Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency Explained

The Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA), formerly known as the Aboriginal Child Placement Agency (ACPA), is an organisation in Victoria, founded by Aboriginal Australians in the 1970s, to provide services to and advocacy for Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders. VACCA played an important role in bringing to light the effects of the Stolen Generations on families.

History

The Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA) was established in 1976 after discussions at a national adoption conference held that year. In particular, Mollie Dyer's contribution to the conference and increasing pressure from the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, which saw the link between child removal from Indigenous families (later becoming known as the Stolen Generations) and over-representation in the criminal justice system.^{[1] [2]}

VACCA became a model for other Aboriginal and Islander child care agencies nationwide, and it networked with activists in other states to ensure the success of the other agencies.^{[3] [4]}

Out of the state-based agencies, and as a result of the First Aboriginal Child Survival Seminar held in Melbourne in 1979, the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) was established in 1981 as a national non-government body representing the interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families.^[5]

Further reading

• Libesman, Terri. Decolonizing Indigenous Child Welfare: Comparative Perspectives. Routledge, 2013.
• Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency. The Aboriginal Cultural Competence Framework. (2008).
• Long, Maureen, and Rene Sephton. "Rethinking the 'best interests' of the child: Voices from Aboriginal child and family welfare practitioners." Australian Social Work 64.1 (2011): 96–112.

Notes and References

1. Linda Briskman, The Black Grapevine: Aboriginal Activism and the Stolen Generations, p.42)
2. Web site: VACCA's History . VACCA . 10 August 2024.
3. Linda Briskman, The Black Grapevine: Aboriginal Activism and the Stolen Generations, p.41)
4. Mollie Dyer, "Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency", in C. Picton (ed) Proceedings of the Second Australian Conference on Adoption (1978), p.182.
5. Web site: Our Story . SNAICC – National Voice for our Children . 12 February 2024 . 10 August 2024.