Koorie Kare Field Worker Charmaine Sanderson, Out of Home Care Team Leader Molly Johanson and Cultural Support Planner Taylah Carter look over the new My Life Journey folders.
Our Extended Community Care Team has created My Life Journey folders for children in out-of-home care.
As we grow up, grow older and move through life, we collect things.
Some of these things are not really so important.
But others carry with them some of the most precious memories of our lives.
They are treasured reminders of the journey we are taking, and assets to help us along the way.
Photos of people that are important to us, awards, achievements and reminders of our successes, yearbooks from school, a concert flyer, drawings and paintings, maybe a postcard from a faraway place.
And there’s also those essential documents and bits of paper we need from time to time, things like birth certificates and medical reports, qualifications, attendance records, employment documents.
For most of us, it’s easy to keep these things on hand. On the fridge, pinned to the corkboard, or in a drawer somewhere.
But for our children who are being raised within the extended community’s care, it’s not so easy.
“Many of the children who experience the care system are faced with significant challenges, often experiencing multiple placement changes, disconnection from country, educational changes and disruption to friendships,” said Paula Jurgens, GEGAC’s Senior Manager of Extended Community Care.
“That’s hard for many reasons, one of which is that it’s difficult for our young people to keep hold of things, special things, those pieces of paper, things of memory, things that build consistency in a person’s life.”
That’s why GEGAC has created My Life Journey folders to give to all our children in extended community care.
Beautifully decorated by well-known local artist Zion Bradley Brown, the My Life Journey folders will be kept by the young person through the years of their childhood and beyond, a permanent place to keep their treasured memories and essential documents.
GEGAC’s Executive Director of Children, Youth and Families, Lisa Carter, said this week that keeping children in out-of-home care connected to their families, community and culture was a constant priority.
“The My Life Journey folders will help us do that,” she said. “This is about helping maintain those bonds that will be important to these children as they grow older, and about recording and preserving the stories of their journey.”
Paula said GEGAC’s Extended Community Care team was excited to start building the folders with and for the kids in care.
“Our carers do a wonderful job bringing stability, continuity of care, care and compassion into our children’s lives,” she said. “And we hope these folders help to support strengthening our children’s identity”.
“Our hope is that our young people grow into strong, healthy adults who are able to reflect on their journey by having access to all their mementos,” she said.
“We hope they are able to hold onto them for many, many years, and fill them with the things that are precious and important to them.”