FOUNDER & CEO STORY
Kinship Connections was founded in 2012 when CEO, Ann Hawke, saw the need to do more for her people while working for the then Department of Child Protection (DCP), now Department of Communities. Ann was motivated by her passion to fully implement the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle – a legal requirement that Aboriginal children in care be placed in the most culturally appropriate foster family. Such placements give children the possibility of experiencing all the advantages of being brought up within their own culture, thus allowing their Aboriginal identity and sense of belonging to their community to become an important part of their healing journey.
Ann has lived experience of removal into State care, and she has been a foster carer for over 35 years.
You can learn more about the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle here.
For all children and young people – but especially Aboriginal children and young people – changes to the whole system will result in children in care arrangements that meet their physical, emotional, cultural, and spiritual needs in keeping with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle.
Following an open tender procurement process, 16 providers have been awarded a new contract to deliver OOHC services in WA over the next five to seven years. This includes five new ACCOs who will be providing OOHC services for the first time, alongside Yorganop who already delivers culturally safe OOHC services in Western Australia.
The Western Australian Department of Communities and Kinship Connections Aboriginal Corporation has recently committed to working together via the Department’s Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation (ACCO) Strategy 2022—2032.
Our founder/CEO Ann Hawke was part of the Strategy working group for over 3 years, made up of Aboriginal people from all over WA to advise and work with the Department to make changes to child protection.
The ACCO Strategy is about empowering Aboriginal children, families, and Communities to choose their future from secure and sustained foundations enabled through culturally secure ACCO services.
This Strategy aligns with the National Agreement on Closing the Gap (National Agreement) and the WA Aboriginal Empowerment Strategy 2021—2029 demonstrating the Department of Communities’ long-term commitment to self-determination for Aboriginal people.
In a nutshell, the ACCO Strategy is about grassroots Aboriginal Community leadership through self-determination. The Strategy responds to the need to improve how the Department of Communities procures and delivers services for Aboriginal children, families, and Communities by supporting the empowerment of ACCOs to deliver place-based, culturally appropriate services across WA.
As an ACCO, self-determination is central to what Kinship Connections does; our purpose is to grow to deliver culturally secure services by us, for us, to our Communities. By advocating for decolonised service delivery, program design, policy, and legislation, we embody a strengths-based example of self-determination in action to work toward the healing of our children, families and communities.
Kinship Connections Aboriginal Corporation (KCAC) is committed to ensuring a quality FCSS program is provided to carers, children, and the young people in their care.