Healing the Hurt

A NATIONAL Day of Healing will be launched on 26 May — a day that, under the previous title of Sorry Day, has focused on healing the hurt caused by the removal, as children, of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from their families. Under its new name, it aims to focus on the relationship between Australia’s first peoples and the wider community. This is not to downplay the healing needed among the ‘stolen generations’. A survey of Aboriginal child health conducted by the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research showed serious emotional and behavioural difficulties among the children of those who were removed. But, in part, their healing depends on healing the continuing impact of non-Indigenous settlement on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.