About Cullunghutti: 

Cullunghutti Aboriginal Child and Family Centre prides itself on being a place of belonging for all children, their families, and the Shoalhaven community. Our centre is dedicated to all Elders, past and present, for their valuable knowledge, wisdom, and loving care passed on to our Boori’s and their families, as well as the community.

Cullunghutti is a culturally safe special place for children and families and staff to connect, grow, and learn together, reflecting and strengthening Aboriginal identity within the wider community. It brings together a range of early childhood, health, and family support services to improve education, health, wellbeing, and quality of life for Aboriginal children and families, and helps them learn and grow to become the future leaders of our community.

About the program: 

Boori Milumba is a partnership initiative between, Cullunghutti Aboriginal Child and Family Centre, SNAICC, The Parkville Institute and Social Ventures Australia (SVA) to co-develop, trial and evaluate an evidence informed intensive early childhood education and care (ECEC) program, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

The development of the ECEC program model has been a community led design process that has brought together community knowledge and practice, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge and wisdom, and relevant insights and learnings from an intensive early childhood education and care program that was trialed and achieved astounding results in Victoria. 

This program embeds Aboriginal led, high quality early childhood education and care and will be evaluated to build the evidence base about what supports our children to grow up deadly, strong, healthy and proud, what sees them start school as confident and successful learners. It is a multi-disciplinary program that offers high quality early education and care, infant mental health and family support, in partnership with families and local community organisations and agencies.

Position Summary:

This position is a key leadership and advanced practice role in the program. The Senior Family Practitioner has overall responsibility for leading the implementation of the family engagement and support elements of the program model which is nested within the usual childcare legislative requirements. This position is a Senior Leadership Team role.

The Senior Family Services Practitioner contributes specialist knowledge and skills in working with family and social systems to support the enactment of the model with a particular focus on understanding and responding to the family stress and hardship experienced by children and their families. It is a collaborative endeavour involving expertise, inquiry and critical reflection.

 Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s / qualifying clinical Master’s degree in social work , psychology, family counselling or family therapy or similar professional qualification.
• Eligibility for membership of relevant professional body and/or applicable registration/licence depending on professional qualifications. 
• At least 7 years working as a social worker /psychologist or in similar professional role with experience working with children and families living with significant family stress and hardship in health or child and family welfare sector or similar.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience 

• Advanced skills in infant, child and family counselling and direct practice including assessment, case management, family counselling, education, and advocacy.
• Advanced practice skills in assessment of family relationships and functioning and family/ systems interactions.
• Highly developed skills in providing crisis intervention to children and families.
• Highly developed skills in providing counselling and support to families facing adversity and hardship, acute and chronic stresses, current trauma, and the impacts of exposure to trauma, racism and intergenerational trauma.
• Broad knowledge and understanding of issues and challenges, including the impacts of racism, facing impacting upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families, with a commitment to the rights, needs and aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families.
• Understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children’s development, and the needs and issues faced by Aboriginal children and their families who face crises, domestic violence, child protection matters, family separation and/or other family disruptions and parenting stress. 
• A sophisticated understanding of child protection and out-of-home care service system and the particular issues faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families interacting with statutory child protection systems.
• Knowledge of impact of trauma abuse and neglect on infants, young children and their families.
• Specialised knowledge of family systems theory, attachment theory, theories of loss and grief and key elements of trauma informed practice.
• Sound grasps of systems theory especially as it applies to inter-organisational practice.
• An understanding of relevant regulations and legislation including the Child Protection Act 1999.
• Significant experience in providing clinical supervision and/or secondary consultation to other professionals working with children and families.
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with other services, agencies, and professionals to achieve successful client outcomes.
• Ability to provide primary and secondary consultation in relation to individualised and differentiated family engagement strategies to support family engagement with the Boori Milumba program.
• Experience working in multidisciplinary team and ability to work effectively and respectfully in a leadership role within a multidisciplinary team where the core discipline and main program focus is early childhood education and care.
• Highly developed interpersonal, verbal and written communication skills.
• Demonstrated experience and ability to work and liaise with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and organisations.
• Demonstrated high level written and verbal communication skills. 
• Highly developed assessment, analytical and problem solving skills.

For specific questions about the role please contact Cullunghutti Administration team on 02 44 286900.