KIRA DUGGAN: Welcome to today's webinar. My name is Kira Duggan and I am the research director of systems and services here at AIFS. I would like to start by acknowledging the Woiwurrung and Bunurong people who are the traditional owners of the land in Melbourne, where I am joining you from. I would also like to acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and we pay respects to Elders past, present and emerging and extend that deepest respect to our First Nations guests joining us at our webinar today.

Before we dive into the discussion, I have a few housekeeping things to cover. Firstly, thank you to everyone who submitted your questions as part of your registration, in the areas you were keen to hear more about. We've used those responses to help build our discussion and our esteemed guests have got lots of amazing things to talk to you about in response to the things you provided to us.

There won't be a Q&A at the end because we don't believe we will have time. We think there is plenty here to run through with our guests, however please still, in the course of the webinar, send through your questions and we can take a few and respond to them later after the live broadcast.

The webinar is recorded. It's available for you for your re-listening pleasure in about two weeks from now. It will be available through the AIFS news channel, if you are a subscriber to the object, and also on the website under the Webinars section.

Also provided in this webinar will be related readings and resources, which our guests have put together for you. They are a collection of some of the, I guess, most useful and relevant resources to support some of the things we will talk about this afternoon. You can find them in the handout section of your go-to webinar Control Panel. And of course, not an exhaustive list of resources, but just a few things that our guests think would be useful for you to take a look at.

At the end of the webinar there will be a short feedback survey, so we would be grateful if you can spend some minutes providing that back to us.

And that's all the housekeeping, so we're going to dive in. This webinar will explore how organisations can build more culturally safe workplaces with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff. Greater cultural safety in non-Indigenous workplaces paves the way not only for better service delivery but also contributes to better health and social outcomes and also moves us all forward as people in terms of our mindsets, attitudes, behaviours and even the language that we use.

The aim of the webinar is to help you develop a better understanding of cultural safety and gain insights into how you can build cultural safety in your workplace both at the organisational and individual level.

I'm also here to learn today. Like many of the organisations you work for, AIFS is on a journey of learning how to become more culturally safe as a workplace. This journey has no final destination. It's something that we continue to strive to get better at and strive to learn more about as we evolve as both organisations and individuals. So I am very delighted to be welcoming you to our three panellists today.

Their full bios can be found in the handout section of the dashboard. But without further ado, it gave me great pleasure to introduce you to Eddie Moore, Leigh Brown and Sarah Decrea.

Leigh Brown is a proud Wiradjuri woman living on Dja Dja Wurrung Country. She is the State-wide coordinator for the innovative project Strengthening Cultural Safety in The Orange Door.

Sarah Decrea is a proud Torres Strait Islander woman living and working on Kaurna country. She is the Executive Manager Children’s Services at Relationships Australia SA and before her current role she was the practice leader of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Family Services, where she provided information and guidance to staff.

Eddie Moore is the managing director of Nyuka Wara Consulting. He is a proud Wemba Wemba, Wotjobaluk and Palawa man with over 30-years’ experience in key leadership roles in State Government, not-for-profit and non-government organisations across Australia.

Thank you for being part of our panel today. I will start with a question at the organisational level. We know cultural safety is something that needs to occur at many levels, organisational and individual. But if we think about the workplaces that we are part of, what does it mean for an organisation to be culturally safe? What does this look like? Leigh, I will throw to you, first, please.

LEIGH BROWN: I think we first need to know the definition, what is cultural safety? I'm going to read - this is created by Professor Gregory Phillips and has been adopted into many Victorian Aboriginal frameworks and action plan. Cultural safety means creating environments where people feel safe. Where there is no denial or challenge to their identity and their needs are met. It's about shared respect, shared meaning, shared knowledge, experience of learning, living and working together with dignity and it's about maintaining an environment where all people are treated in a culturally respectful manner.

With this, I'm looking at how we embed this into organisations. We need to look at not just training but government systems, operations. All aspects of an organisation from policies, codes of conduct, we need to look at how we embed mechanisms or statements towards cultural safety and Aboriginal self-determination within everything from strategic plans, partnership agreements, within everything that we do.

So, when we are doing that, we really are taking it from the top level all the way down. I'm thinking we also need to look at what can we put in position descriptions do not only encourage Aboriginal people to apply but to commit to cultural safety from applying to the job through a position description, committing to that and having it as every part of our daily conversations.

I think this is where normalising those conversations is important. I think also a couple of questions around, how do we increase Aboriginal employment in different organisations? So much of it comes down to position descriptions, doesn't it? We've all been there, where we read a position description and we go, "I'm not sure what that's about." How can we give a good highlight of what the job is about? Keep key selection criteria sensible. Keep questions in interviews sensible and straightforward.

Something I always do, and we are trialling this in our organisation, is to give interviewees the opportunity to see the interview questions about 20 minutes prior to the interview so they have a copy in front of them. So many of us might learn in different ways. So, I think encouraging Aboriginal people to apply for jobs and creating an environment where they feel they are able to really give everything they possibly can to an interview process, to show you who they are is so important.

Sarah, you've got some great ideas that you are working with, and I'd love to hear more about them.

SARAH DECREA: For the organisation I work with, Relationships Australia, we've had what we call the Relationships Australia Indigenous network for a long time. I think it's been at least 15 years of running. I would like to start by, it's important for us as a people to acknowledge those who have come before us. It's a responsibility for us to learn and guide those that will come after us. And the women that came before me, Joanne Wilmot, Angela Ryder, Mary Peek, and from different states and territories, they really put the challenge down to Relationships Australia the idea of cultural fitness.

Cultural safety, fitness is the noun, but they want to change it from - it's not a naming, it's a doing. Cultural fitness means you have to do the exercise. You have to get out and work those muscles. It's a doing. You can't just name it; you have to do it. You have to walk along and really do cultural fitness.

So, our idea of cultural fitness is to actually think about - because safety is the outcome. Even safety, then you still have to work on safety. So for us it's the cultural awareness, the input. Whoever is working in this space, or working with the people that you work for and with, what is your input? What do you do to build your knowledge and skill set? So that's a responsibility for yourself, that you have to understand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and its people and starting to understand and be aware of the social, economical, political context which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people live in daily. And it changes, because legislation always changes around Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

But once you know and you have that awareness, it's listening without action. If you don't do an action, it becomes irresponsible. So, what is your cultural sensitivity? What is the process? You've got your input, and you've learned, but what is the process?

Understanding how your behaviours need to take into account the awareness you've just learnt and how you may need to change some of your behaviours or practices - or even some of your value systems.

