Closing the Gap on Health Inequality for Aboriginal Babies and their Families

By Kerrie Gottliebsen

The national Close The Gap day is a reminder of the role that Tweddle, a state-wide family health and early parenting organisation, plays in helping to improve and influence health outcomes for Aboriginal families, children and their communities.

For Tweddle, supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families means acknowledging the injustices of the past and how they cause trauma across generations.

Close the Gap started in 2005 with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Professor Tom Calma AO, in his Social Justice Report 2005, urged Australian governments to commit to achieving equality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in health and life expectancy within 25 years.

The Implementation Plan is about practical action. The gap is not closing fast enough, and, on some measures, it is going backwards.

Closing the Gap acknowledges the ongoing strength and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in sustaining the world’s oldest living cultures. It also recognises that structural change in the way governments work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is needed to close the gap.

The objective of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap is to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and governments to work together to overcome the inequality experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and achieve life outcomes equal to all Australians.

Improving the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

 The National Agreement on Closing the Gap has 16 national socio-economic targets across areas that have an impact on life outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The 16 targets include outcomes that improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

Targets include that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are born healthy and strong, that they thrive in their early years, and that they are not over-represented in the child protection system.

While Close the Gap day is a time for Tweddle staff, families and the community to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements, it is also a day to reflect on how we are helping to influence and achieve the National Agreement on Closing the Gap targets.

Tweddle believes in working in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities as we develop an understanding of transgenerational trauma. This understanding will help Tweddle to provide and improve access to inclusive practice and programs in the best interest of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies, children and families.

Tweddle’s RAP

Tweddle has developed a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) Reflect, and is currently embarking on our RAP Innovate.

Proud Yorta Yorta and Gunnai graphic artist and Director at Bayila Creative Dixon Patten has provided the illustrations for Tweddle’s RAP.

For more information about how you can help Close The Gap, visit ANTaR, a national advocacy organisation dedicated specifically to the rights – and overcoming the disadvantage – of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, through lobbying, public campaigns and advocacy.

You can also read about the Closing the Gap partnership, targets and priority reforms here.

Make a pledge to Close the Gap and join in demanding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality within a generation.

For more information read the Closing the Gap 2021 report

The Commonwealth’s Implementation Plan is available on the National Indigenous Australians Agency’s website.

The Coalition of the Peaks Implementation Plan is available online.

The Closing the Gap implementation plans for all Federal and State governments are available online