Five years of healing: Research tracks impacts for First Nations families

A new report from CQUniversity and the Yarrabah Leaders Forum highlights the growing impact of the Family Wellbeing Program across Northern Australia, with more than 783 participants already seeing transformative benefits. 

The Family Wellbeing Community Report 2021–2025 showcases five years of community-led healing, empowerment, and leadership development in Yarrabah, Cape York, the Torres Strait, Northern Territory, and Lotus Glen Prison. 

The program, which was developed by Aboriginal leaders more than 30 years ago, focuses on healing, empowerment, and leadership development, supporting participants to work through trauma, reconnect with culture, and strengthen family and community relationships.

Economic analyses suggest a strong potential return on investment, building on a 2021 Deloitte pilot study that estimated $4.60 for every $1 spent. (More recent preliminary estimates, based on innovative use of qualitative data, indicate a possible range between $2.20 and $6.40 per $1 invested.) 

A final, independent analysis by Deloitte partners in 2026 will provide the most definitive assessment, but current evidence points to the Family Wellbeing Program as a promising and cost-effective approach to strengthening individual, family and community wellbeing.

“Family Wellbeing helped me face my fears. I’m getting more involved with other women in the community,” said one participant from Yarrabah.

Key findings include:

• 66 per cent completion rate across all sites, with 517 people completing the program
• High impact in prisons and remote communities, including a 90 per cent completion rate in Batchelor (NT)
• Real-world outcomes: improved mental health, reduced substance use, stronger family relationships, increased employment, and fewer justice system interactions.

The report also calls for urgent action:

• Long-term funding to secure the future of trusted local facilitators
• Implementation of the Yarrabah 7-Pillar Strategy, a bold community-led plan to support youth into jobs and education
• Establishment of a National Family Wellbeing Centre to scale delivery, train facilitators, and mentor the next generation of Indigenous leaders.

Fr Leslie Baird is an experienced Family Wellbeing facilitator with the Gurriny Yealamucka Health Services Aboriginal Corporation, and an Associate Professor at the Jawun Research Institute for Indigenous health, wellbeing and preservation of culture.

“The Family Wellbeing Program reflects the positive changes that are possible when communities and individuals are empowered and have control over their destiny,” Fr Baird said.

“The key to successfully Closing the Gap is to allow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities work together collaboratively to address the core issues facing their community. When we allow that to happen, we see real and lasting change.

“The program is focused upon the empowerment of participants to make better life choices, resulting in lasting changes for them, their families and entire communities.”

“Our program in Yarrabah has demonstrated that when we work with our community, listening to their collective voices and we can start to address the multigeneration trauma that’s has impacted us so heavily since the early days of the Mission. 

"There’s still so much to do, but the Family Wellbeing program is showing positive steps forward for this community.”

Fr Baird is a co-author on the report, with Jawun Institute Professorial Research Fellow Komla Tsey, Associate Professor Mary Whiteside, and Family Wellbeing Program staff Lyndell Thomas, Karen Khan, Fred Mundraby, Pam Mundraby, and Joanne Walters.

The full report, Walking Together: Translating 20 Years of Family Wellbeing Research into Practice, is available at the Family Wellbeing website.