This WA Indigenous program is a ‘remarkable’ success. So why is it battling for government funding?

An Indigenous pioneer in child intervention has urged the federal government to honour its Closing the Gap commitment by fixing a funding impasse faced by her organisation that could result in 30 staff jobs lost and 1000 children facing scaled-down services.

Professor Cheryl Kickett-Tucker, a West Australian of the Year finalist and former Voice national co-design panel member, said her Indigenous-run organisation Koya Aboriginal Corporation ran homework classes, sporting programs and parent support for hundreds of families in Perth’s eastern and southern suburbs.

Professor Cheryl Kickett-Tucker, second from left, with Koya peer ambassadors.

“We’re helping families to get through the school gate and keeping them there,” she said.

“We run high school transition programs that get kids ready for school and we provide support and cultural advisors to kids who are actually going to school.

“We have after-school culture and homework clubs, so the kids have somewhere safe to go and do their homework in a culturally safe environment.”

The service, which has been operating in the southern suburbs for seven years and in midland for 22 years, also runs a sports program and is open on weekends and holidays.

“Diabetes, suicide, obesity – these programs address that stuff. We have not lost any child in our sports programs,” Kickett-Tucker said.

Despite its track record, Koya was informed by the National Indigenous Australians Agency that an “administrative error” required the agency to withdraw an offer of two-year contracts for two of Koya’s three services, only days before federal funding contracts ran out.

Kickett-Tucker said the NIAA gave an undertaking in late November that three two-year contract extensions for Koya’s community programs would be granted.

Less than two weeks later, that undertaking was rescinded as an “administrative error”, with two out of three programs given only a one-year extension.

“We’re open even when every other service is shut ... we deserve better treatment.”

Professor Cheryl Kickett-Tucker

Koya claimed about 30 staff roles and activities for around 1000 children were now in jeopardy.

Kickett-Tucker said NIAA’s one-year offer contravened the spirit of new industrial relations law that came into effect on December 6, and limited the use of fixed-term contracts.

“It also effectively puts a gun to the head of Koya just before the start of the Christmas holiday period, with NIAA saying that if we didn’t sign these one-year contracts, we would not receive any money and our program staff would not have jobs in 2024,” she said.

Professor Cheryl Kickett-Tucker.

“Koya has been raising concerns about short-term, fixed-dollar contracts for nearly three years, and received protracted delays in receiving information and unsatisfactory responses that do not provide any tangible, logical or reasonable explanations as to why and how these funding decisions are being made.”

She said NIAA’s role as government lead agency was to “coordinate the development and implementation of Australia’s Closing the Gap targets in partnership with Indigenous Australians”.

“We walk alongside our families. We don’t let them go until they tell us they are ready to go it alone,” she said.

“Yet our experience with NIAA is that the reforms for Closing the Gap seem meaningless.

“We are forced to challenge NIAA on their one-year funding cycles, and we are on the receiving end of poor communication as an organisation that has served our people for 22 years.”

Former federal Indigenous affairs minister Ken Wyatt said Koya provided services for a bigger Indigenous population living in Perth’s eastern and southern suburbs than in the entire Kimberley.

He said he had witnessed firsthand its impact on children and youth.

“Cheryl’s programs have taken kids off the streets at night and engaged their parents,” Wyatt told this masthead.

“I have visited an after-school service for school kids in Midland at the start of the Koya program, and I visited them afterwards. The difference was remarkable.

“If this program was to cease existing, the crisis point of incarcerated youth would be substantially reached.”

Wyatt said uncertainty in funding discouraged good staff from remaining.

“It’s poor management to be advised at the last minute,” he said.

“There should be triennial funding for organisations like Koya that have a proven track record.”

Kickett-Tucker said recurrent one-year funding had already seen a number of full-time staff seek greater job security elsewhere.

Yet the state’s crisis in youth justice could be addressed by securing the future of Koya’s programs, she said.

“Koya’s doors are open to any child, no matter what their background although the majority are Aboriginal,” she said.

“And doing sport keeps kids off the street – it’s a no-brainer for their physical, cultural and psychological wellbeing. Diabetes, suicide, obesity – these programs address that stuff.

“We’re open even when every other service is shut, after school, on weekends and holidays. We deserve better treatment.”

The NIAA said it continued to support Koya Aboriginal Corporation and its programs, and would provide $1.4 million in funding grants across 2024.

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