A lot of time when you do cultural fitness, because it's about looking into some of the values that may have been given to you that could have been wrong. When you think of the larger political context of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people.

From that you'll get the outcome. And what we are looking for is the ability to gauge with the people that you work with and for, for the purpose of gaining best outcomes. Especially when working with families and Aboriginal children, that they feel a sense of belonging within your organisation. That they are not just coming in and seeing Aboriginal pictures on the wall and an Aboriginal flag. They can actually feel it. It's about a hearts and minds change. "Can I come in here and feel that I'm safe? Do I belong here? Am I being heard? Do they understand the concept of where I'm coming from? And if they don't, are they sitting in enough curiosity to try to understand that?"

So that's why we went for cultural fitness. For too long what happens is, you do a couple of courses, you know, then all of a sudden people think they are culturally safe and they don't need to work on it again. Whereas we've turned into a fitness model that, just like when you go to the gym, if you don't go to the gym on a regular basis, you will become lazy. You will probably become unfit. So working on that fitness.

Because we do have a primal wound in Australia, and it is a primal wound - that we just not have got this primal wound sorted out, between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the First Nations, and non-Aboriginal people.

We have to sit in spaces of being able to be culturally fit - to be curious, want to understand, want to change. How do we enter into a relationship between, and what I call just relationships, for better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

So, for me, that's the gauntlet that was laid down to create culturally fit organisations. It's really to think about it and to keep thinking about it and keep doing. Not just "You've done it." You have to keep doing it, you have to live what you are talking about, live that out not just in daily practices at work. You can't be culturally fit if you just come to work and do it and don't go home and sit in some of those uncomfortable conversations, or go back within your family group.

Because we all have a responsibility for cultural safety. That's where cultural fitness came from. I'm sure Eddie has something to say about it as well.

EDDIE MOORE: Thanks, Sarah and Leigh. I agree. Just going on from that, I guess one of the important things to do for an organisation is to empower the voices of Aboriginal people. Again, as I think Leigh mentioned, self-determination is very, very important.

When you come to your organisation, developing how it operates, it's really important to think about what steps you need to take to ensure that you actually hear the voice of Aboriginal people. When you do any research, and any project development, it's really important to value the voices of Aboriginal people right at the beginning. A lot of organisations develop policies and procedures, and when it's in the final draft, they will then go and speak to the Aboriginal people and say, "I have consulted with the Aboriginal community."

When you've got the idea, and you want to get it down on a napkin in the kitchen, that is the point we need to think to yourself that is what I need, I need to talk to an Aboriginal person. Talk to actual colleagues, if they want to be part of the conversation. Don't expect Aboriginal people to be a walking Google for you and your organisation. They are there to do a job and not answer all your problems. If they want to get involved, that's fine. Another thing to be mindful of, when it comes to decision-making, decision-making is important, Aboriginal people need a seat at the table, where decisions are made about us. Not breadcrumbs off the table.

And talking about decision-making, research, policy development. It's about codesign. Co-designing with Aboriginal people is really, really important. And also again, Aboriginal people feel valued. We need to be the authors of this research, development, and not just the authorisers. There is a big difference. There are some power imbalances about how influential Aboriginal people can be. And how influential Aboriginal people can be, and how influential are Aboriginal people allowed to be, before the organisation is ready to acknowledge what they’re doing. Having Aboriginal people within your organisation is great, but what happens, how are Aboriginal people in a position of influence. How are they structured in your organisation? Are they at the bottom level, middle management? Are they CEOs? Are there Aboriginal people on your board? Are Aboriginal people the chair of the board?

If you want to start putting Aboriginal people in positions of influence, where decisions can be made, that impact us on a daily basis. Connecting with people in community is also really important. If I run a program it's gonna hit a mark, you need the Voice of Aboriginal people to ensure that. There is some accountability from organisations, especially around the self-determination. Those are important things to be mindful of. As I said, it's ongoing learning. Unless that cultural awareness training, cultural safety training, they are really important things. It's really important for people to have a mindset of where these countries come from, where it's at, and where we need to go.

I think there are things that are important, to create that culturally safe place. But as I said, this is not going to happen overnight. It's going to take a journey. And it is continual learning. It's very difficult for people to learn everything about every Aboriginal person, every cultural group, every language. We are not expecting you to do that. I don't know every language and every cultural practice, there are over 300 Aboriginal groups within Australia. It's about understanding that there are some commonalities between us, and regardless of our values, and practices. These are things to be mindful of.

Sometimes it's really important to put aside your beliefs and values, to be open to us and learning. And people find it easy when they have things in common. When they don't have things in common, they find it more difficult to connect. There are some great opportunities, you don't want to miss this opportunities when it comes to connecting with Aboriginal people.

KIRA DUGGAN: Thanks, Eddie.

LEIGH BROWN: When you were talking, I was thinking about beware of tokenism. There is that knife edge, that is the difference between Aboriginal self-determination and colonial load. I was once in a project, where government was sending communication to ACCO. And they said that I could write that, but it's not actually my job, because they were funding these ACCOs. I said very calmly, "That is not self-determination, that is colonial load. It's not my job to do that work."

But what is self-determination, is that you write the piece of work. You provided to me. And I can give feedback for the change. It is a learning experience for you and your organisation as well. That knife edge is something that is really important to understand. When you are working on consultation and processes with Aboriginal organisations, it's understanding what mechanisms of self-determination are, and how to go about embedding that. When we look at that from a more general practice, I would say that it really is strength-based and solution focused. That embeds mechanism for self-determination into those consultations as well.

KIRA DUGGAN: Wonderful, thank you. Sarah, I just want to give you an opportunity to share your thoughts. Otherwise, I would like to go a bit deeper on the organisational level. Sarah, any thoughts on that?

SARAH DECREA: I reckon they have wrapped it up. But I think the second question will lead into that.

KIRA DUGGAN: OK. We are still at the organisational level. We will go to individual soon enough.

An important part of cultural safety is actually addressing racism and its impacts. All three of you have spoken about this. Antiracism is such an important aspect of cultural safety, because it is that active process of identifying and eliminating racism through addressing attitudes, behaviours, structures and systems from an organisational point of view.

Sarah, be good to just get your thoughts on some ways that organisations can be actively antiracist and address racism in the quest for cultural safety.

SARAH DECREA: So, it always reminds me of a quote from an Aboriginal elder. She was an activist, as well as an artist. That is Auntie Lillian Watson. She says "If you've come here to help me, you are wasting your time. If you have come here because your liberation is bound up with mine, let's work together." That's really what we are trying to do with cultural safety, it is a collective responsibility. I would ask organisations the same, do you have actual leadership? Do they have decision-making? Or is it pacification. Do we do this, we are deep listening, listening to you. Thank you very much. But we will do what we do anyway. That's the pacification that often goes with codesign. They have already come to the design, but they have just gone and done this pacification. We have heard you, thank you, we will go and do the same.

