all plumber who are really exploring this and this in more detail, which is really exciting. And we're learning more about, you know, from, from these Aboriginal scholars. So when babies are born, there's rich practices around caring for, um, parents in pregnancy and birth, many of which were centered around nurturing that strong relational development. So it included things like babies, literally being born onto country into the earth, um, being placed into a Coolamon, that's been carved by dad and smells of dad, which is really, and when I talk about the wisdom, I find it really interesting to read all of this because I always think about the, what we also know from the Western science around children's development and what they're ready for.
Speaker 1 00:19:10 And, you know, when they're born, like can only see about 30 centimeters, but they've really strong hearing and smell in particular smells really important for a newborn baby. And a lot of those traditional practices were centered around smell and sound. And so each family member law talks about people having a sound that each family member would make, so they can become familiar with the sound of that person. And when you think about it, in terms of the baby feeling secure, that repeated security, the familiar sounds of people around building connections with people, key people in that family, in a sequence and organized sequence, that again is around security, not bombarding them with all strangers on the first day, celebrating milestones around people, Jude, what children do in recognizing people, other people, the sounds that they make about recognizing the country, the milestones that are celebrate or not putting a red block on top of a blue block. They really, these rich relational developmental milestones that are really critical. And so I think that's the, when I'm thinking about the Aboriginal wisdom, it's, it's those really deep, insightful, long held traditions that have worked for such a long time and relearning them now recognizing how rich and important they are and bringing that back and
Speaker 0 00:20:40 Giving it value, making sure that we respect and honor that and the families, you know, it's so important. Absolutely. What have you found to be the factors contributing to parents' anxiety in seeking help?
Speaker 1 00:20:53 I think there's quite a few, one of the biggest things that comes up for us as being fear of losing their child and practice the child protection services being involved, which is really concerning, is that is yet another threat that's being posed in there. And it's not always helpful. I mean, we're all really concerned about child safety, obviously, but I think that the way that the involvement at the moment it's not worked out, it's not thought through, we don't have enough wisdom in it. I think we need to really be thinking through how to do this a lot, lot better. And it's been done now. It's really concerning. I think services not being culturally, emotionally safe is really important as well. And shame and shame is such a big thing. So we know that parents have got so many hopes and dreams for having a happy life with their new baby.
Speaker 1 00:21:42 It's a really chance for a fresh start and for their child to have a different life to what they might've had. So that's a big thing. I think another thing that is important is that often parents feel that they have to be perfect. There's this thing in particularly parents, if they've experienced childhood trauma themselves, you know, we feel like we have to do everything perfectly and parents have described this thing of not knowing what not to do, but not knowing what to do, if that makes sense, which sets us all up for trying to be perfect, which is not realistic. That's not achievable, creates a lot of anxiety and stress and really, you know, good enough parenting as what we're aligning. We're all human. And actually kids seeing that you're human is all part of their learning as well. So what are some
Speaker 0 00:22:32 Of the protective factors for Aboriginal families?
Speaker 1 00:22:35 So we've been actually talking a lot about this with families saying, you know, what keeps you strong? So I was really pleased to say this question and what parents have been saying that really keeps them strong as this connectedness of course comes up as number one, being connected to each other, as partners to, um, family, friends, and community, having connection to country, being able to a lot of people have that. And Stan is really important. Culture is definitely productive. We're seeing more and more resource research growing about how, you know this culture. And I guess if we think about it in a Western sense, how deprived people feel they don't have art music and all that type of culture. It is same for us. Aboriginal people, you know, culture is rich and deep and it's a part of us that we re you know, that we all made.
Speaker 1 00:23:27 The other things that people save really important as protective and that we really know is having somewhere to live, actually having a house, having enough money to eat and to feed your kids, to feed you you enough money to buy food and feed your kids and have an income it's really important, have to emphasize how important having stability and just practical day-to-day support. Another thing is having something to have fun to enjoy. So being able to experience joy, something that you feel that you can do, that you feel good about yourself. So developing some skills and, you know, if it's playing the guitar or the some sort of musical instrument or being able to run around the block or whatever it is, but just having something that gives you joy and something that you feel that you can actually, you know, do so that you're feeling strong and develop that confidence.
Speaker 1 00:24:17 And one thing that one parent told us that just always resonates with me is we just have fun. That's what we do. And that actually having fun as we put that off as something fluffy, sometimes in science and research, but actually having fun is really important. I think that keeping strong and the say the family that laughs together stays together. And I think that is true. Um, and the other things that have come up is people do talk about having support being important too. So professional support can be helpful and having role models in people's lives, being able to set healthy boundaries is another one, but it's important that we all need to be able to do and being physically and emotionally healthy. So having, you know, attention to diet and exercise that I'm really guilty of not doing, but that is also important.
