Is Your Organisation Having Problems with Closing the Gap Strategies?

Have you ever reflected on the idea that your organisation’s RAP or Aboriginal Employment Strategy looks great on paper? 

And yes it’s been ticked off by the Aboriginal workers involved and also by the Board.  

And yet, it just doesn’t manage to reach the Closing the Gap finish line! 

For way too long we have had the mistaken belief that with targeted programs, Aboriginal people will eventually catch up and equality will eventually emerge and the world will be right.  

Over many years I have come to realise that when we continue to compare Aboriginal data with mainstream data it feeds the ongoing myth that what works in the mainstream space will work in the Aboriginal space. 

Nothing could be further from the truth.

For the past 11 years we have seen annual Closing the Gap reports come and go. We’ve all watched as the targeted KPIs incrementally inch their way towards mainstream measurements. 

Yet the consistently, routinely and without fail the KPIs miss the mark. 

My interest is in seeing KPI’s set by Aboriginal families and communities rather than by governments and funded service providers 

When organisations with the power, ability to persuade and closer proximity to Aboriginal communities align their goals, purpose and outcomes with the people who benefit, then we might see a shift from Closing the Gap to a different way of thinking.

The difference is to open the space by opening our minds and hearts to hearing what the mob says will work for them. 

The mob gets to decide their needs, their wants and how they want to achieve them. 

Not by governments, not by service providers and certainly not by elected politicians.

I have been in this space for almost 40 years and have seen so many programs come and go. 

Yet their purpose has little to do with the identified needs and wants of the very people these programs are supposedly designed for. 

Today more than ever we must review how we can give Aboriginal people a voice to identify their own dreams, desires and destinies and support them to decide what’s best for them.

Now is the time for us to stop and listen to the voice of the mob. 

Only then can we avoid repeating past practices that created the so-called gap in the first place.

To enquire about Anny working with you and your organisation contact her by email at [email protected] or phone 0418 512 586