CASE STUDY - ABORIGINAL MALES HEALING CENTRE (AMHC) IS TACKLING FAMILY VIOLENCE

Uncle Colin Peterson, AMHC Council Elder; Devon Cuimara, AMHC CEO; and Djeran Cuimara, Devon’s son.

The Aboriginal Males Healing Centre (AMHC) aims to break the cycle of family violence in the Pilbara region, Western Australia. 

Their vision is that all Aboriginal women and children live safe and healthy lives free from family violence. 

To do this, AMHC want to build an Aboriginal Community Controlled Healing Centre that can serve as an alternative to incarceration for Aboriginal men who engage in family violence. An outreach program geared towards early intervention and prevention will also sit alongside the Healing Centre. 

They aim to take a holistic approach by drawing on Western clinical care and rehabilitation methods (the Duluth model), underpinned by Aboriginal culture and Lore as the key healing element. 

AMHC first invited Community First Development to work with them in 2016. They had been working consistently over the previous five years to develop a model to address family violence. 

They wanted assistance to identify potential funding sources and to complete and submit grants. Since then and after completing several projects with Community First Development and other key stakeholders, they have achieved several steps towards their dream. 

Devon Cuimara, AMHC Chief Executive Officer, sees Community First Development as a “bridge” to “specialists” AMHC would normally not have access to.

“You are a bridge between us and a specialist that normally we would necessarily have to track down and then approach and invite. That’s a long process to get a specialist to come on board to assist you. Whereas in essence, through Community First Development, we’ve been given access to the required specialist to bring us where we are today. Without that, look, I can only say one thing, we wouldn’t be where we are today.” Devon Cuimara, AMHC chief Executive Officer. 

AMHC has been very strategic in bringing on board key stakeholders to support the many steps required to establish the Healing Centre. Community First Development forms part of a collaborative pro-bono team led by AMHC that now also includes Indigenous psychological services, engineers, architects, and many others.

AMHC initial technical construction working group focused on obtaining funding to build the infrastructure.

To date, Community First Development volunteers have worked with AMHC to complete seven projects critical to the community’s long-term dream and are currently working with them on three.

This case study provides an overview of four of the completed projects and highlights one of many ways our skilled Community Development Officers work with communities. 

Read more about how Community First Development worked with AMHC, what we both learned, and where to next, in the full case study here.  

You can also check out the architectural illustration of the Healing Centre on AMHC’s website here: https://www.amhc.org.au/design-build