Dr Gary Robinson releases final report of early intervention program on the Tiwi Islands
Dr Gary Robinson, co-director of the School for Social and Policy Research at CDU, has just completed the final evaluation report of an early intervention program conducted on the Tiwi islands. Based on “Exploring Together”, a multi-group intervention program for parents and children developed by the Victorian Parenting Centre, the Tiwi version of the program was given the name Ngaripiliga’ajirri (pronounced Nari-pirlywa-tirri).
The name change reflects the fact that the content of the original program was significantly altered to fit the cultural context of life in the Tiwis. One of the major achievements of the program was the development of new evaluation criteria that were relevant to the typical behaviours of children and to the style of parenting employed by extended family networks in the Tiwis. Dr Bill Tyler, the co-author of the final report, was responsible for analysing the data generated by the new instruments.
The report identifies a tension between maintaining fidelity to the original program and adapting it to a specific cultural context. Dr Robinson points out that that the cognitive behavioural theory underpinning the original version of the program made a number of developmental assumptions that might be labelled “ethnocentric” (for example, assumptions concerning literacy standards, patterns of interaction and social competency).
Yet the Ngaripiliga’ajirri program maintains the therapeutic approach that has been successful in the application of “Exploring Together”. Dr Robinson explains that the fundamental approach was the same: “children with behaviour problems, or who were seen to be at risk, would be referred to the program, and parents approached to participate, so that by working together, parents and children in small groups … immediate problems could be ameliorated”.
In adapting the early intervention program for the Tiwi context, a number of key changes had to be made. Gary Robinson explains that in developing the program, a conceptual shift had to be made from a model of parenting that is based on parents assuming sole responsibility for the care of a child, to a model that accounts for the complex kinship structures that still retain a lot of force in contemporary Tiwi society: “Traditional Aboriginal families are very much extended families, parents are just one point in a network in which responsibility is taken for people. In various ways they often delegate the task of responding to this or that child … to other people in the network. They have a style of parenting that is very much premised on the assumption that other people will take control in certain situations”.
There was also a shift in emphasis away from oral and written language to visual games and activities. Gary explains that written homework is an activity that works well in a mainstream cultural context, but can be ineffective in indigenous communities: “We had to abandon some things like written homework. Either people weren’t interested in doing the written homework, or they couldn’t do it, or they didn’t understand what was required, or it was too much trouble to find it and bring it back”. The project team attempt to supplement this lack by facilitating play groups which children had the option of attending. Low levels of literacy also meant that the content shifted towards visual activities. In one exercise, children were asked to draw maps of their extended families, in another, they had to identify specific emotions by cutting out images from magazines.
The Tiwi Health Board adopted the program as part of a longer term strategy to prevent suicide and self-harm among young people. The results of the qualitative evaluation suggest that the program had some success in this regard, with approximately 80% of children showing some decline in problem behaviours at school during attendance to the program, and around 60 % showing a marked decline. Gary Robinson explains that the children were “falling over themselves” to participate, and the positive effects of Ngaripiliga’ajirri on problems behaviours were not missed by school teachers:
“There were a number of really striking cases where the kids [behaviour] as a result of the things that they and the parent did during the program … improved dramatically. We had a lot of spontaneous contact from teachers who said ‘What’s going on here? How come these kids’ behaviour has improved?’; and all the time these were kids who were acting up badly in the classroom, making trouble, damaging things, running away, and so on”.
In the executive summary of the report, the authors highlight the fact that high rates of suicide, domestic violence and substance abuse on the Tiwi islands are a significant cause of problem behaviours amongst children. Although it is generally difficult to get parents involved in any program – whether it be in a mainstream or indigenous context – some of the issues presented a barrier to the therapy: “Some parents react a bit to the themes that you talk about, you know the difficulties, the problems, their drinking or whatever, might become an issue that they might note want to face up to”. Nevertheless, the quantitative data indicated that parents experienced a reduction in anxiety as a result of their participation in the program.
All of this evidence suggests that there would be long term social benefits to sustaining an early intervention program like Ngaripiliga’ajirri in the Tiwis. Gary believes that substantial funding and human resources would have to be providing to existing health and education services to make the program sustainable. He also points out that recruiting the right people to do the job is crucial for the successful delivery of the program:
“You’ve got to get a mix of people who are interested, committed and who are really well qualified to work with Tiwi people … You need some consistency over time, you need managerial support – or a commitment to it – and you need some staffing resources. But there all the sorts of things that can be done within the communities, provided that you think through some of the recruitment issues and make a serious go at trying to fit it in as part of the work that staff do out there."
Download the final evalution report of Ngaripiliga’ajirri: An Early Intervention Program in the Tiwi Islands.pdf (Note: You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view pdf files. Get Adobe Acrobat reader.)
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