Are you sitting with your Aboriginal leadership and stuff? I would say a culturally safe organisation is in just relationship. When I say, 'just relationship', the other bits of practice that help, it's not just solution and strength, but a restorative justice model.

When we talk about restorative justice in a western terminology, we think it has to do something in the courts. It has to do with legal matters. Whereas justices where there is an injustice. And we see injustice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, I would like to reclaim the justice word. How do we have relationships with actual Torres Strait Islander leaders that give them decision-making? That are led by practices, because you have a 60,000+ year knowledgebase. Which could not have lived to be the oldest civilisation if we did not have good practice. How are you led by Aboriginal practice in your organisation? Because we have a practice. To put those practices in place. Are you allowing yourself to be guided in this just relationship. Which is what we call the (unknown term). How do we do this together? The give-and-take. Can you sit in truth telling?

In the spaces, you do have to sit in truth telling. Not to harm, but to problem-solve and look for solutions. Because celebrations are bound together. We have to be in this, not because of funding cycles and RAP plan. That's not because you have to do it, it is the tick box of cultural safety. Our liberation is bound together because if we get this right, we can fix the primal wound. We can name it, yes, Australia was an invaded country. People have to say yes, we other colonisers. But that doesn't mean that we can't have a relationship and truth telling. It just means that we can speak honestly about it and the policies that have been put out there. How do we do this work that we need to do together? We need to do some unlearning for that to happen. Because the unlearning, to sit in what we call honourable conversations. It is the vulnerability. But we are not burnt by it, we are strengthened by it.

I think that is something that we need to start doing with cultural safety. How do you set the right conditions to be able to sit for truth telling. As non-Aboriginal people, hear the truth from Aboriginal people and not be offended. Not get upset. What is my responsibility in that? It doesn't mean that you have to fix it. We can't fix the racism, but we all have a sense of responsibility. What is my responsibility and the bit that I can do in this space? What is the bit that my organisation can do? Our organisation. How are we influenced and led by Aboriginal decision-making? How are we led by Aboriginal practice?

We do need to look at racism. The other thing we are not good at looking at is white privilege. There is certain privilege in this country, it is done by the colour of the skin. If a group of Aboriginal boys are walking down the street they will be treated very differently from a group of non-Aboriginal boys. We need to be honest about that, we need to change how we think about each other. When I think about that, needs to be embedded in the work that we do. Because that is what you are here, the stories of injustice that will come across your table. You will constantly work with unjust stories when you work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But you can't just think, how will we find solutions together? We have to look and unpack white privilege. There is a privilege in this country, there has been stolen wages, there was slavery. Right now we have some stolen wages happening, some reparations going through. We have to sit with the contemporary versions of where we see this as well. It should be put through. We don't have a RAP plan and organisation, because it started with a... We also have a statement of intent. We are not just going to have a RAIN and just be assessed with those actions. How does it pulsate through the blood of the organisation on every level? What is HR responsibility? What is the executive management's responsibility? The team leaders. How are we living out cultural fitness, we have to live it.

On the onboarding of new staff, we set the expectations of the organisation straight out. Then people aren't feeling like, white fragility. "I didn't realise that I would be put through that. I didn't realise that my values would tested." With the onboarding of staff, expectations are set about how we will behave in the space. And it is compulsory to do cultural fitness. You would do today online, it is compulsory. Just like it's compulsory to do mandated reporting training, police checks, working with children checks. Part of our organisation, it is compulsory that you will do cultural fitness and you can't get out of it. And HR, they are responsible for making sure that every person does the training and does a follow-up. Because that is their responsibility, to make sure from a HR level, they are ensuring that everyone is doing the right thing so that we get the right people and right mindset in the organisation.

If an Aboriginal person applies, we will give them an interview. Even if they don't get the job, we can help them to say what went well, what didn't get them over. So we'll have a responsibility to keep working in the hard spaces.

If we want to achieve this space that we are going to, we have to think about, if we get it right for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, we'll get it right for everyone. Because that's the biggest kind of dilemma that we are working with in this country. So, if we get it right here, we're going to get it right with everyone.

The other thing we do is measure ourselves on these points of things we do. So, we have it plain on the page that really clearly illustrates our intent. How we know we are doing it, what we want to achieve, how we will behave and how we will know we are making a difference. And we measure ourselves to that.

If we are not hitting them, we have to look at ourselves and ask, what happened there? We are not going to pretend that we are culturally fit... "OK, we didn't measure up there." We have Aboriginal staff saying that they didn't feel safe in that - we've just recently gone through a CMS client service change. They didn't feel safe there and we need to unpack that. We need to look at ourselves.

You often have to look at what is your responsibility in it? And an organisation has to ask, what was our responsibility? What happened? Why are the communities saying they weren't feeling safe? As Eddie said, you have to go to the community, and ask, what is making you feel unsafe to use our services? And you have to hear it. It's no good to not do something about it, because you have to do something about it. It might mean you have to change some of your organisational ways of working.

And so, you do have to unpack the racism. And a lot of people are calling it 'cultural bias' these days, the cultural bias that people have that needs to be looked at. When we do cultural fitness training, we do it with an Aboriginal person and a non-Aboriginal person, because they need to challenge each other. It shouldn't always be the mad Black person at the front, challenging me and making me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it's good to have the non-Aboriginal person at the front challenging and making you feel uncomfortable. Because otherwise it's that colonial load that Leigh was talking about. We are always the ones out the front, putting up the challenge.

But where are our allies in this? When will not Aboriginal people stand up and challenge their own people? So, the other thing we have is cultural fitness supervision, where Aboriginal staff can go, "I'm working with this person and I'm finding that what they are saying is actually not OK. It's really racist and not safe." So instead of putting the colonial load on that person, it's like, your manager has to pull that up. So cultural training is not just about firing that person, we want that person to feel what it's doing. So, there is a supervision process of, what do you think happens when you say those things to your Aboriginal staff, your Aboriginal colleague in that room?

So, we want to bring people in with hearts and minds of change, because by calling someone racist and getting rid of them, they will just go somewhere else and the races. Someone has to do the hard work! Usually, your racism comes out you go. Actually, who's going to work with a person to get them to change their heart and mind around how they see Aboriginal people in this country?

It's hard work. This is not something where you go, "Cool, we've got a RAP plan and we've ticked the boxes." It's the hard work pieces that need to happen. So, you need to go into the hard challenges, the vulnerability and into these places together and go, "Let's unpack that because it's not sitting right for you or me," so we need to have those conversations if we want to get into just relationships to create change.

