A DRUG and alcohol rehab believes inking a reconciliation action plan (RAP) will help the local Aboriginal community be heard and healed.
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St Vincent De Paul launched its statewide RAP on Monday and staff at the organisation’s Tamworth rehab, Rosalie House, said it wouldn’t be another token document.
Rehab team leader Nicole Laupepa said it would help break down a barrier between Aboriginals and local services.
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“We had to look at it two ways, what does it mean to us as Aboriginal women and also what did it mean for us as Aboriginal employees,” Mrs Laupepa told The Leader.
“When I thought long and hard on this, I thought the reflection of what a RAP is and for me it is a promise from St Vincent De Paul to the Aboriginal community, it’s about unconditional acceptance.
“For me, it is so empowering, it builds a platform, a benchmark of so many promises to the Aboriginal community.
“It builds a bridge and a bridge closes a gap and that actually is what reconciliation is.”
One of the main aims of the action plan is to increase Vinnies’ Aboriginal staffing across the state.
Tamworth is a model for the rest of the state, local management said, with a “high percentage of Aboriginal people working here”.
District manager Warren Sullivan said the plan would change the way the organisation operates.
“It’s embedded in how we are going operate,” he said.
“It isn’t instruction for staff, it’s the way we work with people.”
Mrs Laupepa said it would help create cultural knowledge and safety.
“The moment someone walks in to a St Vincent De Paul service and says I’m Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, that completely changes the process of the service delivery,” she said.
“Because of that, Aboriginal people are being heard and being healed.”
Clinical director of the rehab, Adrian Webber, said the RAP had been a long-term goal for Vinnies which had finally come to fruition.
“It’s recognising, as an organisation, that we’ve made a huge commitment to continue to work even better with our local Aboriginal community,” Mr Webber said.
“Within the action plan, there are a number of key criteria about ensuring that it is a plan that is going to be embedded and is going to continue to work and it’s not just a document that sits there.”