Brothers Inside

The Brothers Inside Project facilitates workshops for Aboriginal fathers in local correctional centres. It was trialled in Cessnock Correctional Centre and has since also been run in St Heliers Correctional Centre and Kempsey Correctional Centre

At present the program involves workshop with inmates exploring

  • The importance of dads
  • Their strengths as dads
  • Their experiences of being fathered
  • Communication
  • Keeping kids safe
  • Resilience

The report Brothers Inside: Reflections on fathering workshops with Indigenous prisoners (103 KB pdf) is filled with information and quotes from the pparticipating dads.

The workshop is based on the beliefs that

  • We all have strengths as dads
  • Dads are very important in the lives of their kids
  • Sometimes dads need to be like a rock (be able to stand firm) and sometimes to be like water (be able to go with the flow)

Workshops involve a variety of activities including

  • Building a sense of community (e.g. by eating together)
  • Physical Rock and Water Insert link activities
  • Group discussion
  • Art work
  • Poetry
  • Videoing a message to their kids

As we have no ongoing funding for the project, workshops are dependent on the availability of funding.

For more information contact

Craig Hammond
p  02 4921 6821
f  02 4921 6934
e  Craig.Hammond@newcastle.edu.au

Graeme Stuart
p  02 4921 7241
f   02 4921 6934
e  Graeme.Stuart@newcastle.edu.au