A 2024 update by the Productivity Commission has revealed four out of 19 Closing the Gap targets are not on track, including the number of children in out-of-home care and rate of Indigenous suicides per year.
The Commission moved some targets into the ‘on track’ category, including newborns with a healthy birth weight and increasing rights to land and sea.
Most, however, have remained in their original categories, while others have worsened.
There are urgent targets to reduce the number of Indigenous suicides towards zero and reduce the rate of Indigenous children in out-of-home care by 45 per cent by 2031.
Operations manager of the Gawura Indigenous Corporation, Wendy Marsh said it is extremely common that clients with poor mental health have experienced separation from their children.
“The biggest stand-out for me is the women in the victim’s service side of domestic violence who don’t have their children,” Ms Marsh said.
“There are only one or two women in the group that actually have their children.
“It’s all well and good to send them to a parenting course, but until you get their drug addiction and their mental health under control, there’s no point in going to that parenting course until they’re ready to be able to do it.”
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s 2022 report on protective and risk factors for suicide among Indigenous Australians, those who have experienced family separation are more vulnerable to suicidal ideation.
This applies not only to Indigenous parents, but to Indigenous youth who rely on unstable housing.
“We had one family where the children were removed and taken hours away because that’s the closest family that they had, and now their case worker is four or five hours away and never visits them, is hardly on the phone to them and it’s just a mess,” Ms Marsh said.
“Yes, we’re focused on family safety, family preservation and restoring the family to one, but the issues surrounding why they end up there in the first place get put on the back-burner.”
In February, the Government announced new measures will be taken to address failing targets, including children in out-of-home care by creating a National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People.
A further update by the Productivity Commission is expected in the Annual Data Compilation Report to be released in July.