The Kids Research Institute makes urgent call for culturally safe mental health care for Aboriginal youth

For too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, asking for help with their mental health can feel like stepping into a world that doesn’t see or understand them, new research reveals. The Embrace at The Kids Research Institute Australia has exposed a pressing need to transform mental health care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, calling for trauma-informed approaches to close alarming gaps in wellbeing outcomes. The research comes as The Embrace announced a renewed partnership with Rio Tinto and the Channel 7 Telethon Trust, extending through to 2029. The expanded partnership will allow researchers at TKRIA to continue delivering cultural safety workshops to clinicians, service providers and communities across WA. The Embrace co-director Professor Helen Milroy told The West Australian the findings laid bare a significant lack of culturally safe care in mainstream mental health services. “What we know is that a lot of Aboriginal children, and families and young people get turned away from mental health services,” Professor Milroy said. “Yet, we know the burden is there in terms of mental health challenges and issues.” Professor Milroy said the research found that many young people “don’t feel safe” or “understood” when they seek help. “Kids don’t feel safe, and young people don’t feel safe, and they don’t feel like they’re understood,” she said. “They don’t feel like they’re trusted, and they don’t feel that they can trust in the services either to get their needs met.” Aboriginal project officer Thomas Betts said the systemic failures and lack of trust in government is rooted in historical trauma. “When we look at cultural safety, we need to look at it with the lens of a historical lens of Stolen Generations, intergenerational trauma, and making sure that that’s acknowledged and built into the way that services operate,” he said. Mr Betts said many young people seeking help were hesitant to disclose personal information for fear of being reported to authorities. “There was a lot of concerns around them disclosing information, because they were afraid that if they said the wrong thing, they might be reported to child protection or the police,” he said. “A lot of young people will reach out and look for help, but if it’s not culturally safe, they’re not going to go back.” He added that meaningful change starts with representation. “Visually, as soon as you walk into an office, you want to have some sort of representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture — whether it’s artwork, acknowledgements, those sorts of things,” he said. The Embrace hopes to rebuild trust, improve access, and ultimately transform how mental health care is delivered to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth. “I think we’re at the beginning of a fantastic journey,” Professor Milroy said. “We don’t want racism in our services. We don’t want discrimination, and if there’s no trust there, then you won’t get to the complexity in the story, which is what you really need to be able to hear if you’re going to help the young people. “We’ve got such a great collaboration and lots of goodwill, and I know that the clinicians and the services want to do better, so we’ve got to harness that goodwill and make a difference.”