Cirrus@Austlit

'On 25 July 2016 I was in a paediatric roundtable at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, where we discussed early interventions in Koori children’s lives to help give them the best start possible. Later that evening I found myself horrified by images of teenage Dylan Voller being stripped naked, hooded and strapped in a chair by adult men in the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre. Like many others I will never forget those images. I grew so distressed during the airing of that show that my husband wanted to change the channel. I said, ‘No. I am a witness, I am witnessing something here.’'  (Introduction)

'Families are important, our centre from which support, guidance and leadership are culturally transmitted from person to person, through generation to generation. Samantha Faulkner uses the life of her grandfather, Ali Drummond, to explore — through her relationships with near and extended families — these connections in her own life to her roots in the Torres Strait and those she has established on the mainland. Throughout this book, the cultural connections and reflections on family remain strong.' (Introduction)