Associated Action
Research
Inter-Community &
Regional Cooperative Partnerships in Living Well
Communities
Program Working Group
While
the 12 - 18 youth are a primary focus group of the Proposal, youth aged 18-25
and over age 25 groups would be incorporated at later stages.
As
stated, the pre 12 at risk youth are worked with within the community context.
Later
stages involve transforming the whole community to an inter-generational Living
Well Community
The
Proposal is a Twenty Year Program - involving no quick fixes, as typically
there are inter-generational problematics.
Focal Issues - Enabling Cooperative Action:
·
Stopping
Petrol Sniffing
·
Softening
Abuse of Alcohol & Other Drugs
·
Stopping
Civil Disobedience & Criminal Behaviour:
·
Supporting
Transforming At-Risk Children & Adolescents
·
Stopping
Family Violence & Community Violence
·
Stopping
Property Violence and Theft
·
Learning
Difficulties & Dysfunctional Psycho-Socio-Emotional-Spiritual Behaviour:
·
Attachment
Disorder
·
Attention
Deficit Disorder
·
Autism
·
Bellicosity,
Verbal Abuse & Excessive Noise
·
Compulsive
Behaviours
·
Depression
·
Hyperactivity
Disorder
·
Hypo-activity
Disorder
·
Malaise
·
Obsessive
Behaviours
·
Rage
Disorder
·
Respecting
Law/Lore, Older People, Elders & Culture
·
Reward
Deficiency Syndrome
·
Suicidal
Predisposition
·
Truancy/Rejection
of Schooling
·
Harmful
Eating & Drinking (especially white sugar and flour)
Total
Care Foundation Inc.
The Action Research Study & Program
The Working Group
The interdisciplinary working group
comprises people exploring inter and intra community holistic experiential ways
for resolving focal issues under the auspices of the Total Care Foundation Inc.
- a non profit educational and benevolent organisation. The working group is
not connected with any religion or political group and respect cultural and
spiritual diversity.
The Proposals holds forth potential
for evolving Living Well Communities among all
communities as a global model of what human passion and wise endeavour
together can evolve..
Amount Initially Applied for:
$5
Million
Meta-context
Nothing happens in the Study and
Proposal unless local community members want it to.
Context
Remote area communities typically and
concurrently have:
a) a strong desire by individual
communities to solve their own
problems
b) a lack of local community people
experienced in resolving many of the issues
c) a strong desire to receive and control
their own funding towards their
resolving local problems
d) many common issues between different communities which are degrading
quality of life
It follows that while each community
may have funding and control of matters within the community:
a) it may be possible for sharing ‘ideas
that work’ between communities and regions
b) sharing may occur in ways that may
have the recipients of sharings using or adapting what they want to local ways
in resolving local issues
c) there may be inter-community sharing
in processes for evolving the capacities of local community people and programs
during using and adapting ‘processes that work’
Aims of the Study
Mindful of each of the above, the
proposed Study is to:
A.
Explore
specific needs of focal people at risk in communities along the following
holistically broad based themes:
a)
Stopping
Petrol Sniffing & Softening Abuse Of Alcohol & Other Drugs
b)
Civil
Disobedience & Criminal Behaviour:
i)
Stopping
Family Violence & Community Violence
ii)
Stopping
Property Violence and Theft
iii)
Supporting
Transforming At-Risks Children & Adolescents
c)
Learning
Difficulties & Dysfunctional Psycho-Socio-Emotional-Spiritual Behaviour,
including:
i)
Attachment
Disorder
ii)
Attention
Deficit Disorder
iii)
Autism
iv)
Bellicosity,
Verbal Abuse & Excessive Noise
v)
Compulsive
Behaviours
vi)
Depression
vii)
Hyperactivity
Disorder
viii)
Hypo-activity
Disorder
ix)
Malaise
x)
Obsessive
Behaviours
xi)
Rage
Disorder
xii)
Respecting
Law/Lore, Older People, Elders & Culture
xiii)
Reward
Deficiency Syndrome
xiv)
Suicidal
Predisposition,
xv)
Truancy/Rejection
Of Schooling
B.
Introduce,
Gather And Explore Community Acceptance Of Possible Change Processes
C.
Fine-Tune
the Design of the Proposal,
D.
Cost
The Proposal
E.
Test
The Proposal’s:
i)
Community,
Inter-Community And Regional Acceptance
ii)
Feasibility
and
iii)
Likely
Outcomes
F.
Ensuring
That The Proposal has the Required Integrity, Transparency, Accountability and
Rigour
Issue Resolving Processes Being
Considered in Evolving the Proposal
In evolving the Proposal, the Working
Group are embodying the use of a number of interrelated
issue-resolving processes of demonstrated efficacy. As well, these processes
seem to be culturally and inter-culturally acceptable in cultural-multicultural
contexts.
