WHO IS TIRAAPENDI WODLI (TW)?
Video: Tiraapendi Wodli - community celebration, October 2023
Tiraapendi Wodli Background
In March 2018, a representative and independent Port Adelaide Aboriginal Leadership Group comprising 9 independently elected members came together as a group for the first time to start a visioning process to identify opportunities for improving the safety, health and lives of Aboriginal families and their children and young people, using a justice reinvestment approach.
This group is now known as Tiraapendi Wodli, meaning ‘protecting home’ in Kaurna language.
In December 2018, Tiraapendi Wodli released a ‘Priority Action Plan 2019-21’ which set out the overarching priorities, projects and key indicators for improving the safety, health and wellbeing of local Aboriginal families. These priorities were identified through a series of local discussions with Aboriginal community members and local stakeholders with a commitment to working in partnership with the Aboriginal community.
The inaugural Tiraapendi Wodli Action Plan 2019-21 focused on 4 key populations includin a) primary school aged children; b) young people; c) men and d) families accessing services.
The new Tiraapendi Wodli Leadership Group (2022-24) have commenced a process to expand priorities and actions identified in the Action Plan for the period 2024-25.
The Tiraapendi Wodli Ways of Working 2021 and Tiraapendi Wodli Theory of Change (2023) demonstrates TW’s ways of working including supports and services provided to community members at the TW Hub.
Australian Red Cross provides all backbone coordination functions (including project, contracts and financial management and human resources functions). Funding for Tiraapendi Wodli operations and programs is currently provided by the SA Government Department of Human Services and Department of Correctional Services, the Wyatt Charitable Trust and the Alcohol and Drug Foundation.
In addition, Red Cross and Tiraapendi Wodli have partnered with the Paul Ramsay Foundation to implement the Tiraapendi Wodli Understanding Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (UMEL) project.
Tiraapendi Wodli worked with the Kowa Collaboration (Skye Trudgett) in 2023 to develop the UMEL. Since late 2023, a team of Tiraapendi Wodli community evaluators have been working with Assoc Professors Alwin Chong and Fiona Arney to establish the evaluation plan including ethics approval to commence data collection and community discussions.
The aim of the project is to:
build the evidence-base for the successes of the project,
establish an Aboriginal data ecosystem and sovereignty approach for evaluative practice and local decision-making, and
build the capacity of the Aboriginal leadership group towards Tiraapendi Wodli independence.
More information about the development and findings of the UMEL project will be posted to the website as available.