Hope Vale Local Commissioners’ report
“We are united as one in our journey representing Ngurraar and Waandaar”
Looking back on our year as Local Commissioners, we are happy with the positive changes that are being made in our community. We acknowledge that whilst we are on the road to improvement, there are bumps along this road that as Local Commissioners we have had to battle over the past few years, and we continue to do so. In Hope Vale we are seeing improvements in school attendance and infrastructure, and the severity of crimes committed in our community is decreasing. We are proud of our clients who have made steps to better their lives with our guidance and assistance. We understand that the fruits of our work are not seen immediately, but we are starting to see some great improvements in our clients and in our community.
Our school at Hope Vale has seen some great improvements this year. We have supported parents with controlling the behaviour of their children, and in doing so we have engaged with the school when needed. We commend our principal for his ongoing professionalism and his cooperation with us in getting our youth back on track. He and his team have afforded us their time for meetings to coordinate a collaborative approach towards school attendance. Some days we have experienced 94 percent attendance which is great news for our community. Both Commissioner Glasgow and Deputy Commissioner Curtin have assisted us in encouraging and congratulating our clients where it has been appropriate. We are proud to have been asked to be the “Adopt-a-Class” agency in 2014 for years 5, 6 and 7. This is the second year we have supported some of these students and we are enthused to see the action they are taking in the classroom. We have greatly enjoyed our participation in their education, and we look forward to offering our continued support into the future.
We have found that one of our greatest challenges this year has been improving school attendance and enrolment for high school children who have become disengaged from school. We have had a number of our high school children re-engaged through the Cooktown State High School Quarantine Bay Hub, however, there are still a number of students who have been excluded from Cooktown State High School, and we are yet to re-engage them. There have been some ongoing discussions with the Catholic Diocese of Cairns through Brother Paul Hough and his team, who we are confident will be able to assist with this issue through the Special Assistance School to be introduced to Cooktown in 2015. We would also like to acknowledge the good work that our local Parents and Community Engagement Coordinator is doing in regard to our high school students.
During our Local Commissioner Development Week this year we visited Djarragun Enterprises, Mookai Rosie and Red Cross. We had an opportunity to discuss matters of concern with the Department of Housing and Public Works, the Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services, Youth Justice – Department of Justice and Attorney-General, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service, Cairns Regional Domestic Violence Service and the Queensland Police Service. We found this development week very beneficial to our roles, and in particular being able to speak to the service providers about the issues we are facing in our community. We were very proud to also host our colleague Local Commissioners along with some Commission staff in our very own community as part of this year’s development week. As Local Commissioners we were very proud of what our community was able to showcase to our guests, and it gave us a chance to reflect on how far our community has progressed since 2008 when we began our work in Hope Vale. Our guests were able to view first-hand a class in our CYAAA Hope Vale Campus where students are learning the Guugu Yimidhirr language. The class is being taught by one of our own local teachers.
Looking forward we would like to engage further with our service providers as we believe these relationships are crucial to the improvement in our clients. We see new opportunities on the horizon specifically around improving wellbeing through the establishment of the new Cape York Family Centre.
As we look back on our year we see that although we have come a long way, the road is long and there is still a trek ahead for us. Our continued support from our service providers is integral to the work we do and we look forward to an improvement in the service provision given to our clients through supporting them. We will continue taking steps to ensure our community knows we will give them a helping hand, but ultimately the future is in their hands and they need to take hold of it. Our passion for our community has fueled our desire to see continued changes in our people. We believe we will see these changes through linking with our community and the services around us. We are united as one in our journey representing Ngurraar and Waandaar.

Hope Vale Commissioners Brian Cobus, Victor Gibson, Doreen Hart, Ivan Deemal and Erica Deeral