Katherine-based Indigenous social worker Kylie Stothers said she had strong family role models that influenced her career choices.

“Although I studied health I didn’t want to go into nursing, I didn’t want to be an Aboriginal health practitioner or a doctor but my passion for social justice was strong so I decided to go down the pathway of social work,” Ms Stothers said. “Being an Aboriginal professional working in the NT health system every day was political.”

Ms Stothers said her experiences being educated at Katherine High School were instructive. “You quickly learned in the high school system that the expectations for Aboriginal people is quite low,” she said.

“We’d have career advice day and all the Aboriginal kids would be put into one group and we’d be told the options for them were basically cleaner, domestic, gardener, that sort of stuff.” 

Ms Stothers said the sad thing was that in her current role she still visits that high school and the same expectations still existed.

“Despite living in a world of low expectations I come from a family that values education and a strong work ethic,” she said.

“My grandmother was the first Aboriginal person to get full time employment at Katherine Hospital in a senior role as head cook.”

Ms Stothers said she put herself through university working as a cleaner and in the laundry at the hospital before working in her local community (“working in your own back yard is the hardest”, she said) and later in academia and child protection.

“You can imagine the conversion I had with my family when I worked in child protection, particularly with my grandmother,” she said.

Her place was somewhere where families used to take their children so they didn’t get taken away by welfare.”