KIRA DUGGAN: Leigh, Eddie, what do you think?

LEIGH BROWN: I see so many organisations. Even a leave policy. Bereavement leave is only a few days each year, whereas an Aboriginal person on average attends about 10 funerals a year. Believe me, if we could attend every one of them we would. Use those times to come together and draw on each other for strength. They are such an important place for us to be.

So, look at the details within your policies. I've seen so many codes of conduct that have nothing around anti-racism, racism, and human resource managers not knowing how to address something because it should be in policy. So much does come down to the foundations of your organisation and how racism is going to be dealt with.

And also, the understanding of the trauma that can happen in instances. Sarah, if someone in the organisation is talking in a culturally unsafe way, the way you are talking about that is absolutely fantastic, but was talking about the cultural supervision. I think it's so good to be doing the hard work and training people. But also the trauma that it can place on a person who has experienced that racism, with that lack of knowledge of intergenerational trauma and the way it can impact on Aboriginal people through past policies that were so racist and discriminatory. But also understanding that in this current day there has not been a single law that has been designed to directly benefit Aboriginal people. Nothing that we live within aligns with our own law, and we constantly have to adapt and adjust so that we can align with systems that are not created to necessarily support us.

So internally in organisations, that's why it's so important to look into every corner, every aspect of where you can embed mechanisms of self-determination, understand what self-determination truly means from the community perspective, and make sure that we've got those ongoing practises at all levels towards cultural safety so that reflective practice can occur between all levels, which then reaches down to support amazing client outcomes and a safer environment for Aboriginal people to want to come to your organisation and seek support.

Eddie, have you got anything to add?

EDDIE MOORE: I'm just going to add on how to be an ally. What's allyship, what does that mean? I think that's another thing people can start to learn. I guess being an ally is, yes, being supportive and understanding sometimes the struggle that Aboriginal people might have. But there's certain things, I guess, you need to be mindful of in that process. An allyship principle is being prepared to not always be part of the conversation. Not always part of the decision-making. You might have really great ideas and that's wonderful, but sometimes it's Aboriginal business and sometimes we want the opportunity to have a yarn amongst ourselves to be able to provide some informed decision or advice to other people who want to be involved.

Take time to listen to us as well, is important. No two decisions are at the same when it comes to racism and inequality.

Value truth telling, and I think I mentioned before, storytelling. They are powerful tools and they can help to educate you. Be prepared to sit and listen. I think there is a saying, we have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak. Something like that.

The importance of self-education is important as well. And again, call out racism if you see it. The standards we walk past once you accept it. What are you prepared to accept? What is your organisation prepared to accept if it's happening in your organisation?

Someone might feel trauma when they witness racism in an organisation and that can be a challenge. So everyone is different in how they react. But I'm pretty sure there's lots of mechanisms within your workplace that you can go to that will support you. It's not always about confronting the person when you witness it. You have mechanisms in your organisation to be able to throw that up higher, if you're feeling like that as well.

I guess different people's experiences will determine whether they will challenge somebody or not. And if you feel confident to do that, that's great.

I guess one of the conversations you could start to have with the person is, "Why do you feel like that? What experience have you had?" It's almost like you have an unconscious bias or belief about Aboriginal people. Where did you learn that? So, you can get into a conversation with people. I think that's important to see where they are coming from, their worldview compared to an Aboriginal worldview. Because it's a bit different. We have a holistic view, social, emotional, spiritual well-being is important - they are important things from an Aboriginal perspective. There is a view that it has to be scientific, evidence-based, you have to prove it. So, it's important to just understand people's worldviews.

Even communication styles. I might leave that for later. (Laughs) That's my bit.

KIRA DUGGAN: Eddie, beautiful segue way.

SARAH DECREA: Can I add something to Eddie? I think there was something really important when he talked about allies. Allies means you do the work as well. I can think of a couple of times where, at work, people have come to me and said, "I heard so and so say this. Wasn't that terrible?" For any Aboriginal people out there who are in organisations, what do we do with that? I felt like, well, I just been burdened with that information and they've been able to hand that to me now and walk away.

So, I think allyship is, what do you burden your Aboriginal colleagues with? It wasn't until I started to get a bit safe in feeling safe at work that I could say, "What do you want me to do? Was telling me for the benefit of me or you?" Like Eddie said, there are channels you can go to. Don't tell me. You need to go and tell - are you going to have this conversation with their team leader?

"Well, I didn't want to get them in trouble." So why burden me with that? It's the colonial overload again.

Sometimes people don't even know they are doing it. They are doing this and people thinking they are a good ally, but why? You've left that with me to carry. That's often what people do then we get the weight down on us and now I have to think differently about that person. Actually, take the right procedures, go to the team leader. Don't come to the Aboriginal person and put that burden back on the Aboriginal person.

Like Eddie said, the caucus thing. Sometimes we sit together and I might say to my Aboriginal staff, "I reckon we need to unpack that ourselves for a little bit." Then we come back and talk to you as the major group. And that's something that has been allowed in our organisation for a long time. Sometimes when you get new people on board, they go, "Why are all the Aboriginal staff going over there to have a conversation?" (Laughs) Like we are colluding! Sometimes we need to unpack safely for ourselves to go, what do we think about that? How can we explain it for ourselves? We need to group.

And sometimes non-Aboriginal people need to group so they can have their actual truthful conversations without us in the room. And that's where your allies are really good in those rooms, when we are not there, to pull out those people.

So sometimes we do need to break up and kind of think about that conversation just being for Aboriginal people. It's not your conversation to have.

And it reminded me of - it happens quite a bit - most people get into this work because they want to work with justice, right? They want to make it a just system. Justice warriors. Sometimes the justice goes too far for Aboriginal people and you start to talk for us. All of a sudden the problem is yours. It's like, wait a minute. Like you now own our story but you have not lived the racism we have lived.

We have lived what it is like to be an Aboriginal person then you've come along as this social justice warrior, making it worse for us sometimes. In all good intent. But again, it's not your story to own. It's your story to call out and make people aware of their own, and your responsibility in it, but not to talk for us. That's another consideration piece to think of.

KIRA DUGGAN: That's great, Sarah, thank you. I think we're really at the point where we are thinking about individuals. And how individuals can be more culturally safe, what does it look like for someone in a workplace.

Eddie, I will through to you first, about that individual and what that looks like. And some tips and pointers for people.

