Balunu Foundation Cultural Healing Program

June 8, 2014 by

I love the look of this healing programme in northern Australia.

‘The Balunu Foundation Cultural Healing program delivers cultural healing programs to many at risk youth. The healing retreat and program are located in Darwin, NT and youth have attended the program from all over Australia.

Although the program was established to help address the many challenges faced by Indigenous youth, it has had as great an impact with non-Indigenous youth who have attended the program.

Balunu adopts a holistic and culturally appropriate approach to strengthening the youth with a major focus on suicide prevention, substance abuse, emotional, mental and physical trauma, intergenerational trauma, family disruption, homelessness, crime and education.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

‘The Resilience of Alcoholics Anonymous’ by Bill White and Ernie Kurtz

May 7, 2014 by

AA_Newspaper_Image3Here is a seminal article describing what it takes to impact successfully on addiction and facilitate recovery. It helps us understand what underlies the success of AA.

‘Attacking Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) and 12-step oriented addiction treatment has become a specialized industry with its own genre of literature, celebrity authors and speakers, single-focus websites, and promoted alternatives.  Collectively, these critics suggest that A.A. is an anachronism whose effectiveness has been exaggerated and whose time in the sun has passed. 

A.A.’s institutional response to these  criticisms has been a consistent pattern of private self-reflection (e.g., Bill Wilson’s “Our Critics can be Our Benefactors”) and public silence (e.g., no opinion on outside controversial issues, personal anonymity at level of press, and public relations based on attraction rather than promotion – as dictated by A.A.’s Traditions).

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Surviving What?: Too Many Funerals

September 16, 2013 by

Attendance at too many funerals affects the physical, spiritual, social and cultural wellbeing of Aboriginal people.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Sharing Culture Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

‘A healed and healthy country: understanding healing for Indigenous Australians’ by Tamara Mackean

September 7, 2013 by

2007_0116walpole0025Yesterday, I blogged about a description of healing by Professor Helen Milroy, an Aboriginal Child Psychiatrist and Australia’s first Aboriginal doctor. This wonderful description of healing was also included in the article below which appeared in the Medical Journal of Australia, but here I focus on the rest of the article.

Of course, much of what is said here is relevant to recovery, because recovery is healing. I have highlighted some sentences that I think are particularly relevant to people working in the recovery field worldwide, whatever their cultural background.

‘The Apology by the Prime Minister to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia in February 2008 was the first step in a significant healing journey.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , ,