Family Wellbeing programme

1. Introduction

Version followed: the five-stage Family Wellbeing (FWB) group curriculum as summarised in Williamson et al. (2023, Table 1), delivered mainly as the nationally accredited Certificate II in Family Wellbeing (Lowitja Institute roundtable report, Monson-Wilbraham 2015). Two other published versions are noted where they differ: the four-stage, 10-week-per-stage course run by Tangentyere Council in Alice Springs in 1998 (Tsey & Every 2000), and the two-step Yarrabah/north Queensland adaptation (Stage 1 personal empowerment, then a facilitator-and-community-research stage; Haswell-Elkins et al. 2008; AOD Knowledge Centre). [source: Williamson et al. 2023; Monson-Wilbraham 2015; Tsey & Every 2000]

What it is. FWB is not a psychotherapy. It is an Aboriginal-developed group empowerment and personal-development programme, delivered as a structured adult-learning course, often accredited. It was developed in 1993 in Adelaide by the Aboriginal Employment Development Branch of the South Australian Department of Education, Training and Employment. Les Nayda led the development and vision, working with Aboriginal people at the grassroots, including Stolen Generations survivors. It began as an employment and training programme. Since then it has been delivered at roughly 56 to 60+ sites across Australia, from remote communities to prisons. Komla Tsey and colleagues (University of Queensland, later James Cook University and CQUniversity) evaluated it and supported its spread; they did not develop it. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 3, 6, 14; Williamson et al. 2023; Haswell-Elkins et al. 2008; McCalman 2013]

Who holds cultural authority. FWB describes itself as "developed by Aboriginal people for Aboriginal people, and delivered by Aboriginal people" (Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 8). Its facilitators' code of ethics says ownership, credit and successful outcomes belong to the communities (p. 16). Authority to run it under its name sits with:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander facilitators who have completed the stages and facilitator training.
The Aboriginal community-controlled organisations and accredited providers that host it. Named hubs and hosts include TAFE SA's Aboriginal Access Centre, Batchelor Institute with Tangentyere Council in Alice Springs, JCU in Cairns, and Gurriny Yealamucka Health Service with the Yarrabah Leaders Forum.
The local community, which the sources say must decide how the programme is structured and run.

In practice: a non-Indigenous clinician supports, refers to and partners with FWB. They may take part as a learner, as Tsey did, but they do not run FWB, adapt its cultural content, or lead its cultural or spiritual elements. Formal IP or licensing arrangements are not published in the sources [uncertain]. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015; McCalman 2013; CQUniversity 2025; AOD Knowledge Centre]

How change happens (the programme's own account). All people have physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs. When these go unmet, for example through child removal and reserve life, problem behaviours follow. A safe group where people share their stories builds awareness, then ownership of issues, then action. Individual empowerment then "ripples" outward to family, community and structures. In McCalman's terms this is "inside-out" empowerment through relatedness with self, others and structural conditions. Three core beliefs: all people can heal; human needs and values are universal; there are always choices. [source: Tsey & Every 2000; Haswell-Elkins et al. 2008; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 6; McCalman 2013]

2. Framework

Stages (version followed: five-stage curriculum, Williamson et al. 2023 Table 1).

Stage	Goal	Content named in sources
1. Human qualities	Core FWB concepts; self-understanding	Human qualities; physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs; traditions and values; self-reflection tools; self-care; counselling and supporting others
2. The process of change	Treat change as growth	How change affects people; building on inner qualities and strengths; reframing difficulties as challenges that always have solutions
3. Changing the patterns	Apply FWB to harm in families and communities	Family violence, abuse and other social dysfunction
4. Opening the heart	Consolidate	Self-development, healing, healthy relationships
5. FWB facilitation	Train facilitators	Practice-based facilitator training

Earlier four-stage version (Alice Springs 1998). Topics overlap with the five stages above. [source: Tsey & Every 2000]

Stage 1: qualities of a counsellor; conflict and resolution; understanding and managing emotions; beliefs and attitudes and how they shape choices.
Stage 2: the process of change; reflecting on life journeys to build inner strength; loss and grief; inner qualities; counselling practice.
Stage 3: self-care; family violence and responses; emotional health; the cycle of abuse and its long-term effects; healing.
Stage 4: relationships; self-understanding; expressing the inner self; centring and focus; balancing body, emotions and mind; "the wisdom of tradition"; expressing gifts; the essence of family wellbeing.

Yarrabah / north Queensland two-step version. [source: Haswell-Elkins et al. 2008; AOD Knowledge Centre]

Stage 1: 30 hours of structured personal-development workshops. Topics: relationships and emotions; problem-solving for resilience; responding to self-harm, alcohol and drug misuse and gambling.
Stage 2: facilitator training plus participatory community research. Participants name priority community issues (in Yarrabah: housing shortage, school attendance, boredom), act on them, and monitor what works.

Underlying programme logic. These levels describe a layered sequence rather than separate sessions. [source: McCalman 2013; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 14–15]

Address blocks and barriers: healing wounds, releasing anger and grief, confronting violence and addictions.
Unity and identity: who we are and where we belong.
Directions and purpose: values and beliefs.
Strong action.
Sustainable development.

Dose and format.

About 30 hours of group learning per module or stage. [source: Williamson et al. 2023; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 6]
Alice Springs 1998: one four-hour session a week for 10 weeks per stage. [source: Tsey & Every 2000]
The Certificate II usually runs over about six months. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 6]
Other published formats: a one-week staff intensive (Act for Kids); two sessions a week for 10 weeks (NSW young men's programme); delivery over lunches, in schools and prisons, and outdoors under trees. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 6, 11]
Groups sit in a circle. They are facilitated, usually with a co-facilitator, and mostly made up of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants. Non-Indigenous participants have also taken part. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 7–8; Tsey & Every 2000]

Moving between stages. No formal progression criteria are given in the sources [uncertain]. Published practice:

Completing a stage, or the accredited unit, opens the next one.
Completing Stage 1 is required before facilitator training. [source: AOD Knowledge Centre]
Many facilitators first went through the programme as participants. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 6]
Accredited delivery (Certificate II) has to meet national training-quality requirements while keeping the programme's "spirit and essence". [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 7]

Certification and fidelity.

Delivery under the FWB name is through trained FWB facilitators and accredited providers: TAFE SA, Batchelor Institute and JCU for the Certificate II, plus a "Facilitator Skill Set" course.
The Growth and Empowerment Measure (GEM), developed in the FWB research programme, is freely available for monitoring empowerment outcomes. Its items are not reproduced here.
The roundtable itself asked which core components must not change. No published fidelity standard was found [uncertain]. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 7, 22, 24]

3. Guiding principles

Each principle below is as stated in the programme sources; the one-line practical meaning is the clinician's takeaway [synthesis for practical meanings].

All people can heal, regardless of race, culture or country. Hold out hope explicitly; no one is written off. [source: Haswell-Elkins et al. 2008]
Human needs and values are universal: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. Assess and talk in terms of needs met and unmet, not deficits or diagnoses. [source: Haswell-Elkins et al. 2008; Tsey & Every 2000]
There are always choices, however dire the circumstances. Look for the choice point in every story, without blaming people for structural harm. [source: Haswell-Elkins et al. 2008]
Unmet needs are rooted in history and policy (child removal, reserve life). Name colonisation and the Stolen Generations as context, not as individual pathology. [source: Tsey & Every 2000]
Empowerment works inside-out: self, then family, then community, then structures. Start with the person's own wellbeing; expect and support ripple effects later. [source: McCalman 2013; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 7]
Aboriginal ownership and control of the process. Community decides how and where it runs; the clinician follows local lead. [source: AOD Knowledge Centre; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 8, 16]
Facilitators' lived experience is the main learning resource. Authority comes from life experience and integrity, not professional title. [source: Tsey & Every 2000; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 11, 25]
Safe space and group agreement: non-judgmental, no wrong answers, confidentiality, mutual respect, trust. Agree ground rules first and protect them. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 5, 16; McCalman 2013]
Facilitator neutrality: a neutral, non-political, non-aligned stance in communities. Stay out of family and organisational factions. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 16]
Awareness, then ownership, then action. Do not push action plans before the person owns the issue. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 6]
Common language. Use FWB terms (needs, qualities, choices, change as challenge) consistently so participants can use them at home and work. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 2, 11]
Adult learning and empowerment education, drawing partly on psychosynthesis. Teach and draw out rather than treat; participants are learners, not patients. [source: Tsey & Every 2000]
Not a health-education programme. Do not turn sessions into nutrition or fitness lessons. [source: Tsey & Every 2000]
Learn, then share. Participants pass learning on and often become facilitators; build that pathway. [source: AOD Knowledge Centre; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 6]
Local relevance. Content is "consistent but flexible" and adapted to local needs. [source: Lowitja project page; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 8]

4. Intervention inventory

How to read this section. FWB is a programme led by Aboriginal facilitators. Its detailed session plans and facilitator materials are in the accredited curriculum, which is not published [uncertain]. For each component below:

Purpose and the topic content come from published sources.
Steps come in two kinds. "In the programme" says what the sources report facilitators and groups do. "Clinician" gives what a therapist alongside FWB can do: referring, preparing, debriefing, and reinforcing the common language in individual sessions. Clinician steps are [synthesis] unless cited.
Example language is the clinician's, not the facilitators', and is illustrative.
Do not reproduce FWB worksheets or exercises in individual therapy without the host organisation's agreement. No sacred, ceremonial or restricted content is described here, and none should be imported.

4.1 Assessing fit and referring [synthesis]

Purpose: connect an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander client, a family member or a colleague to a local FWB group when an empowerment and healing group fits better than, or alongside, individual therapy. Published uses include suicide prevention, family violence, prisoner education, parenting support and workforce development. [source: Williamson et al. 2023; Monson-Wilbraham 2015]
Steps:
1. Ask whether the client would like culturally grounded options, and whether they already know FWB. Do not assume Indigenous identity means they want it.
2. Find current local delivery through the Aboriginal community-controlled health organisation, a regional hub (Batchelor/Tangentyere, TAFE SA, Gurriny Yealamucka/Yarrabah), or the regional FWB network.
3. Check fit:
  - The client can attend a weekly group, or an intensive, for the full stage.
  - They can tolerate hearing others' stories of removal, violence and grief.
  - They are not in acute crisis that needs stabilising first.
  - Kinship or avoidance relationships with other members will not make the group unsafe. Ask the host organisation about this; do not decide it yourself.
4. With consent, make a warm referral to the facilitator or coordinator.
5. Agree with the client how therapy and the group will sit together.
Example language (illustrative): "There's a group called Family Wellbeing, run by Aboriginal facilitators. It's about looking at your own needs, strengths and choices, and people share their stories in a circle. Would you like me to find out when the next one runs here?"
Watch for: the client agreeing to please you; mandated attendance (the sources note some participants may be mandated); the client expecting family therapy, when the programme starts with the individual (Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 26).

4.2 Partnering with the host organisation [synthesis, grounded in published principles]

Purpose: support delivery without taking over, honouring Aboriginal ownership and facilitator neutrality. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 8, 16, 25]
Steps:
1. Offer specific help the facilitators ask for, such as referral pathways, debriefing, after-hours mental health back-up, or a venue. Do not offer to co-run sessions.
2. Agree a confidentiality boundary in advance. Group content stays in the group. You hear only what your client chooses to bring.
3. Agree a crisis pathway for disclosures of suicidality or violence.
4. Offer facilitators debriefing or supervision access if they want it. The roundtable names burnout as a risk and debriefing as a support (p. 25).
5. If you are invited to attend, attend as a learner. Tsey enrolled as a participant to understand it (p. 14).
Example language (illustrative): "What would be most useful from our service while the group runs? I can be the back-up if someone needs mental health support between sessions."
Watch for: professional dominance ("clinical" reframing of the programme); institutional venues that are not experienced as safe (p. 25); pulling facilitators into organisational politics.

4.3 Group agreement and safe space

Purpose: create the conditions for sharing. McCalman names creating a safe space as a core implementation process. [source: McCalman 2013; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 5, 16]
Steps:
- In the programme: groups agree ground rules at the start. Published elements include being non-judgmental (there are no wrong answers), confidentiality, mutual respect and trust. Groups sit in a circle.
- Clinician: if your client is joining, ask what the agreement means to them. In individual work, mirror the same rules: no wrong answers, and their story is theirs to share. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "In your group you agreed there are no wrong answers. Can we work that way here too?"
Watch for: breaches of confidentiality in small communities, which can collapse the group; members related to each other in ways that limit what can be said. Signs it is working: people start telling their own stories without being asked.

4.4 Story-sharing and reflecting on life journeys

Purpose: use participants' and facilitators' life experience as the main learning resource. Reflecting on one's life journey builds inner strength. [source: Tsey & Every 2000; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 7, 14]
Steps:
- In the programme: in Stage 2 of the four-stage version, people reflect on their life journeys and histories in the circle. Facilitators share their own survival experience.
- Clinician:
  1. Invite the client to bring back what struck them, not the content of others' stories.
  2. Help them link their own story to the FWB frame: which needs were met or unmet, which qualities got them through, and where the choices were.
  3. Pace trauma material. The group can stir up intense stories quickly; a NSW young men's group began "spilling out some stories" on day two (p. 11). [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "When you told your story in the circle, what did you notice about what got you through?"
Watch for: delayed distress after sessions; grief reactions linked to removal histories. Working: the client tells their history as survival and strength rather than shame.

4.5 The four basic needs: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual

Purpose: the central lens of the programme. Unmet needs explain behaviour, and meeting them is the route to wellbeing. Listed needs include shelter, exercise, food, sleep, identity, sexual expression, respect for self and others, lifelong learning, and connection to something greater than oneself. [source: Tsey & Every 2000; Williamson et al. 2023; AOD Knowledge Centre]
Steps:
- In the programme: taught in Stage 1 as a core concept.
- Clinician:
  1. Map the client's current situation across the four domains with them, in their words.
  2. Pick one unmet need to work on.
  3. Link any problem behaviour to the need it is trying to meet, without excusing harm. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "If we look at your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs, which one is most hungry right now?"
Watch for: reducing "spiritual" to religion; spiritual and cultural meaning is the client's and their community's to define. Working: the client uses the needs language spontaneously.

4.6 Human qualities and inner strengths

Purpose: identify and build universal human qualities and inner strengths as the foundation for change. Stage 1 is titled "Human qualities". The four-stage version names "qualities of a counsellor" and "building inner qualities". [source: Williamson et al. 2023; Tsey & Every 2000; McCalman 2013]
Steps:
- In the programme: Stage 1 and Stage 2 work on naming and strengthening qualities.
- Clinician: ask the client which qualities they are building, look for evidence of them in the past week, and plan one situation in which to use a quality deliberately. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "Which quality from the group did you see in yourself this week?"
Watch for: the client dismissing their own qualities. Working: they claim qualities with concrete examples.

4.7 Understanding and managing emotions

Purpose: emotional awareness and control. "Emotional control" is one of the published elements of empowerment. [source: Tsey & Every 2000; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 20–21; AOD Knowledge Centre]
Steps:
- In the programme: a Stage 1 topic, covering understanding and managing emotions and relationships.
- Clinician: reinforce with standard emotion-regulation work (naming the feeling, noticing body cues, pausing before acting), using FWB terms. This is ordinary clinical practice, not FWB content. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "What were you feeling just before you walked out? What did that feeling need?"
Watch for: anger linked to historical injustice being treated purely as a symptom. Working: the client reports pausing and choosing a response.

4.8 Beliefs, attitudes and choices

Purpose: examine how beliefs and attitudes shape choices, resting on the principle that there are always choices. [source: Tsey & Every 2000; Haswell-Elkins et al. 2008]
Steps:
- In the programme: a Stage 1 topic in the four-stage version.
- Clinician:
  1. Take a recent difficult situation.
  2. Identify the belief or attitude in play.
  3. List the choices that were available, including small ones.
  4. Choose one to try next time. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "Even when things were really tight, where was there a small choice you could make?"
Watch for: "choice" talk becoming victim-blaming of structural harm such as racism, housing or removal. Hold both: structural causes, and present agency. Working: the client generates options independently, which the schools evaluation reports as "independent thinking" (Tsey et al. 2005).

4.9 Conflict and resolution; communication

Purpose: build communication, problem-solving and conflict-resolution skills for family, work and community. [source: Tsey & Every 2000; Haswell-Elkins et al. 2008]
Steps:
- In the programme: a Stage 1 topic.
- Clinician: rehearse an upcoming difficult conversation using the client's own goals, and debrief what happened afterwards. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "What do you want them to understand, and what do you need from them?"
Watch for: cultural protocols such as kinship avoidance relationships and who may speak to whom, which shape what "resolution" can look like. Follow the client's lead on these. Working: fewer escalations and repaired relationships, which participants report as a published outcome (Monson-Wilbraham 2015).

4.10 The process of change: difficulties as challenges

Purpose: treat change as growth. Stage 2 frames difficulties as "challenges for which there are always solutions" rather than problems, and builds on inner strengths. [source: Williamson et al. 2023 Table 1; Tsey & Every 2000]
Steps:
- In the programme: Stage 2 content.
- Clinician:
  1. Ask the client to restate a current problem as a challenge.
  2. Identify the strengths they bring to it.
  3. Name the first step. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "If we call this a challenge instead of a problem, what's the first thing you could try?"
Watch for: forced positivity that skips grief or real danger. Do not reframe active risk; manage it. Working: the client approaches rather than avoids the issue.

4.11 Loss and grief

Purpose: address grief, including grief tied to removal and community deaths. "Releasing the anger and grief" is part of the blocks-and-barriers layer. [source: Tsey & Every 2000; McCalman 2013]
Steps:
- In the programme: a Stage 2 topic in the four-stage version.
- Clinician: offer individual grief support alongside the group, and respect Sorry Business and community mourning practices, which the client and community lead. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "The group talked about loss this week. Is there anything you'd like to bring here about that?"
Watch for: cumulative, complicated grief. Deaths and ceremonies interrupt attendance; the roundtable lists them as delivery challenges (Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 8, 25). Working: grief is spoken about and not only acted out.

4.12 Self-care

Purpose: personal wellbeing as a foundation. Self-care is a Stage 1 skill in the five-stage version and a Stage 3 topic in the four-stage version. [source: Williamson et al. 2023; Tsey & Every 2000]
Steps:
- Clinician: help the client choose concrete self-care actions linked to each of the four needs, and review them weekly. Set no specific diet or exercise targets. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "What's one thing this week that would feed your spirit, and one thing for your body?"
Watch for: self-care becoming one more demand on carers who are already overloaded. Working: reports of better coping and less stress, which are published participant outcomes (Williamson et al. 2023).

4.13 Changing the patterns: family violence, abuse, addictions, self-harm

Purpose: apply FWB to family violence, the cycle of abuse and its long-term effects, addictions including gambling, and responses to self-harm. "Confronting the violence and addictions" is part of the blocks-and-barriers layer. [source: Williamson et al. 2023; Tsey & Every 2000; AOD Knowledge Centre; McCalman 2013]
Steps:
- In the programme: Stage 3 in both the four- and five-stage versions; Stage 1 content in the Yarrabah version.
- Clinician:
  1. Before and during this stage, check the client's current safety.
  2. Use standard risk assessment for suicide and self-harm, and family-violence risk assessment with safety planning.
  3. Follow mandatory child-protection reporting duties.
  4. Agree with the facilitators how disclosures in the group reach help. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "This part of the course can bring up a lot about violence at home. If anything is happening now, can we plan how you stay safe?"
Watch for: disclosures; a perpetrator and victim in the same group; reactivated trauma. Working: participants report addressing problems in their families and drinking less (Lowitja project page; Williamson et al. 2023).

4.14 Opening the heart: relationships, centring, balance and tradition

Purpose: consolidate through self-development, healing and healthy relationships (five-stage Stage 4). The four-stage Stage 4 lists centring and focus; balancing body, emotions and mind; expressing the inner self; "the wisdom of tradition"; and expressing gifts. Facilitators have added meditation and creative activities, partly "to break up all that heavy stuff". In NSW an Elder guided cultural identity. [source: Williamson et al. 2023; Tsey & Every 2000; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 13]
Steps:
- In the programme: led by FWB facilitators. Cultural and traditional content is led by Elders and community.
- Clinician: support the client's reflections. Do not teach traditional or spiritual content yourself. You may use your own standard grounding or relaxation methods in individual sessions, labelled as yours. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "You mentioned the centring work in group. Would it help to use something like that here when things get heavy?"
Watch for: a clinician appropriating cultural or spiritual practice. Working: participants report reconnecting with culture, spirituality and family (Williamson et al. 2023).

4.15 Counselling practice and supporting others

Purpose: participants learn basic counselling and support skills for family and community. Early versions led to formal counselling qualifications. [source: Tsey & Every 2000; Williamson et al. 2023]
Steps:
- In the programme: "qualities of a counsellor" and counselling practice in Stages 1 and 2.
- Clinician: help the client set limits on how much support they give others, and know when to refer on. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "You're helping a lot of people now. Who helps you, and when do you pass someone on?"
Watch for: helper burnout; the client acting as an untrained crisis counsellor for high-risk family members.