EDDIE MOORE: So I think one of the things, one of the important things, do a bit of a reflection of yourself. Who are you, what you bring to the table? It's important to understand from your own perspective, what is your awareness, your attitude, behaviour, knowledge and skills. When, I guess, dealing with Aboriginal colleagues and community.

You might have a really good awareness of some of the issues that impact Aboriginal people. Your attitude might not be so good. If your attitude is not very good, that will impact on your behaviour. If it impacts on your behaviour, then your colleagues or your patient or community of people, will have a bad experience.

It's about behaviour, it's about your ability to gain knowledge. If your attitude, awareness and behaviour will inhibit your ability to gain knowledge, to be open and listening and learning, it has a flow on effect. It's important, I think it's also important that we ensure that Aboriginal people are valued and supported, in a safe environment. Whether it is your colleagues, clients or community members. There are a couple of things to be mindful of, a combination of things you need to be aware of. It is around your mindset, behaviours, how you practise, your everyday practice.

If that practice fosters trust and inclusion within your organisation. From a mindset perspective, it's important to be self-aware, understanding your own identity and biases. Your privilege. People have probably seen the privilege walk. There are a few videos on YouTube, which you can watch the privilege walk. There are a series of 35 questions, everyone lines up on a line. You either take a step forward or back, based on your answer. At the end of the 35 questions, determines where you stand, there are some people at the front of the room and some people at the back of the room. So, understanding your privilege.

So, can I say, there is nothing wrong with privilege. Just understand that yes, you have it and there are some people that don't have it. Just recognising some people don't, and what are some of the things you need to do in your organisation that ensure that people that don't have that privilege access that as well. It is about humility, acknowledging that you don't know everything. You don't know all the answers. But you are open to listening and learning. When it comes to your behaviour, active listening is important and engagement. Listening to those voices as we talked about before. Without interrupting, without imposing your perspective on what the Aboriginal person might be saying.

Showing some genuine interest and understanding. And understanding the challenges that come with that as well. You won't know everything. Just being respectful, I think it's important as well. It is about respecting protocols. A lot of organisations do Acknowledgement of Country, they have the flags, artwork and symbols up there. As we mentioned before, it is all beautiful and wonderful, but what happens behind that? What happens when a person goes to front desk, how they treated, what is the communication style like? It is about educating yourself. It is about understanding communication styles.

We, as Aboriginal people, are high-context, indirect communicators. Versus mainstream Australia, Japan, UK, America, low-context indirect communicators. For us as Aboriginal people, we are very relational people. It's about building trust and being respectful. Body language is really powerful, silence is really powerful. Those are things to be mindful of when trying to build those relationships. Which can be long lasting, if done right and you are being patient.

Sometimes when people talk to an Aboriginal person for the first time, they might not actually get to the topic that they want to talk about. It might just be building the relationship. It can take time for that to happen.

When you come to low context, direct communicators, they ask 100 questions. And they want the answer straight away. They don't care about what you did on the weekend, what football team you support. They just want your answer and move on. I guess it's important to understand that as well, when dealing with Aboriginal people. To create that culturally safe place. And again, call out racism. Be an advocate.

Success, when I think about success, it's about Aboriginal people feeling uncomfortable to express their culture and identity without judgement, or any form of discrimination. As we said before, policies need to reflect the genuine respect for Aboriginal people. And how you value the voice. Those things are really important. The strong working relationships is important.

So, from our individual perspective, that is one thing to look at. In regards to creating a safe workplace. I think the next question was about having a conversation about racism?

KIRA DUGGAN: Yeah. That's right. But before we go to that, if time permits, because the clock is very fast.

Leigh, have you got any thoughts. What does it look like for an individual to be really culturally safe in a workplace?

LEIGH BROWN: Look, I think, really get comfortable with silence. The art of deep listening is really important, it is the most important thing that we use with each other. That we respect, show our respect through deep listening. Because so often in these busy jobs, while someone is talking, we are planning ahead. We are thinking, we have half the actions in place.

We have got to take the time to truly hear someone's voice. Because believe me, we can tell if someone is really listening. And it's also raising how uncomfortable so many people are with silence. It's really interesting. Even the noises that people will make when you are talking, "Hmm, mm, uh-huh." We don't do that. We truly listen.

So, just being really conscious of yourself, being genuinely curious. Something that you're passionate about, look into it. Feel like you are an expert in something. There is so much out there, so many different shows to watch. But I also think the evolution of the language is something that I want to touch on quickly. Because you will notice throughout today, we talked about colonial load. A lot of people use 'cultural load', but it is not our culture that is the burden. It is the ongoing impact of colonisation.

So many times we hear on social media, hundred years ago but the ongoing impacts happen today. I worked alongside so many Stolen Generation. I know the impacts and see it every day. My aunties and uncles. We are still impacted by generational trauma. That's OK, we're getting there.

The importance of language. We have colonial load, we have also got be aware when you are doing an acknowledgement. When using the term 'our First Peoples'. We don't belong to you, don't use 'our'. Even in family violence, for example. Using the terms victim-survivors and perpetrators. Don't use labels. A person experiencing violence. You are not victims of family violence, that is not part of the culture. This is another impact of colonisation. Things like that. I think it's just so important to be mindful of the language that you use. Another thing is the term ATSI. We are not an acronym either. I've heard it in the training. They say the 'ATSI client'.

Bring them around and talk about the importance of language. It's an ongoing evolution. I have stopped calling mainstream services mainstream. I say general. Because mainstream is for Anglo-Saxon people, a western model. We say general services. It's more inclusive to everyone.

So, that's one of the last things I wanted to touch on. The importance of language evolution. I hope you will pick up today, deep listening, and colonial load.

KIRA DUGGAN: Wonderful, thanks. Sarah, any final thoughts for you? We only have two minutes left.

SARAH DECREA: I'm just thinking about when we think about individual, especially for any management or team leader people sitting in the space. Where we have found ourselves in the most stuck positions, is where people don't have an expectation of the Aboriginal workers. They let them get away with more than they would let their non-Aboriginal workers, and then all of a sudden, we are at a performance review space. And when I look at it, I go, "Wait a minute, how do we get here? How did we not notice... Would this have got away with any other staff members? Would you have let them get away with this much?"

Again, claiming the responsibility. "I don't want to look like I was racist. I thought they needed... Because they were Aboriginal, I gave them more special attention and lenience." That's not helping us with self-determination, and that leads to an Aboriginal people losing their job. That accountability. Again, you can go into that pacification. "I have an Aboriginal person working for me, I do these really nice things for them." Where actually, they are an employee too. They are an employee too, and that Team Leader has some accountability. Because the Aboriginal person will now lose the job, because the Team Leader didn't do theirs.

