This article documents my experiences with the state’s contemporary removal of Aboriginal children in Western Australia (WA) and the practice of Aboriginal Family Led Decision Making (AFLDM), a family led decision making process supported as best practice for Aboriginal families. Unfortunately, this practice of AFLDM is not implemented in the state of Western Australia, but is adopted in Victoria, New South Wales, and more recently Queensland. AFLDM is supported by the peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in care — the Secretariat for National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) — and is incorporated within the national Family Matters campaign to reduce the over-representation of Aboriginal children in care. In 2018, as a ‘relative foster carer’ I was able to experience the absence of AFLDM through an order of the WA Children’s Court (an order which was substantially opposed by the Department for Child Protection). I am a Noongar woman or yorga, and graduated with a law degree in 1995. Like most, if not all Noongar people, I have witnessed the increasing level of intervention into Aboriginal families lives by the Department for Child Protection (DCP), and am related to many children who have been placed in out-of-home care. For some years now I have witnessed a lack of commitment to principles of Aboriginal human rights, causing significant distress and disquiet amongst the Aboriginal communities of this state. This state of affairs has reached a flash point in 2020 during the COVID period which not only saw a sharp rise in Aboriginal child removals but also the introduction of legislative amendments which failed to respect the rights of Aboriginal families and communities. In this article I document the WA landscape of child removal and my own journey to improve human rights outcomes for Aboriginal children.

本文记录了我在该州当代驱逐西澳大利亚州原住民儿童（WA）的经验以及原住民家庭领导的决策制定（AFLDM）的实践的经验，这是由家庭领导的决策过程，是原住民家庭的最佳实践。不幸的是，AFLDM的这种做法并未在西澳大利亚州实施，而是在维多利亚州，新南威尔士州以及最近的昆士兰州采用。AFLDM得到照顾的原住民和托雷斯海峡岛民儿童最高机构-国家原住民和岛民儿童保育秘书处（SNAICC）的支持，并纳入了全国家庭事务运动，以减少原住民儿童在照顾中的任职人数过多。在2018年，作为“相对寄养者”，我通过西澳州儿童法院的命令（该命令遭到儿童保护部的强烈反对）经历了AFLDM缺席的情况。我是Noongar女人，还是约尔加，并于1995年获得法律学位。像大多数（如果不是全部）Noongar人一样，我亲眼目睹了儿童保护局（DCP）对土著家庭生活的干预程度不断提高，并且与许多儿童有关。放在户外护理中。多年来，我目睹了对土著人权原则的缺乏承诺，在该州的土著社区中引起了极大的困扰和不安。这种情况在COVID时期的2020年达到了一个爆发点，不仅见证了土著儿童被遣返的急剧增加，而且还引入了不尊重土著家庭和社区权利的立法修正案。