The
Study metaprocess:
1. The local people to be supported in
carrying out the Study – Research as transforming process
2. NOTHING happens unless locals want it
to happen
The
Proposal metaprocess:
1. Evolving the Proposal to be facilitated
by local people, with the enabling support of other people on the Working Group
2. NOTHING happens unless locals want it
to happen
3. Local communities may evolve their own
segment of the proposal in the process of selecting, experiencing and acquiring
issue resolving competences
4. Each community may evolve their own
program as part of the Proposal and have their own funding
5. Participating communities may maintain
cooperative partnerships with the other participating communities and regions
in exchanging feedback of program processes and actions that work
Evolving Proposal Issue-Resolving Processes
Firstly, through discussions and profiling,
identifying at-risk youth/older people and their specific issues and needs.
Secondly, having at-risk people involved in the
Proposal and pre-study
Thirdly, having at-risk people involved in safe
campouts away from the community.
For remote area communities with a pervasive
problematic social atmosphere:
The initial focal group to be at risk
12 - 18 year old youths
Around 14-16 youths in the 12-18 age
group to be taken to a designated ‘special place’ - more than 12 hours walking
distance away from the community (so the disappearance of youth attempting to
return to the community is discovered in time to retrieve them back to the
camp)
To ensure all aspects of personal and
group safety and wellbeing:
At-risk youth to be sub-grouped in
sleeping and activities
A ratio of one adult resource person
for every four youth to be maintained
Youths on the program to stay at the
special place for three months
The place to be ‘off limits’ to people
not connected with the Program
Youths to have periodic contact with
family, elders, and other contact at another
designated place 12 hours walking distance from the community
During the three month stay at the
special place and the other designated meeting place, participating youth to
have no access to petrol, tobacco, alcohol or any other drugs.
On top of periodic interesting trips
and activities, the youth to be engaged daily in life-change experiences based
on:
a)
Socio-emotional
change processes evolved from indigenous socio-healing (Cawte, J., 1974, 1996)
b)
Local
community law, stories, dance, and lore
c)
Processes
experienced and gathered at the following celebration gatherings:
I. 1970 to 1974 Learning To Live Well Together ATSI gatherings in Armidale &
Grafton NSW, (Iceton, N., 1970-76; Franklin. M., 1995; Kamien M., 1978)
III. 1993 Relational Mediating Gathering Tinaroo
IV. 1994 Small Island Coastal and Estuarine Peoples Gathering Tinaroo
V. 1971-2000 Indigenous Therapeutic
Community Houses in Townsville Mackay and Cairns, Atherton & Darwin
PROCESSES
Rapport Building – Ebb & Flow and Weaving
processes - being at one, moving together A wide range of verbal and non-verbal
rapport building processes
Outback Craft-Artificer
and Bush-Mechanic Work as Therapy Processes - gaining cattle station and other vocational
competences
Outdoor Action Play - individual and group experiences,
processes, initiatives and rituals for possibilities that may build trust in
self and others, and possibly build co-operation, community enrichment, self
resourcefulness, self reliance, group support and which may improve dispute
solving
Therapeutic Storytelling
Processes, context
healing, street mediation and group story performance - draws on East Asia
Oceania Australasia indigenous cultural and intercultural healing artistry
processes, corroboree, therapeutic communities, dance movement and Keyline
organic farming concepts and processes. Uses natural and evolving contexts as healing possibilities. Embraces mediation therapy/counselling for
strengthening healing, relationship and community
Conversational Change - this set of micro-experiences may
allow healing action to take place 'on the run' as it were, as one goes about
relating with other people in day to day contexts.
Caring and Sharing - home, street and rural mediation
therapy/counselling - an extensive set of micro-experiences that foster
relationship building and healing happening between people in conflict, within
a healing mediating frame.
Cultural Healing Action - processes drawing on influences
from East Asia Oceania Australasia indigenous and other cultures around the
world. Cultural Healing Action can run from less than an hour to several days
(or weeks). People may be involved in
energetic and not so energetic games and activities - in drama, music, creative
writing, singing, carving, sculpture, dance, visual arts, theatre, and group
dynamics.
Mediation Therapy &
Mediating Metaphor -
storytelling, performance and image writing as parables for healthy tolerance
and cooperative living; throughout time stories and other forms of metaphor
have been used for promoting healing change
Intercultural and
Inter-Ethnic Consensus;
respect for cultural diversity, negotiating meaning, joint authority, the
principles of humanitarian (caring) law & Lore
Therapeutic Community
Processes -
reconstituting lives as we learn to live well together with others in community
Being Well – Experiential processes for
re-connecting with our essence in all of its myriad forms – savouring and
appreciating our sensing, moving, and feeling in being more
well in our world with others
2.
Local
community people to gain competencies in facilitating the program as:
a)
Therapeutic
Activity Facilitators
b)
Eeg
Biofeedback Practitioners
c)
Camp
Cooks
d)
Camp
Support
Fourthly
- Profiling & Neurotherapy Biofeedback
EEG Biofeedback has emerged as an
effective modality for resolving the above mentioned issues (Alhambra, M.,
Fowler, T. & Alhambra; Othmer, S., Othmer, S. & Marks C. Sept.,1991; Journal of Neurotherapy 1990 - 2001).