I just want to remind the challenge in that. To not go into pacification. This is where there are some internal learnings that need to come into that. And the other thing was slowing down, which is what we talked about, the relational spaces. When I say there is a 60,000 year old knowledgebase and how you are learning from it. Often, we have to re-Indigenise some of the systems. We do at check-in. Purposely slowing people down, and every meeting, we start with a check-in and we ask something personal about everyone.

It takes some time, and you can see them get flustered. "Here comes Sarah." But we can have bigger relational processes with each other, to have the safer relationships. One of them is slowing down. I will ask crazy things like, "If you could explain your job like a sport, what would it be?" But then what you have is laughter. You have to find spaces to do relationships with each other to be a culturally fit organisation as well. Otherwise, non-Aboriginal people work at a very fast pace. This system works at a very fast pace, you burn each other out. When you actually find, because we know how to slow down and deeply think about things and still get the job done.

KIRA DUGGAN: Fabulous. I knew this time would come faster than we wanted, but we are at time. We could have spoken all day. You can see why we did make the decision to not have a Q&A because we wanted to maximise the conversation with Leigh, Sarah and Eddie.

A huge thank you to the three of you. It's been amazing. Thank you to our audience. I hope that you have taken a lot out of this conversation and that you do have a look at the resources that are provided.

Thank you to the AIFS communication team, especially Erin and Amy and to our Child Family Evidence Evaluative Team, especially Mandy. Thank you to the three of you working in the background.

Please, if you haven't subscribed to the AIFS newsletter, that's where you can get a notification about the webinar when it is available for reviewing.

Feedback on the webinar would be much appreciated through a short survey. And this is the last of the AIFS webinars for the year, so thank you so much for your time. I hope that you have a restful break and we will be back with our program for next year.

Thank you very much. See you later.

EDDIE MOORE: Thanks. See you.

KIRA DUGGAN: Welcome back to the extended Q&A session of our webinar on how to create more culturally safe workplaces. We have a few additional questions from our audience. So very grateful to our three panellists for giving us a little bit more time. So, one of the questions that came through was, how do individuals have honest and safe conversations about racism and cultural safety? And, Eddie, I'd love to get you to kick us off here, please.

EDDIE MOORE: Yeah. No worries. Thanks, Kira. So, I guess you're having a conversation. I guess. Requires some sensitivity and respect and a commitment to listen and learn. I think they're things that are important. I think we've talked earlier before about educating yourself, so that's really important to do that. You know, building trust again is very, very important. Not having those meaningful conversations and connections because you might be delving into some very heavy topics, you know? So that's really important to be patient. And again, be open to listening and learning, but also just showing a bit of respect I think is important as well. You know, I guess approach the conversation with some sincerity. You know, it's not like a checkbox exercise where you tick off everything. It's a conversational flow. But it is about that. I think Leigh talked earlier about that it's that deep listening that's really, really important. Because if somebody experiences racism, they really want to share their experience without interruption or any sort of defensiveness.
I think that's important. Avoid assumptions that you might have about the person's experience of racism. Not everybody experiences the same thing. And so it's unique to that person. So, avoid generalising or, you know, stereotyping those things. I guess accept discomfort. It's normal to feel uncomfortable about these situations. So, it's going to take, you know, a bit of listening and learning. Use open ended questions. So things like, ‘can you share your perspective on your experience’. You know, ‘how do you feel about this racism that affects you every day?’ You know, ‘what can I do better to understand and support you and your experience?’ So, avoid dismissing or minimising someone's experience by saying things like, ‘that's not racist it happens to everybody’. You know, avoid being, I guess, defensive and overemotional. So, check your own guilt and defensiveness. Don't centre the conversation around yourself. Don’t say things like I'm not racist. Everybody experiences racism.

I've got lots of Aboriginal friends. I mean, those sort of things sort of derail the conversation and, you know, will make the person feel uncomfortable. So, again, it's about being open to listening and learning. Ask how to support you now. What are some of the things we need to change within our organisation? We need to create some culturally safe spaces for people to feel comfortable, to be able to open up and express some of their concerns. So, I guess the environment needs to be free of any judgement or discrimination. So, use of language is important. Being respectful, talking with the person, not at the person, and just being patient, because it's going to take a time to learn it. So don't expect it to happen overnight. So I guess it's just about being prepared for that. Hopefully that commitment for change within your organisation.

LEIGH BROWN: I was just thinking while you were talking, Eddie, and I thought, there's also. And I've certainly experienced this, you know, that. Reverse racism. I was in a managers meeting one day in a big organisation, and the chair asked me if I'd like to do an Acknowledgement. And the person in the highest position of power in that room laughed and said, ‘why is she doing it?’ And this person said, you know, just to acknowledge the Leigh is the Aboriginal person in the room and this person in position of power laughed and said, ‘how Aboriginal can you be? You know, like, are you 1/16?’ Everyone else in the room was cringing like everyone was visibly cringing. But no, he kept going. He said 1/16, 1/32. Like, come on, what is it? What is it? How Aboriginal do you have to be to claim your Aboriginal?’ And I think it's just so ignorant not only to keep doubling down but couldn't even read a room, you know. So ye I don't know how intentional that was or what happened there, but it was absolutely horrific. You know, it was a horrific experience. I think even when we're onboarding staff or we are, you know, working with people and community, asking the question of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status is so important. Like ask the question. It's just a question, you know, do you identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander? Because so many people try to assume, and I've had this happen to me often as well. Oh, you're not Aboriginal, are you? It's like a complete dismissal of my connection to my culture, that instant, complete dismissal. And it's like me trying to fight to prove that I'm Aboriginal. So ye it's just I think especially if you realise you've gotten something wrong, own it. Just say, oh, that was really terrible. I didn't mean that to come out that way. I don't know how to word this, but that was really terrible of me. I mean, it just, you know, it's okay.

SARAH DECREA: I'm going to talk about how you call out, racism when you see racism or when it's been pointed out to you. So, so just some feedback, especially in, my, as an, as a manager and an executive manager and always been in the leadership space, as a, a leader or a team leader or a manager, we have relationships with people, you know, it's the we live and learn and, you know, in a world of relationships. And, I had some Aboriginal staff come to me and say, this is what's happened. and then they went, but we don't want you to tell her anything. And I said, no, I can't do that. You've brought it to me as a manager. so, you know, I had to make two sides accountable here, right? Which was hard, when you walk into two spaces here. So I said, I can't. Now that you've brought it to me as a manager, it is a thing. We are now in this space. And so I do have to call this out. So I will have conversations with her around this. and so and so what I said to my, my Aboriginal staff was, what do you want from this?

