The Healing Foundation is urging all Australian schools to include the story of the Stolen Generations in their curriculum to ensure students have a better understanding of the full history of Australia, which dates back more than 60,000 years.
As schools prepare for the 2021 year, they are encouraged to incorporate The Healing Foundation's Stolen Generations Resource Kit for Teachers and Students into their curriculums. The kit provides schools with a free resource that communicates the full history of Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in a safe and age-appropriate way.
The Healing Foundation CEO Fiona Petersen said Australia's history dates back more than 60,000 years and is rich with stories of the oldest continuous culture on Earth.
"The story of the Stolen Generations provides context and meaning for the struggles and inequities that First Nations peoples have faced since colonisation," Ms Petersen said.
"The traumatic impact of historical child removals continues to affect Stolen Generations survivors and their families today, but until now very little has been taught in schools.
"The grief and trauma that resulted from historical child removals is deep, complex and ongoing, and it is compounded when unacknowledged or dismissed for a sanitised version of history.
"Sharing the ongoing impacts that colonisation has had on Stolen Generations survivors and their families, and honouring their lived experience, is an important part of healing for survivors.
"It's also an important part of healing for Australia more broadly as a mature nation that can engage in meaningful conversations about our shared past.
"These conversations will enable us to walk together to a better future. This includes sharing this history with our children so they can have a full understanding of our real history and its present-day impacts."
The Healing Foundation's Stolen Generations Resource Kit for Teachers and Students was created with Stolen Generations survivors, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous teachers, parents, early childhood specialists and curriculum writers. It makes it easy for school communities to start the conversation using facts, real examples, and stories.
Since the launch of the kit in March 2019, more than 13,000 lesson plans for Foundation to Year 9 have been
