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Acknowledging the Stolen Generations

Position statement Last updated: Oct 2026 Published in Australia Reference: PS#42

The forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families continues to affect the health and social wellbeing of communities and families.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) pays its respects to individuals of the Stolen Generations and to their families and communities across Australia. The RANZCP acknowledges that the effects of the Stolen Generations are ongoing and devastating. In April 1999, the RANZCP made a formal apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, for its failure as a group of doctors and psychiatrists to act early and effectively to try and prevent and reverse these disastrous practices.[1] The RANZCP also acknowledges the role of the RANZCP, psychiatrists and the practice in the Stolen Generations, including through the pathologisation of cultural practices, and continues to affirm the importance of psychiatrists practicing in a manner that supports reconciliation, and reflects the principles of trauma-informed practice. 

Key messages

  • The RANZCP apologises for the role played by the RANZCP and psychiatrists in harms to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities arising from forced child removal practices, and commits to taking action to prevent these practices from occurring again.
  • The RANZCP affirms the importance of acknowledging the destructive policies that allowed the Stolen Generations, and for psychiatrists to practice in a manner that is sensitive to its impacts upon individuals. 
  • The Stolen Generations have inflicted deep harm on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, requiring the rebuilding of trust between government authorities, psychiatrists and communities. 
  • Government policies and practices of child removal have an intergenerational impact on the health and social wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and families.
  • Ongoing reform to legislation and practice is still required as inappropriate removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children continues, and the application of the Child Placement Principle remains inconsistent across jurisdictions.
  • The RANZCP is committed to ensuring that principles of cultural competency are reflected throughout our education and training program.

Role of the psychiatrist

Psychiatrists have a professional, moral and social obligation to comment on social practices and policies which are harmful to mental health. The RANZCP acknowledges that many psychiatrists were complicit in the suffering caused by the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and that in some cases the medical profession was involved in the planning and implementation of these policies.[2] It is therefore essential that psychiatrists working with communities assess and treat individuals with an empathetic understanding of the range of historical and contemporary issues which affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The impacts of the Stolen Generations are still being felt by individuals, families and communities. The policies and practices, including justifications for removal, are not absent from modern Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are over 10 times more likely to be placed in out-of-home care.[3] Of those, nearly 40% are placed with non-Indigenous carers.[3] Although current child protection policies no longer explicitly aim to assimilate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children the impact is concerningly similar. Psychiatrists, and the RANZCP, have a leadership role – through their practice and advocacy – in ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are not subject to discriminatory treatment or another Stolen Generation. 

Psychiatrists working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consumers and communities have an obligation to practice and advocate for culturally safe and trauma informed mental health care – see Position Statement 100: Trauma-informed Practice and Position Statement 105: Cultural safety. This includes the specific cultural protocols of the area in which they practice and the communities that they serve. Failure to provide culturally safe and community appropriate health care can have negative health impacts.[4] Integration of community specific cultural protocols and strategies into health services and care provision has been shown to have positive health and community outcomes.[5] Health services and clinicians should work with local communities and elders to ensure that culturally safe care is being provided in line with local cultural protocols to ensure the best health outcome for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consumers. 

Evidence

The colonisation of Australia, and the ongoing policies and practices of the British, Commonwealth and colonial government were a genocide.[6] The forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families was part of this genocide.[6, 7] This was confirmed by the findings of The National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Their Families: Bringing Them Home Report (1997).[7]

The Bringing them Home Report was an investigation into governmental policies of forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. The consequences of these policies continue to profoundly impact the health and social wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.[6-8] Since the release of the report successive reviews into governmental responses have been consistently critical of the poor implementation of recommendations made with reference to under-funding of Aboriginal health and wellbeing programs, poor coordination or services and lack of progress on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander recognition and self-determination.[9]

The Bringing them Home Report documented terrible abuses. Generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities faced the terror and grief of having children taken from them. Thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children suffered severe psychological injury through being deprived of their parents, community, country and culture; confined to institutions they were beaten, sexually abused and exploited. Some children may have been killed; others took their own lives. Children were lied to and told that their parents or siblings were dead. Parents were told that their children were dead. 

Justifications

The removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families was often justified with the paternalistic notions of offering “opportunities”, such as access to education. However, these ‘opportunities’ were inherently colonial and intended to integrate European culture and values and norms into children from a young age, and prevent them from learning, growing, and developing in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture.[7] The goal was for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children to be integrated and assimilated, and eventually absorbed, into colonial Australian society.[7] Children were often taught that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures were inherently inferior, as the following statement from a woman fostered at 10 years of age in the 1960s describes:

All the teachings that we received from our [foster] family when we were little, that black people were bad… I wanted my skin to be white.[7]

The acts of successive governments to actively try and eradicate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture was a deliberate act of cultural genocide. 

