One month before the June 2007 Federal Government Emergency Intervention in the Northern Territory some 55 West Australian Aboriginal child protection workers attended a 3-day summit in Fremantle. Their purpose as front-line practitioners from across the State was to identify how more nurturing and healing communities could be developed and supported in a climate of despair. This paper reports on how the summit was designed and on some of the ideas and concerns that emerged within this dialogical space of cooperative inquiry. The project was a partnership between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal representatives of university, government, and community-service bodies. Aboriginal practitioners identified the complexity of what was happening in their experience and where changes were needed. Integral to this participation and coproduction of knowledge by Aboriginal child protection workers was the provision of a safe space for the articulation of reflected experience. Implications for policy, practice, and curriculum of both process and outcome dimensions to considering Aboriginal views on this contentious issue are discussed.

In this chapter we argue that top-down and templated systems of child protection can fail many Aboriginal children and families by not responding to the particular and situational circumstances involved. The homogenising of the category 'Aboriginal' and constructing Aboriginal as 'problematic', presumes that families who are Aboriginal are in some way deficient, consequently ensuring that the experience of trauma for Aboriginal people is not something that happened in the past. For those coming to the attention of child protection authorities, trauma remains a continuing thread across many family systems such that it is hard to distinguish cause from effect. While systems concerned with protecting children are necessary, we argue that the ways those ends are pursued can visit further trauma on Aboriginal families and their children.