David Clark

10/09/2019

Little Black Fingers

Mrs Florence Rutter, a 71-year old Englishwoman, visited Carrolup twice—in July 1949 and January/February 1950. She returned to England soon after her second visit, having received permission from the West Australian government to exhibit and sell the Carrolup children’s artworks (mainly the boys’ drawings). A Trust Fund had […]
05/09/2019

The Healing Power of Stories: Native Hope

Last month, I blogged about the exciting Native American storytelling project by Native Hope: We believe in the power of storytelling to dismantle barriers, bring healing, and inspire hope for Native people. Here is a section from one of their articles, The Science Behind the Healing Power of […]
03/09/2019

Without A Life Story: Bruce Perry

I often wonder about the consequences of the government policy of taking Aboriginal children away from their families, the impact on the children and the parents. Children taken away in this way were not only losing the essential care of their parents, but also disconnecting the child from […]
29/08/2019

Talking About Cliff Ryder’s Family

NB. If you haven’t previously read my previous blog posting about Charon Ryder, please do so before reading the present post. It provides important background. I recently blogged about my initial discussions with Charon Ryder, eldest child of Cliff Ryder, one of the outstanding Carrolup child artists. John […]
27/08/2019

Carrolup Artist and Father: Cliff Ryder

Last month, Charon Ryder emailed me saying that she was the eldest child of Carrolup artist Cliff Ryder and requesting that I get in contact with her. I had previously been contacted by Charon’s sister Judy, who had written a lovely comment which I included in a previous blog. […]
22/08/2019

Walking Alongside As Equals

In my last Healing blog Do Things With Us, Not To Us: Chris Sarra, I posted the words of one of the country’s leading educators talking about the interaction between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Here are three key paragraphs: ‘I can assure you that we as Aboriginal people […]
20/08/2019

‘Do Things With Us, Not To Us!’: Chris Sarra

Dr. Chris Sarra is the Director-General of the Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships. He is an internationally recognised Indigenous education specialist and is the founder and Chairman of the Stronger Smarter Institute. Here is a section from Chris Sarra’s article Delivering Beyond Indigenous Policy Rhetoric which […]
15/08/2019

‘We Are Going To Tell That Story’

I’ve been thinking about my good friend Noelene White, daughter of Carrolup school teacher Noel White, today. It’s hard to believe that I’ve known Noelene for over three years now. Where has that time gone? As for John, he has known Noelene for nearly 35 years! Noelene White […]
13/08/2019

Native Hope: An Awesome Project!

Last week, I came across the fascinating Native Hope website. What an awesome project! Please check it out. I’ve included some excerpts from the website, to give you an idea of what’s in store for you if you visit the website. ‘Why We Work. We believe in the […]
08/08/2019

The Healing Power of Healthy Relationships

I have previously emphasised the importance of healthy relationships for wellbeing, and for the healing of trauma and its consequences, in blogs focused on thoughts from Bessel van der Kolk and Bruce Perry. Here are further thoughts from the former of these world-leading experts, taken from his seminal book […]
06/08/2019

Carrolup Child Artists: Competition and Encouragement

Soon after we started our Carrolup project, I interviewed my colleague John Stanton about a variety of elements of the story. In this film clip, John describes how the boys were rather secretive whilst doing their drawings. However, once they had finished a drawing, there was a collegial […]
01/08/2019

Untangling the Elements Involved in Addiction Treatment

Here is an article I wrote for my Recovery Stories website some years ago, which summarised a piece of research done in collaboration with Lucie James, one of my favourite pieces of research in which I have been involved. The research was conducted 12 years ago when I […]
30/07/2019

1948 Carrolup School Football Team… and Art Display

Last year, I posted a blog about the ‘never ever beaten’ [1] Carrolup School Football team, describing their trip to Perth in September 1949 where they twice beat Thomas Street School at Subiaco. Here is what we know about the Carrolup School football team from before 1949: There […]
25/07/2019

The Indigenous world view vs. Western world view

Below, is a powerful five and a half minute video entitled Enoughness: Restoring Balance to the Economy which contrasts Indigenous and Western world views. This video is becoming increasingly relevant given what is happening in society today. Here is how it starts: ‘How we see the world determines how […]
23/07/2019

Thinking About the Carrolup Boys: Noel White

In my last blog posting, I talked briefly about how teacher Noel White helped the children of Carrolup overcome their fear and inspired them to create beautiful landscape drawings that gained public acclaim in South West Australia. During 1949 and 1950, 71-year old Englishwoman exhibited the art in […]
16/07/2019

Child Artists of Carrolup: Reflections

Mary Durack Miller, in association with Florence Rutter, wrote a book about the Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup entitled, Child Artists of the Australian Bush, which was published in June 1952. Florence Rutter met the child artists through her two visits to Carrolup in 1949 and 1950 and exhibited their artworks […]
10/07/2019

‘Lost Connections’ by Johann Hari: Part 2

In a Healing blog posting in April, I described Johann Hari’s enthralling and inspirational book Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions. This has to be one of the most important books I have read in the mental health field since I […]
09/07/2019

Identifying the Children of Carrolup

An important aim of our project has been to connect people today with ‘content’ relating to family members who were at Carrolup all those years ago. This content may take the form of photographs, the children’s drawings and letters, or documents from various sources. Last week, I posted […]
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