4.16 Awareness, ownership, action: mapping aspirations and pathways

Purpose: move from awareness of issues to owning them to action steps. Groups map aspirations, the pathways to them, and the skills needed. "Planning" and "Community action" are elements of empowerment. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 6, 8, 20–21]
Steps:
- In the programme: facilitators help the group build a working document of aspirations and pathways.
- Clinician: in individual sessions, track the client's own aspirations, steps and needed skills. Review monthly. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "What do you want for yourself and your family in a year? What's the path, and what skill do you need first?"
Watch for: jumping to action before ownership. Working: reported further study, employment, or running community programmes (Lowitja project page; CQUniversity 2025).

4.17 Community action and participatory research (Yarrabah Stage 2)

Purpose: take empowerment from the individual to the community. Graduates name priority community issues, act on them with the skills they have learned, and monitor what works. [source: AOD Knowledge Centre; Haswell-Elkins et al. 2008; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 10]
Steps:
- In the programme: community discussions of issues (in Yarrabah: housing, school attendance, boredom), action, and review. One documented outcome was a woman securing housing through Council action.
- Clinician: back community-led actions if asked, for example with letters or data. Do not lead. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "The group has chosen housing. Is there anything from our service that would help?"
Watch for: empowerment stalling at the personal level. The Alice Springs evaluation found little organisational or community change at first (Tsey & Every 2000).

4.18 Facilitator training and co-facilitation (Stage 5)

Purpose: grow a local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander facilitator workforce. [source: Williamson et al. 2023; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 6–8, 25; AOD Knowledge Centre]
Steps:
- In the programme:
  1. Complete Stage 1, and usually all stages, as a participant.
  2. Complete facilitator training: Stage 5, or the Facilitator Skill Set course.
  3. Co-facilitate with an experienced facilitator, with mentoring.
  4. Follow the facilitators' code of ethics: respect, trust, confidentiality, neutrality, and community ownership of outcomes.
- Clinician: support facilitators with debriefing on request. A non-Indigenous clinician is not the facilitator. [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "If debriefing after sessions would help, I'm available. You set the terms."
Watch for: few male facilitators (the roundtable calls for more); burnout. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 25]

4.19 Measuring empowerment (GEM)

Purpose: the Growth and Empowerment Measure was developed through FWB research to track empowerment outcomes. It is freely available, and the Muru Marri team supports programmes that use it. Its items are not reproduced here. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 22; Lowitja project page]
Steps:
- Clinician: if the host organisation uses it, agree who administers it and when, and share results with participants. Do not add your own outcome measures without agreement. [synthesis]
Watch for: data collection that feels extractive; give results back to the community.

4.20 Published adaptations

Schools:
- 2001 pilot personal-development and leadership programme at Hopevale and Bloomfield River primary schools, at the schools' request. It covered understanding self and basic needs, the future, connections and role models, and place in community and world. [source: Tsey et al. 2003; Tsey et al. 2005]
- Queensland's Year 7 unit "Making My Way Through", trialled in Cape York in 2007. [source: Lowitja project page]
Young Aboriginal men: a NSW suicide-prevention pilot. Facilitators were recruited for life experience and passion; it ran two sessions a week for 10 weeks with meditation and Elder involvement. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 11, 13; Whiteside et al. 2016]
Prisons: Alice Springs jail, taught for six years by an Aboriginal facilitator; Lotus Glen. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 9; CQUniversity 2025]
Workforce: Act for Kids staff intensive; RFDS clinicians; Gurriny health workers. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 10–11; AOD Knowledge Centre]
Clinician: adaptations are made by FWB facilitators and communities; refer to the appropriate local version. [synthesis]

4.21 Reinforcing FWB in individual therapy [synthesis]

Purpose: give the client continuity between the group and individual sessions by using the "common language" FWB provides. [source for the concept: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 2, 11]
Steps:
1. At each session, ask what came up in group that they want to bring.
2. Use the client's FWB terms: needs, qualities, choices, change as challenge.
3. Keep trauma processing paced, and coordinate if the group is in Stage 3.
4. Do not duplicate or re-teach group content.
Example language (illustrative): "Which of the four needs are we working on today?"
Watch for: the clinician becoming the "real" treatment and the group an add-on; the reverse is the programme's intent.

5. Handling problems

Items marked [source] come from programme reports. Everything else is [synthesis] for a clinician working alongside FWB, not facilitator guidance.

