Ideas@TheCentre
Rebuilding social norms
It's one of the first things you do in the morning and one of the last things you do at night. Most of us have been taught to do it from early childhood. And though we may have rebelled at times, it has become something that we do habitually – brushing our teeth.
In the Tiwi Islands, a Catholic school has implemented a teeth brushing program after a teacher observed children coming to school with sore mouths because of poor oral hygiene.
Next to other areas of neglect and abuse, brushing teeth is a minor issue. Yet the fact that children have to be taught to do it at school speaks volumes about the differences in the lives of children living in remote Indigenous communities compared to those in mainstream Australia.
The building of such social norms is the impetus behind the Cape York Welfare Reform project being trialled in four Cape York communities: Aurukun, Coen, Hope Vale, and Mossman Gorge.
A key part of the Welfare Reform project is the Family Responsibilities Commission, a regulatory authority that involves local Indigenous people in decision-making and aims to restore socially responsible standards of behaviour by referring people to support services and/or quarantining their welfare benefits when they, among other things, fail to send their children to school.
The first evaluation report of the Cape York Welfare Reform shows that the commission is beginning to make a difference. School attendance in Aurukun and Mossman Gorge has increased, and the level of violence in these two communities has reduced. At the same time, improvements in Hope Vale and Coen have not been so noticeable.
This is to be expected. Although many of the underlying issues affecting the four communities are similar, each community manifests its problems differently and has varying capabilities to overcome them.
A one size fits all approach, like that used in the Northern Territory, does not distinguish between the responsible and the irresponsible. It is crucial that people are recognised when they do take personal responsibility for themselves – and only helped when they do not.
It is a dilemma that confronts many mothers: do you stand outside the bathroom door listening to what you think is the sound of your child brushing their teeth (they could be merely running the water and scrubbing the basin) or do you open the door and watch them, or do you go in and brush their teeth for them so you can be confident that it is done properly.
The best option is to watch the child brush their own teeth. While they might not get to the back molars, at least they are learning some independence. This is essentially what the Welfare Reforms in Cape York are doing – a form of soft paternalism that involves observing communities and stepping in only when needed. While this approach may take a little longer to show improvements, the end results will be better than a top down government imposed measure.
Sara Hudson is a policy analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.
