However, opening a home to a child in need can be the balm that changes a child’s life.

Aunt Sue said there is a deficit of Aboriginal kinship cares in community, and as a result, there is a danger a dreadful history may repeat itself.

“This is the beginning of another stolen generation if they don’t act soon,” she said.

There are 15,000 Aboriginal children living in out-of-home and foster homes, a worrying statistics when indigenous children make up only 4.4 per cent of all children in Australia.

Aunt Sue was critical of the government’s solutions.

“No one cares. They’re not out there to fix the problem; they’re just there to take the kids, take the kids, takes the kids.”

She said the time was not being taken to find family, and as a result, “a lot of kids, they’re just shoved everywhere.”

Aunt Sue was named as the inaugural Ambassador for Children for the Australian Centre for Child Protection in 2014. 

She is also a founder of Winangay resources that have created extensive, accessible tool to train Aboriginal out-of-home care support workers.

The red tape of bureaucracy is simplified so every adult can work through the system, and the voice of children is heard and amplified.

“This tool breaks it down,” she said. 

“And kids have their say. Kids can say what they want, and we’ve got to listen.” Recently, local children working with Winangay joined their skills to create a quilt that speaks their minds about their lives in out-of-home care, and their hopes and dreams.

“It’s about time to listen to our kids, bring our kids home, stop the tears, listen to us, bring our cousins home to our aunties,  our uncles, give them hope,” Sue read from the quilt.

The quilt is displayed at conferences and they have had a request to display the quilt in England.

Aiding the children is only part of Winangay’s work. Once the child is safe and secure, they turn their attention to the parents to help heal their lives, put them back on track, to a place where families may be reunited.