But-ton Kidn Doon-ga: Black women know

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Re-presenting the lived experiences of Australian Indigenous women with mental health and wellbeing issues and or cognitive disabilities in criminal justice systems

This is a recording of one of the concurrent workshops from the AASW National Symposium in November 2015.

The workshop was presented by Elizabeth McEntyre and Professor Eileen Baldry on the topic "But-ton Kidn Doon-ga: Black Women Know - Re-presenting the lived experiences of Australian Indigenous women with mental health and wellbeing issues and or cognitive disabilities in criminal justice systems".

Aboriginal women are 23 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Aboriginal women. There is growing evidence that Indigenous women with mental health, wellbeing and cognitive impairment (including intellectual disability and acquired brain injury) concerns are coming into contact with the criminal justice system, including the police, courts and prison, at much higher rates than are other groups and than their rates in the general community would predict. Despite this swelling crisis, there has been little critical attention given to the criminalisation and imprisonment of Australian Indigenous women with disabling cognitive and mental health and wellbeing concerns by state or territory governments, social workers in mental health or disability institutions and services, community development workers or activists, or social work scholars in Australian universities.

This presentation briefly presents the findings of a unique Indigenous informed qualitative project exploring Indigenous Australians with mental and cognitive disability in criminal justice systems. It then focuses on the gendered and racialised experiences of Australian Indigenous women with mental illness and cognitive and developmental disabilities in the New South Wales (NSW) and Northern Territory (NT) criminal justice systems pointing to a range of innovative social work practices informed by Aboriginal women.

Presenter details

Elizabeth McEntyre is a Goori woman from the Worimi and Wonnarua Nations of coastal Port Stephens, Newcastle and Hunter Valley in New South Wales. Elizabeth is an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker at Biripi Aboriginal Corporation Medical Centre (Taree), as well as an Official Visitor for NSW prisons. Elizabeth is currently undertaking a PhD in Social Work at the University of New South Wales.

Professor Eileen Baldry is a Professor of Criminology and Acting Dean Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales. Professor Baldry is Elizabeth's PhD supervisor, and was heavily involved in the data mining for this research