Responding to allegations of racism in child protection in Western Australia
In 2017, the then-Department of Child Protection and Family Support commissioned Dr Tracy Westerman, an Indigenous West Australian psychologist to do a comprehensive review the cultural competency of the West Australia child protection agency. The report was completed in 2019 and submitted to the now-renamed Department of Communities. Westerman’s review included individual interviews and many focus groups with hundreds of staff including the majority of Indigenous staff (who make up about 5% of Communities’ workforce). Communities decided to not make the report public, though Dr Westerman continually requested very publicly that the report be released through interviews on many media and making many assertions of systemic racism.
In mid-January 2022, a Communities Indigenous staff member leaked the report along with multiple other documents to media sources in Perth which caused the Department to release the report and the action plan they had created around it.
At the same time, the Minister for Communities came out in The West Australian newspaper saying that the Department of Communities is not racist. Dr Westerman continued a fierce critique of Communities (which if you are interested you can follow on her Facebook page).
On Friday 25 February, a team of 11 police officers — at least some armed — raided the home of the Indigenous woman believed to have leaked this and other reports. The Premier and CEO have said publicly that she has removed hundreds of documents that includes material that identifies children, although these have not been published. The story broke in the Saturday 26 February edition of The West Australian newspaper (all the details in the images below).
I was in tears; to me it was unfathomable that this could occur. I took counsel from various people including Terry Murphy and Joke Wiggerink, and they supported me to respond. I prepared a press release (below) as Professor Andrew Turnell rather than explicitly as Elia and went public yesterday. This led to two radio interviews on February 28 2022: one on the Australian Broadcasting Commission, the other on local radio 6PR.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/perth/programs/mornings/mornings/13764924
https://www.6pr.com.au/senior-advisor-calls-out-department-of-communities-on-racism-revelations/
Press Release 27 February 2022
These are the bare bones of the story. I will write more later, to describe my journey with what has happened, offering my journey and efforts to seek to disrupt and challenge the systemic racism and continuing colonisation of all child protection systems.