The mental and physical health and safety of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children has too been used as a justification for removal throughout Australian history. Medical professionals, including psychiatrists, have played a part in facilitating and perpetuating these narratives of neglect – see the RANZCP apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. These claims lacked in foundation, or were minor in comparison to the neglect the children experienced following removal, as the following excerpt from evidence given by a woman removed at nine years of age in the 1950s demonstrates:

And for them to say she [mother] neglected us! I was neglected when I was in this government joint down here. I didn’t end up 15 days in a hospital bed [with bronchitis] when I was with me mum and dad.[7]

Child welfare legislation was changed to perpetuate the child welfare assimilationist model, with New South Wales being the first jurisdiction to do so in 1940.[7] The application of child welfare decisions and the choice to remove children from their families was disproportionately applied to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children – who were then treated differently to European children removed from their homes.[7] This discrimination extended to the Australian Constitution and other laws across Australia that did not include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples - see the RANZCP Position Statement 68: Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution.

Impacts

The impacts of the Stolen Generations were wide ranging and both immediate and long-term for individuals, families and communities. Families were forcibly separated, and communities were deeply fractured. The deliberate and immediate effect of the Stolen Generations was to completely sever Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, culture, history, and identities. The facilities in many placements were often under equipped and underprepared to provide for even the basic needs of the children – clothing, food, shelter.[7] The conditions were so horrific that they have been described as being ‘like a concentration camp’.[7]

In addition to the deliberate impacts of underfunding and cultural genocide, there were also countless horrific abuses that were endured by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Many experienced physical and sexual abuse by institutional staff, clergy, and foster parents. The Bringing Them Home report contains many stories of abuse provided by those who provided their evidence and lived experience:

When I was at Castledare I was badly interfered with by one of those brothers. I still know the room [in the church]. [7]

I ran away because my foster father used to tamper with me and I’d just had enough. I went to the police but they didn’t believe me. [7]

I was being molested in the home by one of the staff there … I didn’t know what she was doing with me. [7]

This has had a lasting impact on the mental and physical health of members of the Stolen Generations, as well as their families and communities.[8] The long-term impacts are still being seen. Health, social, economic, and justice outcomes were worse for those who had been removed from their families compared to their direct peers. Longitudinal studies have shown that there are noticeable impacts across all measured outcomes.[8] These negative outcomes are far more pronounced when compared to their non-Indigenous peers.[8]

Impacts on communities have also been severe, especially in the entrenchment of intergenerational trauma.[8] The Stolen Generations are a key determinant of health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, not only for individuals but for whole communities. The health impacts of intergenerational trauma from colonisation, racism, and removal affect individuals and communities, lowering overall health outcomes.[10] Evidence shows that intergenerational trauma and the attendant health impacts affect the physical, social and cultural development of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.[11] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are overrepresented in the justice system, and are more likely to receive harsher and custodial sentences.[12-14] All of these factors, and others, combine to perpetuate the Stolen Generations in the modern day: rates of out of home care and removal from families are much higher for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.[3] This disparity is so severe - and the reasons given by governments for the removals of children so similar to the past - that it has been said that there is a new Stolen Generation.[15, 16]

The generational trauma of racism and the Stolen Generations, as well as extant experiences of racism amongst the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, affects the way in which First Nations Australians interact with the health system. The field of modern medicine is heavily based on a history of racism and discrimination.[17] The historical experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with the Australian health system, including by way of the Stolen Generations, has created a loss of trust, dissatisfaction, and anger with health care in Australia. This can lead to an unwillingness to engage with health services, and high levels of anger and distrust.[18] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are more likely to report negative experiences when accessing health care, to self-discharge, experience seclusion or restraint for ‘aggressive’ or ‘dangerous’ behaviours, and have involuntary treatment forced on them. [19-22] All health services and health care providers and workers should be aware of the impact of this trauma on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ experiences of healthcare and provide appropriate culturally safe accommodations. 

This chilling and silencing effect is not unique to interactions with the health system. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lived experience representatives have highlighted that the trauma of the Stolen Generations impacts their communities daily. It drives racism and discrimination, and the fear that comes with those experiences in public, which has a major impact on the way that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, especially young people, interact with modern Australian society. One key issue is the impact it has on the development of dysphoric personalities and identities which internalises fear, silence, and racism.[23] These internalised experiences of racism and the intergenerational trauma can affect how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people interact with the systems and communities around them, and can drive lateral violence.[24] They are even more pronounced for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with chronic physical, mental health conditions or psychosocial disabilities, who identify as LGBTQIASB+, children and adolescents, and older people.[8, 25] The extent the impact on interaction and engagement with governmental systems can be seen by the Closing the Gap data, and the failure of modern Australia to address the ongoing impact of racism, colonisation, and the Stolen Generations on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. 

