Nita has two sons who have learning difficulties, Corey aged 15 and Dominic aged 18. Corey also has an acquired brain injury.

“Corey and Dominic were both premature babies but I didn’t find out they had a learning difficulty until they were at preschool,” says Nita.

“Corey got his acquired brain injury when he was eight years old and fell off a train.”

Nita says back then the first place she turned to for help was her own Aboriginal community and says that today her Aboriginal Medical Service (AMS) is still the first place she turns to when she needs advice about medical help for her sons.

“You just have to trust them to find someone for you,” says Nita. “After I went to my AMS, we had to go and see a psychiatrist because Corey was going through a lot of anger issues after he had the plate put in his head.

“But when I saw the psychiatrist he suggested he had ADHD (Attention- Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and that he should be put on Ritalin. I thought that wasn’t right so I said to him, ‘that’s a quick solution to your problem but it’s not going to help my problem’.”

Nita says when you have a child with a disability you have to trust your own knowledge of your child and that you need to learn to speak up and to not worry about feeling shame. She understands that sometimes even your AMS might send you to a doctor that you don’t agree with.

“You have to keep looking until you find the right person that cares about what happens to him,” says Nita. “I’m past shame now, I can’t have that word because if I used that word I would never have got anywhere with my boys.

“I just had to stand up and be strong. As a young Aboriginal woman I left school at 14 and I wanted something different for my kids. My eldest two went through school and finished and now I’ve got to fight for Corey’s rights to be educated.”

Nita says she has had to fight for her children’s needs throughout primary and high school. She says that while Dominic is now in a small, special class, Corey continues to struggle in the mainstream school system.

“The only way Dominic has coped is because he’s not in the mainstream high school, but because Corey’s IQ is high, he’s not entitled to be in the same situation as Dominic.”

Apart from trying to get the best help for her children at school, Nita says she has also visited a lot of doctors, social workers, psychiatrists and speech pathologists to help her sons.

But she says it can sometimes be easy to give up.

“I stopped looking for help for a while because a lot of them were saying there was nothing more they could do to help,” admits Nita. “Sometimes after you talk to them you get disillusioned, but my mum is out in the community and she sometimes gives me contacts and then I start talking to people again. You just have to try again.”

Dominic will soon be finished school, but Nita says as your children grow they have different needs that you need to be aware of.

“Dominic wants to start working when he leaves school but wherever he works he’ll need a lot of support because he still has a learning difficulty,” she says. “They will need to speak clearly to him and explain exactly what his jobs are, and give him one job at a time otherwise it will be too overwhelming for him.”

NB: Story reprinted from Shoulder to Shoulder, a NSW Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care resource package specifically developed for Indigenous families who have a child or young person with disability. (See separate story in this issue.)