Aboriginal child removals have escalated by 119% over the past decade while non-Indigenous removals have declined by 12%. Caregiver sensitivity remains the most stable predictor of secure attachment in children, yet not a single attachment-based program has been designed around the specific caregiver mental health needs of Aboriginal parents — including race-mediated trauma, intergenerational forced removal trauma, and the unique caregiving contexts of collective, kinship-based cultures. Programs continue to be delivered from a monocultural evidence base to a workforce that is 94% non-Indigenous, without guidance on the cultural factors that distinguish difference from deficit. Ainsworth's Strange Situation Procedure has been validated across more than 40 countries but has never been tested with Aboriginal Australian populations — until now. This keynote presents an overview of a newly funded program that will, for the first time, validate the SSP with Aboriginal children from generationally removed families and deliver a culturally informed attachment intervention designed from within Aboriginal culture. The program directly addresses Indigenous-specific caregiver needs — including racial trauma, collective grief, helplessness driven by ongoing state intervention, and the impact of forced removal on the capacity to provide sensitive caregiving. It will measure whether addressing these culturally specific caregiver factors shifts infant attachment classifications back toward security. This work sits within the broader mission of the Jilya Institute, which has developed Australia's only Indigenous Psychology Treatment centre by funding and supported 79 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to become psychologists — achieving Australian record graduation rates. Drawing on 25 years of clinical expertise, this presentation challenges the profession to confront what it has been willing to ignore: that you cannot treat what you have never understood.