Effects on mental health 

The impact of removal on individual mental health is well established. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals who were removed have significantly poorer mental health outcomes across the lifespan when compared to their peers.[3, 8] Individuals are much more likely to experience a range of mental health conditions, including severe personal emotional distress, delayed or regressive childhood development, anxiety and depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance use disorders.[7, 8] Individuals also experienced cumulative distress owing to disconnection from country and community, which is increasingly being recognised as a form of solastalgia.[26, 27]

The psychological trauma caused by forced removals of children has life-long, community and intergenerational mental health consequences. The mental health implications of these experiences are starkly illustrated in the following account recorded in the Bringing Them Home Report:

It never goes away. Just ‘cause we’re not walking around on crutches or with bandages or plasters on our legs and arms, doesn’t mean we’re not hurting. Just ‘cause you can’t see it doesn’t mean…I suspect I’ll carry these sorts of wounds ‘til the day I die. I’d just like it to be not quite as intense, that’s all.[2]

The ongoing mental, social and emotional health and wellbeing impacts of the Stolen Generations are described in the Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage and Closing the Gap reports.[14, 28, 29]

The Bringing Them Home Report, highlighted the ‘entrenched disadvantage and dispossession’ that has contributed to the continued removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children today. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are ten times more likely to be in out-of-home care than non-Indigenous children, with rates as high as eighteen times more likely in some states.[30] The ongoing mental health impacts of the Stolen Generations are described in the Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage Report (OID Report) released by the Productivity Commission in November 2014 and updated in 2016.[31] The OID Report reflects improvements in many areas, however, mental health, suicide rates and self-harm indicators are all shown to be deteriorating. 

Experience of racism and the impact of family separation are identified in the OID Report as key risk factors leading to these ongoing issues. In 2019 Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing (AIHW) Report Children living in households with members of the Stolen Generations, indicates that children living with a member of the Stolen Generations, have an increased likelihood of adverse outcomes and a transfer of intergenerational poverty and trauma.[32] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who have involvement with Child Protection are more likely to experience long term social disadvantage and over-representation in juvenile justice and adult criminal justice systems. 

The policies that underpinned the Stolen Generations, along with other discriminatory policies and practices, have profoundly contributed to the poorer health status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations to this day. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (the Principle) was developed to ensure culture is understood as being integral to the safety and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children; increase the level of self-determination of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in child welfare matters; and to reduce the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care. [33] While significant work has been undertaken across jurisdictions to strengthen implementation of the Principle, adherence remains poor.[34]

The psychological trauma caused by forced removals of children has life-long, community and intergenerational mental health consequences, as noted above. Clinicians who are engaged with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities should ensure that care is provided in line with trauma-informed best practice - see RANZCP Position Statement 100: Trauma-informed Practice.

Recommendations

The RANZCP commits to the following action to prevent the practices of the Stolen Generations from occurring again: 

  • Strengthen cultural competency among psychiatrists and trainees that supports practice which respects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander values, culture and history, including an understanding of the history of the Stolen Generations and its ongoing impacts.
  • Acknowledge the need for continued vigilance and scrutiny of current and future policy which may impact adversely on the health and welfare of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and advocate against such changes.
  • Continue support for reconciliation and self-determination initiatives such as the Uluru Statement from the Heart as an acknowledgement of collective healing and an encouragement for governments to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership in policies that impact their communities. 
  • Support those policies and programs promoted by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as strengthening, empowering and healing initiatives. Such as the AIATSIS Family History and Link Up(s) or similar services across jurisdictions.[35]
  • Through position statement development, educational initiatives and congress symposia, support psychiatrists and trainees to develop a full understanding of the role of complex trauma in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander presentations.

The RANZCP recommends that psychiatrists and trainees also incorporate the following into their practice:

  • Recognise that past practices of state sanctioned removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their parents, community, country and culture were cruel and harmful.
  •  Reflect and introspect on the failure of the psychiatric profession to intervene in these devastating practices, and complicity in their implementation, its complicity in their implementation, and how this shapes the way that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples interact with psychiatrists and the mental health system.
  • Support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to control and deliver programs and services for their own communities and individuals.
  • Commit to practices which respect the importance of culture, family and kinship for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
  • Develop awareness of the impact of the Stolen Generations and the repercussions that continue to the present day. This includes being mindful of the impact of dislocation from land, family, culture and community on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples both in the past and in the present. Care and creativity should be applied in working around these issues to avoid replicating past trauma.