Speaker 0 00:25:10 Tell me a little bit more about birthing on country. Why is it so effective?
Speaker 1 00:25:15 Birthing on country is really, should be understood. I think in the modern day way, a lot of us live in the city as a metaphor or a model of care. So it's a, it's a metaphor for the best start in life for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies and families, because it provides an integrated holistic, culturally appropriate model of care. It's not just around the biophysical outcomes and the, you know, how well the baby is. It's much broader than just labor and delivery. You know, we deliver pizzas, babies, they deals with the socio-cultural risk, as well as the sort of spiritual issues as well. And it's effective because it brings in what we're talking about, relearning that millennia of wisdom in birth, and you can have birth on country. I mean, that is the dilemma now is, you know, if you need to have a <inaudible> section or your, I have a very high risk pregnancy and you need a lot of medical care, does that exclude you from being able to give birth country?
Speaker 1 00:26:15 And we would say no. I mean, a lot of people living in urban areas are actually on country and also we can adapt things to fit in with what we want or don't have to do things. We can still have a culturally safe birth and a birth on country and modify that to pay people's way that they're living at the moment. So we can, people can keep the placenta and have like a ceremonial birth back if they, if they're living somewhere else. But again, this all needs to be worked out because it is a bit confusing. Sometimes people say, you know, if you birthing on country is about going out and giving birth in the middle of the Bush somewhere with no medical care. And that isn't always the case. A lot of people can do that as well, if it's safe to do so.
Speaker 1 00:27:05 I think it's really important to really respect people's wishes to, you know, give birth on country for a number of reasons. I think it often is denied. I think people are sometimes afraid of it in maternity care settings, thinking that people are rejecting medical care when it might be lifesaving, but I think we need to be able to have that discussion. And if people are not wanting to come into maternity care, have an honest discussion, not be afraid of it and think about always making sure that people have choice. So if you don't, if somebody is wanting to birth on country, it's like, well, why NFU, if people are genuinely worried, I think we should be having that discussion to say, you know, honestly, I would be worried if you didn't have medical care for this birth. Is there anything that we can do to improve our services that you might want to come in?
Speaker 1 00:27:55 People might still say no, and we'd have to respect that. And there might be things that we could actually do to make our service better. And that would be good. The other thing is sometimes if people are wanting to not come in for care, it might be for other reasons, like they might be worried about their kids having to stay at home. And especially if they have to come in for four weeks before the baby's born, that can be a big issue. So is there ways that we can improve the support at home as well as the care? So they're really important things that we actually need to know because we're not having those discussions at the moment. We're not even working through them. And then if it's still really important for people that, that you might be worried about their medical risk and that's not a whole women, what can we do to make, um, having a baby away from medical care as safe as possible?
Speaker 1 00:28:40 So there's a lot of things that we can actually do. So just not having the discussion, I think it's missing out on a lot and that's actually placing people at more risk. And I think that regardless of that, so that's sort of three levels there that I think is important, regardless of all of that, I think we can still metaphorically provide a model of care. That's like birthing on country, bringing all of that into the care that's provided wherever that may be and bringing together the best medical care as well as the best cultural care doesn't have to be one or the other and draw on that millennial wisdom that we have, you know, focusing on excellence in care, usually from a known person that somebody feels safe with and trusted. And it allows women to develop that relationship and to have that choice control and culture to keep strong and to really enrich this experience as a positive thing. I mean, we've seen from one study in Queensland, the birthing in our community study led by Sukkot day and Yvette Rowe and others where they've implemented this model. They've had like a percent reduction in preterm birth, which is fantastic. You know what I mean? It really does work this stuff. So what
Speaker 0 00:29:47 Strategies have families found helpful in their healing to prevent the transmission of trauma?
Speaker 1 00:29:53 Some of the strategies parents have talked to us about has been helpful. Cause there's, again, another question that we've been talking with parents about and just the wisdom of what people say is fantastic. I'll just share some of that here with you. They include things like counseling and therapy, but that's definitely not all. So talking to somebody, having somebody that they can confide in having some group sessions can also sometimes help, but that's not for everybody. It is very, I would say with this, it's all very individualistic. Everybody has their own journey. These are different things that different people have said. And it's about having a choice of those slings. That's important. A lot of people talk about self care activities and certainly looking after yourself, doing stuff that makes you give you that sense of joy is really important. Art can be really therapeutic and there's lots of reasons for that.
Speaker 1 00:30:44 It just switches off that whole part of that side of your brain and switches on the other side of your brain. Um, yoga has been shown to be really therapeutic and there's all sorts of physiological reasons why that might be helpful as well. For some people, body work can be important. That needs to be at the right time. They will talk about spirituality has been important and that's where, you know, the cultural strategies and stuff can really be helpful as well. And the other thing that we get a lot from parents is how good it is to feel as though they're contributing to something to help other parents. So actually being able to help others is really important way of helping ourselves as well. And people will often say that, you know, telling their story will help. No, not for me personally. That's something that I find really helpful as well.