What do you want? You know, what do you think should happen? And you know, what attitudes would you like to like to see change. And so then when I went to the non-Aboriginal person who I had a very close relationship who was like, totally shocked, Sarah, you know where you're not. You and I are very good friends. I'm not racist. I said, no, I need you to think about this. Why would three Aboriginal women come to me to tell me this? So I said, I don't want you to think about. I said, why do you think they've come to me? What about your behaviour is making them feel? Do you think is, you know, so you have to get everyone to reflect and take responsibility, you know. So it was it was an interesting space to be because this person was so distressed by it. But my role was not to hold her distress as an Aboriginal person. And that's often what non-Aboriginal people do when they're being called racist is they'll go to their closest Aboriginal friend, or their dark friend says, I'm not racist, and I know that's not what you do.

You need to reflect. And just recently I've had it again where I've had to say to someone, take away the position and the title. So take away that person's position, take away that that person's title and go. Why do you think an Aboriginal person said that to you? Where do you think that's coming from? And I want you to go deep and come back like, you know, we weren't going to solve it right then. And then I said, think about that. When you've got the headspace I'm going to give it to next week, I'm going to have another meeting. And then you come back to me with what you think. Because again, we don't want to just call people out for being racist. And then off you go. And they stuff those Aboriginal people calling me racist. I'm not racist. We want them to think about what is that, what was there and then and then often people come back. And if you've got safe enough relationships with people, what they'll say is, I think I know what I did. Well, what do you need to do now to make that right?

What do you need to do to make that right with the person that you've offended? What do you think you need to do? How are you going to do it? And so, you know, again, I'm putting you got to put that responsibility back because you want to create changes. And so, you know, when we call and talk about racism, people get all anxious because we know we're going to go in a space of vulnerability. Like Eddie said, we're going to go into hard topics, right? And people's people are going to get hurt. Their core value is going to get hurt. How dare you call me racist? How dare you say that wasn't racist? That's my experience. So it is that thing of how do we get people which? Which often means don't put them in the room. Because often what people do is go, oh, we'll sort this out. We'll put everyone in a room and we'll call it out. No, that's also making it unsafe. You need to make sure people are ready to restore. Like are they ready to reflect on their behaviour? Are they ready to restore their behaviour.

If not, they might need a little bit more work. But if you put people in front of people when one they haven't reflected of their actions, they haven't thought about their responsibility in that action. And three, they're not ready to even restore and do some change in their, in their space. so, you know, you need to look for are they ready to change? Are they are they taking responsibility? Are they reflecting? And are they ready to restore in this space and do some apologizing and some accountability pieces? If so, then I might put them all together and have this conversation. but I'm not going to do that because I could create more damage. So when we go to race calling out racism and doing that, we really have to think tight and, and again, this is where cultural your input, your cultural learning is really important. so I married into a very, large European family and they often will ask me things like, oh, well, you know, we came over here on the boat and, my family worked really hard in the garden and that's how they got their houses.

And so it's good going into an argument with them. I'll just turn around and say, isn't that great that your family could come over here on a boat and own and purchase land? I said, because Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people couldn't do that until they got the right to even be humans. So your family came over here with a privilege that we didn't have. Isn't that great? And then I leave it because then they have to think about it. And again, it's like, what do you mean they couldn't own? So then you get them interested in the topic, right. And, and, and the policy that they didn't even know existed. They didn't even know that existed. Oh, we just thought you could own land. What do you mean you couldn't purchase land? No. It was against the law for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander purchase land because we weren't allowed to. Yeah. You know. So again. Yeah. That's right. Before they before they put all that in. But yeah that's the thing. So education and having wisdom around policies and procedures past policies procedures is really good to be able to go oh did you know that.

You know and then you leave it because you can kill people with the facts and to change their own values.

KIRA DUGGAN: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Sarah. Okay. So, this builds on some of the discussion in the webinar around organizational cultural safety training. And I know that a lot of people in the chat were asking more about things like the cultural fitness, Sarah, that you talked about. Can you tell us more about how you prepare your staff and your organization for the actual process of cultural safety training? How do you assess readiness for change? you know, what's the starting point that you want to kind of improve from? So, Sarah, I might just hand back to you in the first instance.

SARAH DECREA: Yep. So we do a pre-. So people do a form around pre- before they go into their cultural fitness training to see where they're sitting. Then we do an after and then we do one six months and then 12 months. But before we even started rolling out cultural fitness within the organization, what they'd done was cultural fitness for all the executive staff.

Because if your leaders aren't in the head space, right. You know, often what we do is we start with the workers, but then the workers go and have their supervisions and their kinds of, being led by the leader. So executive staff first to unpack it and really know what they're doing and what their role is going to be in this space because managers feed up to executive managers. So then we went to the managers. And so when we rolled out with the managers, if they felt that, you know, things weren't I need to unpack this a little bit more. You had a whole team of executive managers that the managers could go up and have some of that supervision, what we call cultural fitness supervision. Then from the managers, we went to the team leaders. So if the team leaders were all distressed about it going, they've got a group of management that they could go to. Then we went to the people that were delivering service delivery because then they were being led by their team leaders. So instead of doing it just so you do have to orchestrate, you have to think about this.
You do have to kind of go. There is some, bits that have to be put in place so you don't make it worse because the worst thing you can do is kind of go, oh, we'll just get all of those, people that are doing the work on the ground to do it, but then they're all triggered and, you know, feeling like their, values have been challenged or they're feeling unsafe because we have people that feel, um. Oh, I feel unsafe in that room. Even though the room is safe, it's just their values were triggered and they go to their team leaders. Yeah. They should never have made you feel like that when actually you need a group of team leaders that go. Tell me about that and be curious with them in that. So, you know, you need to kind of scaffold it and have the right things around ready for people to go into this into this work. and that's a good allyship stuff as well. You know, to be able to have non-Aboriginal people be able to have these hard conversations with their own people instead of going, oh, now we need an Aboriginal person to come and fix all of that up.

Um, no. sometimes you need the non-Aboriginal people to go, oh, well, I didn't have that experience, so I'm interested to know why your experience was different to mine. So that's the kind of, you know, you need the right scaffolding is my, um. And you need to have people ready to do it, because if you're not ready to take on, the cultural fitness space, you could have someone upset and go, oh, that's it, I'm going to I'm too stressed to come to work. I'm going to go and work other. And then what happens is you just don't do it at all because, oh no, now that's a big problem. We've got work, health, safety or occupations and you know, so we'll just close it down altogether. So your org needs to be ready to take on what's going to happen when you challenge a mainstream mindset around taking responsibility and learning about the racism in their country, because it's not something we like to talk about.