References 

  1. Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. Position Statement 42 - Stolen Generations. Melbourne.April 1999.
  2. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Bringing Them Home : Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. 1997.
  3. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Closing the Gap targets: key findings and implications. Canberra; 2025.
  4. Council AHMA. Cultural Respect Framework 2016 - 2026: For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health. Canberra; 2016.
  5. Freeman T, Edwards T, Baum F, Lawless A, Jolley G, Javanparast S, et al. Cultural respect strategies in Australian Aboriginal primary health care services: beyond education and training of practitioners. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. 2014;38(4):355–61.
  6. Yoorrook Justice Commission. Yoorrook: for Transformation summary report. Melbourne; 2025.
  7. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. Canberra; 1997.
  8. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stolen generations aged 50 and over. Canberra; 2018.
  9. Pat Anderson and Edward Tilton. Bringing Them Home 20 years on: an action plan for healing. 2018.
  10. Kairuz CA, Casanelia LM, Bennett-Brook K, Coombes J, Yadav UN. Impact of racism and discrimination on physical and mental health among Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples living in Australia: a systematic scoping review. BMC Public Health. 2021;21(1):1302.
  11. McLachlan KJ. Recognising the Significance of the Past: Developmental and Intergenerational Trauma. In: McLachlan KJ, editor. Trauma-informed Criminal Justice: Towards a More Compassionate Criminal Justice System. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland; 2024. p. 65–94.
  12. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. The health and wellbeing of First Nations people in Australia's prisons 2022. Canberra; 2024.
  13. Martin W. Unequal justice for indigenous Australians. Judicial Review: Selected Conference Papers: Journal of the Judicial Commission of New South Wales. 2018;14(1):[35]–67.
  14. National Indigenous Australians Agency. Commonwealth Closing the Gap 2024 Annual Report and 2025 Implementation Plan. Canberra; 2025.
  15. Michael Lavarch. A New Stolen Generation? Flinders Law Journal. 2017;19.
  16. Jacynta Krakouer. The stolen generations never ended – they just morphed into child protection Online: The Guardian Australia; 2018 [Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/17/the-stolen-generations-never-ended-they-just-morphed-into-child-protection.
  17. Abubakar I, Gram L, Lasoye S, Achiume ET, Becares L, Bola GK, et al. Confronting the consequences of racism, xenophobia, and discrimination on health and health-care systems. (1474-547X (Electronic)).
  18. Australian Human Rights Commission. Health Inequalities in Australia: A Scoping Review on the Impact of Racism on Indigenous and Other Negatively Racialised Communities' Health Outcomes and Healthcare Access. Canberra; 2025.
  19. Jones B, Heslop D, Harrison R. Seldom heard voices: a meta-narrative systematic review of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples healthcare experiences. International Journal for Equity in Health. 2020;19(1):222.
  20. Askew DA, Foley W, Kirk C, Williamson D. “I’m outta here!”: a qualitative investigation into why Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people self-discharge from hospital. BMC Health Services Research. 2021;21(1):907.
  21. Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council. How safe is my hospital? The Seclusion Report #3 Version 2.2. Melbourne; 2022.
  22. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Involuntary treatment in mental health care Canberra: AIHW; 2025 [Available from: https://www.aihw.gov.au/mental-health/topic-areas/safety-quality/involuntary-treatment#Who-receives.
  23. Stephanie Gilbert. Living with the past: the creation of the stolen generation positionality. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples. 2019;15(3).
  24. Whyman T, Murrup-Stewart C, Young M, Carter A, Jobson L. ‘Lateral violence stems from the colonial system’: settler-colonialism and lateral violence in Aboriginal Australians. Postcolonial Studies. 2023;26(2):183–201.
  25. Madi Day Bronwyn Carlson Dameyon Bonson and Terri Farrelly. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTQIASB+ people and mental health and wellbeing. 2022.
  26. Albrecht G, Sartore G-M, Connor L, Higginbotham N, Freeman S, Kelly B, et al. Solastalgia: The Distress Caused by Environmental Change. Australasian Psychiatry. 2007;15(1_suppl):S95–S8.
  27. Kingsley J, Townsend M, Henderson-Wilson C, Bolam B. Developing an Exploratory Framework Linking Australian Aboriginal Peoples’ Connection to Country and Concepts of Wellbeing. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2013;10(2):678–98.
  28. Productivity Commission. Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage. Canberra; 2016.
  29. Productivity Commission. Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage. Canberra; 2020.
  30. Productivity Commission. Report on Government Services 2019. Melbourne; 2019.
  31. Productivity Commission. Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2016. 2016.
  32. Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing. Children living in households with members of the Stolen Generations, Table of contents - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. 2019 11 June 2019.
  33. Australian Institute of Family Studies. Enhancing the implementation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle: Policy and practice considerations. 2015.
  34. SNAICC - National Voice for our children. Reviewing implementation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle. 2019.
  35. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Stolen Generations. 2018.

Disclaimer: 

This information is intended to provide general guide to practitioners, and should not be relied on as a substitute for proper assessment with respect to the merits of each case and the needs of the patient. The RANZCP endeavours to ensure that information is accurate and current at the time of preparation, but takes no responsibility for matters arising from changed circumstances or information or material that may have become subsequently available.