Speaker 1 00:31:30 Another thing that parents say they find helpful is being able to understand and make sense of the trauma. And that ties in a bit early to what we're saying about reflective functions or chronic mental laws that, um, work out. This is about something that's happened to me. It's not, what's wrong with me. You know, this is it. You have that sense if those triggers, and I know I have had that where you feel like you are going crazy. So to be able to actually understand where that's all coming from and work out what's happening, I'm 50 now it's taking me a long time to work this out, but I feel like that's been really helpful to understand that. And of course, I think the other thing that's really helpful in healing and it really is. The healing self is love. That is just so critical for assault. So being able to nurture your baby, have the loving relationships around you, it's really powerful. And you know, many parents talk about that healing through nurturing this thing, a really important journey. And certainly for me, that's also been amazing. I just feel so grateful to have my two lovely boys and all. So
Speaker 0 00:32:40 If you had a magic wand and you could see something, you know, any intervention taking place in practice, what would that be? Do you have any final words of wisdom?
Speaker 1 00:32:50 Wouldn't that be nice? We do have a long list cause we've been working for four years with parents or three years with families and communities to work out, you know, what might be helpful in this space. So we have been putting in a wish list and keep putting in these, but one of them is what Kelly Atkinson refers to as trauma integrated maternity care. So we really want to look at strategies that improve awareness for trauma for around moms and dads. So having people that are working within our care services, actually aware of what's going on, recognizing as far frightened responses for what they are, then thinking about how to provide safe care and minimizing the risk of trauma. We want to do some work around skills with talking about trauma. So how to do the yarning, the less intrusive questions, having those safe conversations that are meaningful, looking at the power imbalances and things like that.
Speaker 1 00:33:49 And hopefully be able to use the Aboriginal complex trauma and strengths approaches, where we were actually using an Aboriginal developed tool that includes the concepts around connectedness and things that are important for us. And importantly, we need access to comprehensive holistic support services. So like the ones that carry our it talks about in first thousand days is exactly what parents have described in this study. We really support that and we'd see the kind of work around complex trauma fitting in under a numb as well, kind of that kind of umbrella program and critically what I'd really love to see, you know, with all of this is to start to reclaim some of that ancient wisdom that we've had. So how do we provide care for parents who are experiencing complex issues? So as a midwife, you know, for thousands of years, we've had a really sophisticated system of mentoring, young midwives to become those wise women.
Speaker 1 00:34:47 So we've had real identify. Somebody would be identified in the village as having those kinds of aptitudes and interests. You start off sweeping the floor and doing the gardening, and then you would gradually start to assist with the person as you were ready. For more knowledge, you'd be given more knowledge and then you would pass up the line and you'd be mentoring someone else. And you'll always have somebody more senior that you can go to if things become complex. And if they become really complex, you might talk to the circle of elders and other people who are midwives. And now I feel like we work in maternity care and we have so many experts. We have, you know, fetal medicine specialists. We have an eighth of just pediatricians. We have psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, midwives, and nurses. Every top is this specialist. You could imagine.
Speaker 1 00:35:37 We can look after babies that weigh less than a Panda butter. It's really, truly remarkable. But if we get people with complex social issues, it still feels to me like it's too hard. Sometimes people think this is too hard and often refer to child protection services sometimes without people's knowledge, I even found more notifications, which is hugely distressing for everybody on a number of levels, including mayor, not as never work there, let alone the staff that do for the parents. It's just horrendous to think about, but this is hard. And I do get that. People are afraid of this. You know why? Because we're all worried about children and we all want the best for children. Of course we do, but I feel that we really need to embrace this. If anyone can do this, we can do this. We have to bring back that wisdom.
Speaker 1 00:36:30 We need to get really serious about this. We need to apply the same level of expertise that we have for looking after babies that weigh less than 400 grams as we do for looking after and supporting families that have dealing with distress and complex trauma and all of the complex issues that can come with that, that have gone on for generations. So I think that is my wishlist is to bring back and to somehow have a counsel of wisdom or, you know, bringing it doesn't have to be just community members of, I think it'd be really important to have that community support involved, but to bring in that expertise around families, I know everybody's doing the best that we can at the moment that I think, and even people working in child protection services would say that they're not getting the, they don't have all the support. They need the expertise they need and all of that kind of thing. So how we can bring that back in wrap all that support around, put the best possible community expertise and all other types of expertise to really because it's so important. And we know that it's not always easy, particularly for families, but it can really make a huge difference and it's worth every center, investment time, investment in everything to pay back a million fold.
Speaker 0 00:37:57 Thank you for joining us in our podcast series, listening to stories of visit our
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