KIRA DUGGAN: Leigh, keen for your views here. I mean, you're you do cultural safety training all of the time. And your reflections on what makes an organisation ready, ready to learn, change, adapt.

LEIGH BROWN: Look, I completely agree with Sarah. It's the ongoing conversations. And it's that keeping those conversations alive, but also an expectation for people to continue their self-learning. And when they find something that they do become passionate about. And I think, I mean, there's so many things to become passionate about and the approach we take to delivering training across Victoria, it's just a truth telling approach. You know, it's mandatory training for all staff within the Orange door, family violence safety hubs at all levels. So we take the same approach. Sarah. We work from the top down. We want to make sure that when staff are going up to people senior to them that, you know, they're ready there with them, you know, having received the same information. And we really take an approach of the fact that every single person in this country just deserves to know the truth. You know, it doesn't need to be whitewashed.

It doesn't need to be pretty down. There is no point feeling bad about it. There is nothing any one person here today in our training we talk to and just say, you know, none of you have done any of this, but we want you to hear it. You deserve to know the truth because that means you can then walk alongside us. You can take our stories, you can take our learnings. You can take them out and challenge racism. You can take them to the dinner table, sometimes to your parents house. And we've had a few people come back and talk about that, because it's not only four different sessions of training that builds up the knowledge of the amazing work that's happening in different frameworks, action plans, all sorts of stuff like that. But we teach how to implement these within practice. We also go through, you know, the beauty of life. Pre-colonization before we move on to just the truth about what happened during colonization, because it's not pretty. It's pretty awful. and how it continues to impact today.

But also then we move into a reflective place where people get to reflect on what they've learned in relation to their jobs and how it's changed their practice. And the whole theme through all of us, of course, is underpinned by Aboriginal self-determination that strengths based, solution focused approach in action, in conversations, but also in case noting, you know, how do we document in this self-determined, strengths based, solution focused way because documentation is so important. and on top of that, through the reflections, you know, we have, those four sessions, but then we keep the conversations alive in between, we'll have statewide drop-in sessions where people might have said, hey, the Northern Territory emergency response sounds really interesting. We'd like to know more. We can go, great. We will do a drop-in session across the state and talk about that, or the power of language, and we'll do a drop-in session around that. Some people have wanted to know. So, I just got to echo to how to write their own acknowledgement of country. So, I think that's really powerful. You know, you've been welcomed to this country. Now, how do you want to acknowledge that ‘welcome’? You know, you've been welcomed to our home when you go to someone's home and they've welcomed you over, how do you acknowledge that when you get to the front door, you know, it's that call and response, so how do we write something from the heart? So, we'll go through sessions like that. But it really is giving people equipment and tools and insight, giving them a place to be vulnerable and a place where they're actually allowed to get it wrong. Because everything that's said wrong in our training isn't wrong. It's just an opportunity to learn and grow, and for everyone in that room to learn from the same thing that's being said. So yeah we provide a safe place for people to want to learn and grow. And I think, you know, it's working. We're seeing some change.

KIRA DUGGAN: Thanks. Eddie, any final thoughts from you?

EDDIE MOORE: I think we covered it. All right. I guess the people. I think it's important to understand your own journey. What's your individual journey? What's shaped your life. You know, where have you learned, I guess, some of the things you've learned. I mean, sometimes people come and ask me, like when I'm. When I run cultural awareness training or cultural safety training, they'll often ask me, you know, I find it hard to have a conversation with an Aboriginal person. I think like, why? So, I actually asked that question like, why do you feel like that? They say ‘I don't know. I just feel like that I'll be, you know, I'll be racist or I'll upset them or I'll offend them in some way.’ And I often think like, so where did you learn that? You've learnt that from somewhere. You know, is it when you were a child in school, was it high school, was it in a sporting club, you know, obviously social media plays a massive role in people's lives these days and shaping how people think, you know, is it social media that's play a role?

You know, I mean, how do you feel when you speak to a Greek person or an Irishman or somebody from Europe, you know? ‘Oh, no. Yeah, I feel okay about that. I said, well, what about when you talk to me? I said, no, no, you're right. We can talk to you again. Well, I'm no different from any other Aboriginal person. So there's this there's this unconscious bias that you have with this belief that you have that you need to unlearn. It's almost like you need to decolonize your mind, and relearn, like, you know, it's important to be curious. Get out, put yourself out there, you know, in and amongst Aboriginal people, don't sit back on in your room or your workplace and google everything about an Aboriginal a person, or listen to Sky news. get out there and actually get out there and go and visit Aboriginal organizations. Go out there and have a chat, have a yarn, learn about these different organizations, do build partnerships. Now your organization, depending on what it does, could look at building relationships.

You know, strong working relationships, formal relationships with Aboriginal organizations and Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations. So, I think it's important we all work together, and sometimes we're all in the same game trying to do the same thing. So, it's important that we that we that we start to do those things and make them meaningful and make them authentic. I think that's important when you start to look at this space. But again, it's about giving yourself time. It's about the journey. It's not about the destination. So it's important that you understand that. And yes, you will get things wrong. You will muck up and it's okay to make mistakes, You know, I've made mistakes as an Aboriginal man in some of the places I've worked in remote Australia, you know, and I got told off by the traditional owners because I nearly walked into a sacred site once when I was working in Central Australia. So, we all make mistakes, but I think the important thing is to always seek clarity.

You know, don't be afraid to ask for help because we as Aboriginal people have been saying like, you don't know everything. So, you know, it's important that yes, if you make a mistake, don't do it again. I certainly didn't walk back into that same space, let me tell you. So that's important to do. So yeah. Be open to, you know, learning and educating and just look at all different forms. I mean you can watch you can go to plays. You can attend like NAIDOC events, Reconciliation Week. You know, those things offer different shows. You can watch. You can watch black comedy. There's a show called Black Comedy. We as Aboriginal people love taking the Mickey out of ourselves. So, if you watch that after watching black comedy, you should feel culturally safe. So based on that. So yeah. Just look at the different resources you can do and just learn all different forms and all different ways. And yeah hopefully it helps you to build those relationships and helps to educate you and brings it closer to, you know, to learn a little bit about us and how we can all, you know, work together.

KIRA DUGGAN: Well, thanks, Eddie. And look, just again, really want to thank all three of you. Not only have we done this wonderful webinar together today, but you've been so generous with your time in the weeks leading up to this, to talk about some of this stuff. And, and it's just been it's just been so incredibly, insightful. And I've learned so much. But you've been. Very giving of your time. So, thank you again. And thank you for listening. And that's the end of the extended Q&A. See you later.