Once the camp out program routine is
established, including regular biofeedback sessions, the Neurofeedback
practitioner allocates one day a week to return to the community to provide:
a)
Biofeedback
sessions to at-risk youth under age 12, and
b)
Interaction
competences sharing with people who will be interacting with the youth when
they return from the camp in 3 months - see list below
·
Gaining
acceptance of the six communities and the elders to be part of the Study
·
Aarranging
for a community person in each of the six communities to be the law, cultural
and linguistic liaison person for the Study in that person’s community
·
Holding
a series of community, family and individual discussion/feedback sessions about
the Study and the related Proposal over a five day period in each community
·
Identifying
target youth, via interviews with the youth and relevant community members
·
Specifying
target youths’ needs
·
Having
target youth agree to participate in the Study
·
Carrying
out EEG Biofeedback profiling on target youth as aid in identify the presence
of symptomatic indicators of
dysfunctional behaviours such as Autism, Conduct Disorder, Tourette,
attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity disorder, and compulsivess/obsessiveness/adictive
type behaviours
·
Gaining
acceptance that at-risk people participate in the proposal
·
Identifying
local people (five to eight) with aptitude prepared to receive training as
various types of resource people for the Proposal:
A member of the Proposal resource training
team was invited to a Remote Area Community. After researching the community,
approximately 20 of a population of 250 were identified as full blown petrol
sniffers. Over 10 were in the 12 - 18 age group. There
were around 6-8 at risk pre-12 youth. On biofeedback testing, all 20 of the
petrol sniffers fitted the Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) profile. 28 youth
and elders participated in an eight day campout. All of the 20 at-risk people
agreed to participate in a future program within the Proposal.
Remote Area Community Participation in
the Study
Approaches are currently being made to
other remote area communities relating to them participating in the Study.
The Proposal Being Holistically Broad
Based
This Proposal’s action has three concurrent themes:
·
the
major theme is generating and nurturing good living
·
this
is closely followed by preventing impediments to good living, and thirdly
·
curing
those affected by impediments
Action is concurrently focused on:
·
increasing
good living,
·
sustaining
prevention, and
·
decreasing the need to cure.
One of the Proposal’s aims is to
extend competences among the following people in interacting with the at risk
people:
·
parents
·
the
older women
·
the
natural nurturers within the community
·
elders
·
extended
family
·
community
·
teachers
·
police
·
magistrates
·
judges
·
Government
service people
·
NGO’s
·
doctors
·
administrators
Available upon request
References
Alhambra, M., Fowler, T. &
Alhambra, A. EEG
Biofeedback: A New Treatment Option
For ADD/ADHD.
Internet Publication
<http://www.snr-jnt.org/JournalNT/JNT(1-2)3.html>
Cawte, J., 1996. Healers of Arnhem Land. Sydney:
UNSW Press.
Cawte, J., 1974. Medicine is the law: Studies in Psychiatric Anthropology of Australian
Tribal Societies. Adelaide: Rigby.
Franklin. M., 1995.
Assimilation in Action
- The Armidale Story. Armidale: University of New England Press.
Iceton, N, 1970-76. The Aboriginal Human Relations Magazine.
Sydney: Connexion, Volumes 1-60.
Internet Nov 1999 An Example of Enabling Indigenous Wellbeing
Interrnet Publication: <http:www.laceweb.org.au/ena.htm>
Internet, June,1997
Cultural Healing Action
Interrnet Publication: <http:www.laceweb.org.au/cha.htm>
Sundry Articles on EEG Biofeedback, ADD & ADHD.
Journal
of Neurotherapy.
Internet Publication:
<http://www.snr-jnt.org/JournalNT/JNTindex.htm>
Kamien, M., 1978. The
Dark People of Bourke - A study of Planned Social
Change. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
Othmer, S., Othmer, S. & Marks,
C., Sept.,1991. EEG Biofeedback Training for Attention Deficit Disorder, Specific
Learning Disabilities, and Associated Conduct Problems. Internet
Publication: <http://www.eegspectrum.com/adhd91/adhd91.htm>
RSIG Report, 1994. The
Report to the United Nations Human Rights Commission on the Small Island
Coastal and Estuarine People Gathering Celebration
Interrnet Publication: <http:www.laceweb.org.au/rsig.htm>
Wilson, P., 1990. A Life of Crime. Newham,
Victoria: Scribe, Ch. 6, p. 71-85.
Yeomans, N. T., 1980 From the Outback International
Journal of Therapeutic Communities, Vol. 1 (1), 1980, p.64. Internet
Publication: <http://www.laceweb.org.au/out.htm>
Yeomans, N. T., 1962. The Mental Health of
Aborigines. The Medical Journal of Australia, 31 Mar, Page 497.
Yeomans, N. T., 1961a. Notes on a Therapeutic Community Part 1
Preliminary Report. Medical Journal of Australia, 2 Sept, Vol. 48, (2),
pages 382-384.
Yeomans, N. T., 1961b. Notes on a Therapeutic Community Part 2.
Medical Journal of Australia, Vol. 48 (2), 18 Nov, pages 829-830.