Forward

In July 2002 the Central Coast Neighbourhood and Community Centres’ Forum received an Area Assistance grant for a project called The Central Coast Aboriginal Access Project.

This project had a number of objectives and strategies developed in line with the projected outcomes for the project which were:

•  Local service providers will be more culturally aware of and sensitive to the needs of the Aboriginal community.

• Access to mainstream services and organizations by the Aboriginal community will be increased.

• To develop and provide a Tool Kit to assist non Aboriginal services when working with the Aboriginal community.

To develop the Tool Kit we formed a steering committee made up of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people from the Gosford and Wyong LGA’s.  This steering committee has worked together over the past two years on a number of strategies to reach the above outcomes.

The steering committee has been overseeing the production of this toolkit, ‘Walking Together’, that has been developed by Bula Ngumbaay Consultants.  The aim of this toolkit is to provide services with information about the local Aboriginal community and give them helpful tips so that they can become more culturally aware and improve the access of Aboriginal people to their services.

We hope that by using this kit you will become more confident and therefore more open to working with the members of your community who are Aboriginal.

The toolkit contains demographic and historical information that will help you to understand the reluctance of many Aboriginal people to use mainstream services.  It also contains helpful tips on how you can make your service more welcoming and culturally sensitive so that Aboriginal people will feel confident to access your service.

Remember though that this trust and relationship will take time and don’t give up because you don’t gain success overnight.  We have a couple of hundred of years of history to overcome but this toolkit has been developed to help us all work towards reconciliation and a united future.

Finally, I would like to make the following acknowledgements: Members of the Steering Committee, Wyoming Community Centre, The Area Assistance Scheme (Communities Division of the Dept. of Community Services) The Dept. of Aboriginal Affairs, Nunyara Aboriginal Health Unit and members of the Aboriginal and non Aboriginal community who have assisted with the production of this document.

Gillian Holton                                                           

Chairperson

Central Coast Neighbourhood and

Community Centres’ Forum