Something very special to share today. The Westerman Jilya Institute — the charity I founded in 2019 — has received its first ever federal government funding, announced in the Close the Gap report this week. This is a landmark moment, and a deeply personal one. In 2019, the Fogliani Coronial Inquiry found that ‘system failure’ was killing Aboriginal children in the Kimberley. Thirteen children. I couldn’t sit with that. I started the Dr Tracy Westerman Indigenous Psychology Scholarship Program from my lounge room. I put in $50,000 of my own money, donated all of my intellectual property — the psychological tests, the intervention programs, everything I’d built over two decades — into Jilya, where I continue to volunteer every single day. At the time, there were just 218 Indigenous people with psychology degrees in Australia. I pledged to #BuildAnArmy of Indigenous psychologists so that never again shall a child die from a lack of access to services. Six years on: 79 scholarship recipients. 79% completing their degrees and moving into postgrad — almost triple the national average. Over 70% first in their families to go to uni. More than half from remote communities. 25% Indigenous men. And our graduates are already working in the communities that raised them. We select students not on grades but on how much disadvantage they represent — from Halls Creek, Tennant Creek, Derby, Walgett, Rockhampton, Mt Isa, Alice Springs, the Pilbara, Geraldton. The fly-in, fly-out model taught us to look outside our communities for answers. But locals never leave. That’s the whole point of Jilya. After six years of doing it tough, Jilya can finally breathe. I cannot wait to see what we achieve next. We have only just started. thejilyainstitute.com.au #BuildAnArmy #CloseTheGap #IndigenousMentalHealth

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Westerman has all but given up on politicians after a career spent being called in by them for discussions that led nowhere. She started Jilya after giving evidence to a Western Australian parliamentary inquiry into Indigenous suicides in 2016. Eighteen months later, 13 Aboriginal young people had died by suicide in the Kimberley – and none of them had had a mental health assessment. She says she hadn’t felt that broken (when politicians have consistently failed to engage her expertise for a problem she sees as very fixable with the right, measurable road map).

A few words from one of our OGs, Tex Garstone! Applications for our 2024 Jilya Indigenous Psychology Scholarship are NOW OPEN: thejilyainstitute.com.au/app…