In Aust. Ms Dhu died in custody for unpaid fines. A victim of Dom violence. Asked for medical assistance didn’t receive it. Mr Ward a respected elder, blew over the limit. Put in a police van & transported 4hrs without A/C. Was literally cooked alive, no charges 1/8
JFW lost consciousness after being held on his stomach during a citizens arrest by a retired police officer; Ms Mandijarra lay dead on the floor of a watch house cell for up to 4 hours before it was noticed she was dead.2/8
LV went into respiratory failure while he was being held down, handcuffed & injected with a sedative. Tanya Day died in custody because police failed to conduct adequate checks and did not see her sustain the significant head injury that caused her death.3/8
David Dungay after guards rushed his cell to stop him eating biscuits, dragged him to another cell, then held him face down and had him injected with a sedative. Before he died he said 12 times that he could not breathe.4/8
& let’s not forget John Pat a 16 yr old boy beaten to death by police in front of (Aboriginal) witnesses. His revealed a fractured skull, haemorrhage & swelling, as well as bruising and tearing of the brain. Pat sustained massive blows to the head. Officers acquitted.5/8
Cameron Doomadgee, 36, died in a police cell; locked up for being drunk. Died from massive internal injuries incl broken ribs, ruptured spleen, liver cleaved in 2 across his spine. The pathologist compared the injuries with those of plane crash victims. Police acquitted 6/8
Just some of the horrific cases in 450+ deaths of black ppl in custody. 50% had not been convicted but detained in custody by police; 40% asked for medical assist, didn’t get it. 25% inc in last yr alone of judges not giving bail to black ppl most charged with minor offences 7/8
This is why we need to keep saying loudly that 8/8
“Aboriginal Suicide Prevention: Where is the funding going?”
The Fed Government has “allocated” $134M funding into Indigenous suicide prevention. Based on current suicide statistics this crudely translates to $248,000 per suicide death pr yr without adding State & other funding.
2/We have enormous amounts of funding injected into this critical area; yet, suicides continue to escalate. Our youth are dying by suicide at EIGHT times the rate of non-Indigenous children & it is only right that we ask why this level of funding has had little to no impact.
3/As a country facing this growing tragedy, we still have no nationally accepted evidence-based programs across the spectrum of early intervention and prevention activities. This needs to be our first priority.
1/A child @10 does not fully understand consequences in the same way as an adult. They are rigid in understanding right & wrong & driven by external fear of punishment. Criminalise them @ this developmental stage & risk moral reasoning ability stagnating @ that level #RaiseTheAge
2/ Ultimately, this means they learn to avoid punishment (e.g. becoming better at
evading law enforcement) rather than developing a greater sense of moral reasoning based
on an internal working model of right and wrong. #RaiseTheAge
3/ They also learn not to rely on close attachments for their emotional needs before they have developed fully as adults. This is significantly damaging as secure attachment bonds with families & parents is strongly linked with positive mental health outcomes. #RaiseTheAge
1/A trauma response explainer
Flight/fight/freeze are common responses to trauma. The ability to activate all 3 mechanisms is why people both survive & heal from traumatic events. Part of this is genetic (30%) & biological (ie. what we inherit as a stress response mechanism).
2/The rest is environment-ie. what is modelled; trauma history; the nature of the trauma-personal or sexual assaults increase trauma likelihood; how long the trauma goes on & if you know your perpetrator this increases the odds of developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
3/Post trauma occurs when cognitions become so altered the brain tells the body to see threat everywhere(imagined rather than real). Essentially there is a “misfiring”; ensuring the flight/fight response is activated regardless of threat.Over time this response becomes normalised
*Trigger warning on domestic abuse
1/I have long been concerned there is little discussion, awareness & training on psychological & emotional domestic abuse & its devastating impacts on victims. In many of the worst abusive rships, physical violence is minor or barely present
2/As the family of Hannah Clarke said after she was burnt alive by her ex husband along with her two beautiful children; “Hannah never thought it was abuse because he never hit her”. However, the family had long seen many red flags.
3/It is difficult, almost impossible for victims to see it as abuse as it is insidious and perpetrators deal in cycles of love bombing, covert devaluing, isolation & persecution, which slowly chips away at self worth.
1/How 2 get Indigenous Suicide Prevention Right-A thread from (Westerman& Sheridan,2020).
STEP 1.Define causal pathways: We estab a unique set of risk & protective factors exist 4 Indigenous suicide @ a pop'n level via unique psychometrics (WASCY &WASCA) authorservices.wiley.com/api/pdf/fullAr…
2/ We Developed unique, intervention programs based on pop'n, evidence of difference in risk & protective factors spec 2 Aboriginal people. Some findings from Westerman (2003): 42% of youth (N=323) had suicide ideation; 23% considered @ suicide risk. 20% had made previous attempt
3/ Depression was linked with ideation (corr 0.2), BUT impulsivity had the strongest r'ship with suicide risk (youth correlation 0.80; adults 0.63). THIS IS A SIGNIFICANT FINDING with non-Indigenous suicide causally linked with depression. It informed our unique program content
A racism thread. Research has shown similar courses of mental illness between victims of violent crime & victims of racism. Epigenetics tells us racism impacts in the same way as a traumatic event. The impulsive nature of Indigenous suicides makes sense from a trauma perspective
The best I can do as a clinician is assist my clients 2 develop robust cultural identity & the skills & resilience to manage racist events. Cultural resilience assessment enables clinicians to ‘treat’ those factors demonstrated 2 buffer suicide risk. This is crucial to prevention
Just as trauma frequently becomes a central organizing principle in the psychological structure of the individual, trauma has become a central organizing principle in the psychological structure of whole communities.