Drop-out and non-adherence.
- Completion varies widely: 68% in Stage 1 in Alice Springs; 66% across recent sites, and 90% at Batchelor. [source: Tsey & Every 2000; CQUniversity 2025]
- Published barriers: deaths and ceremonies, kinship avoidance, low literacy, travel distance, rigid accredited delivery schedules, and perceptions that FWB is "another program" or will be "confronting". [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 8, 25]
- Response [synthesis]: ask about practical barriers first, such as transport, caring duties or Sorry Business. Tell the facilitator, with consent. Help the client rejoin at the next intake rather than treating the break as failure.
Overwhelm and trauma surfacing.
- Stories can surface fast, for example on day two of the young men's group. Facilitators use meditation and creative activities to lighten heavy material. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 11, 13]
- Response [synthesis]: before Stage 3 content, agree a plan for between sessions. Offer an individual session within a few days of a heavy group. Teach grounding. If dissociation or suicidality appears, follow standard risk assessment and safety planning, and talk with the facilitators about whether to pause the group.
Suicide or self-harm disclosure. Response [synthesis]: use your standard structured risk assessment and collaborative safety plan; lethal-means counselling limited to safe storage and removal; involve family and community supports the client chooses; and make a culturally safe crisis referral, for example to an Aboriginal community-controlled health service or 13YARN. Agree beforehand how facilitators will reach you.
Family violence in the group. Response [synthesis]:
- If a victim and a perpetrator are both enrolled, raise it privately with the host organisation. They decide placement.
- Prioritise the victim's safety planning.
- Meet mandatory child-protection duties.
Community in crisis. Communities in crisis may find it hard to engage. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 25] Response [synthesis]: defer the group, offer individual stabilisation, and let community leaders decide timing.
Resistance and "another program" fatigue. Response [synthesis]: do not sell it. Explain that FWB is Aboriginal-developed and Aboriginal-led, and offer contact with a past participant or facilitator if the host agrees. Respect a no.
Mandated participants. These are possible but rarely documented. [source: Williamson et al. 2023] Response [synthesis]: separate compliance reporting from personal content, and ask the host what attendance information may be shared.
Stuck at personal empowerment. Personal gains may not translate into organisational or community change for years. [source: Tsey & Every 2000] Response: connect the client to the community-action stage where it exists, and set expectations. [source for the stage: AOD Knowledge Centre]
Confidentiality breaches in small communities. Response [synthesis]: the host restates the group agreement. In therapy, help the client decide what they will and will not share in the group from now on.
Low male participation. Very few men and young people took part in early courses. Men's groups and the young men's pilot were responses, and the roundtable calls for male facilitators. [source: Tsey & Every 2000; Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 11, 25, 26] Response [synthesis]: refer men to men's groups where they exist.
Rupture between the clinician and the community or facilitators. Possible causes: overstepping into delivery, clinicalising the programme, or breaching confidentiality. Response [synthesis]: acknowledge it directly, step back, ask what repair looks like, and accept community decisions. The code of ethics places ownership with the community. [source for the code: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 p. 16]
Rupture with the client. Response [synthesis]: if the client experiences you as another "system" person, name the history and the power difference, and give them control over pace and topics.
Facilitator burnout and short-term funding. Funding is piecemeal, and FWB was sustained in 19 of 56 sites, only six of them beyond five years. [source: Monson-Wilbraham 2015 pp. 16, 25–26; McCalman 2013] Response [synthesis]: before the group starts, plan for the client's support continuing after it ends.
Programme name confusion. Other programmes have similar names, especially in Queensland. Confirm that the local course is the FWB empowerment programme. [source: Williamson et al. 2023]
Non-Indigenous clinician wanting to "use FWB". Do not run it, re-brand its content or deliver its cultural elements. Instead, partner with an FWB-trained Aboriginal facilitator or the host organisation. [synthesis, consistent with source principles]

Sources

Sources:

Further reading (not drawn on) [uncertain]: the accredited FWB curriculum and facilitator materials, which are not publicly available; McCalman J (2013), Bigger than a program (PhD thesis, JCU); and Baird L, Tsey K, Whiteside M et al., Family Wellbeing Community Report 2021–2025 (CQUniversity and Yarrabah Leaders Forum). No published IP or licensing terms were found.

← Previous · V-177Supported living networks Next · V-179 →Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men's groups