Family Relationships Services (FRSA) Thursday, 6 November 2014 Alwin Chong It takes a community to raise a child

Teenage pregnancy Aboriginal children placed in out-of-home care Youth suicides Aboriginal men in prison Health status of Aboriginal men The challenges for Aboriginal families

In 2012, Indigenous women had more babies and had them at younger ages than did non-Indigenous women – teenagers had one-fifth (19%) of the babies born to Indigenous women, compared with only 3.7% of those born to all mothers Ref: Births and pregnancy outcome, Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet 2013 Teenage pregnancies

More Australian women are waiting until later in life to become mothers. The continuing social trend of mothers over the age of 40 are now more common than teenage mums. Whatever the reasons, it often equates to better education and/or employment. Aboriginal women have not changed Changing attitudes towards pregnancy

The rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children placed in out-of-home care has steadily increased since 2008 from 41.3 to 57.1 per 1,000 children, while the non-Indigenous rate has increased slightly from 4.5 to 5.4 per 1,000 children This equates to 6% or 1 in 17 Aboriginal children are living in some out-of-home care under an order of the State Aboriginal children taken into care

According to the Department of Health, the suicide rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is 2.6 times the rate for non-Indigenous Australians. In the period between , the greatest difference in rates of suicide between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous Australians was in the years age group for females and the years age group for males. Ref: Department of Health National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Strategy: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander suicide: origins, trends and incidence. Aboriginal youth suicide

Atkinson et al (2008) recently investigated the link between being a victim (direct or indirect experiencing) of childhood trauma and being a perpetrator of higher-level violence in adulthood. The results of her study showed that a statistically significant proportion of her sample (Indigenous men who were incarcerated for violent offending) reported experiencing traumatic and violent events in their youth, and doing so frequently. Aboriginal men in prisons

Health status of Aboriginal men Across virtually any marker of health and social status, across the life span, Indigenous Australians are the most disadvantaged in Australian society. This is even worse for Indigenous men, who have the poorest health of any group within the Australian population and are arguably also the most disadvantaged and are more likely to die from almost any cause and at any age than non-Indigenous males.

How are communities dealing with these issues?