a message from Co-Founder Louise Lethbridge
our story
I haven’t been on a boat since I was a kid. I never thought I would see my land in this way again
It was early 2019 and Troy had been voluntarily spending time with a middle-aged man in a wheelchair living in a remote community in East Arnhem. The goal was to get him out of his house where his physical and mental health had been declining due to inactivity and limited access to gender-cultural appropriate support. The twice-weekly visits and outings on country had a profound impact on him, sparking the idea of a boat trip. Through careful, respectful planning, they made it happen, choosing dignity over convenience for the boarding process. The significant impact of these outings and power of decision-making was so glaringly obvious that Troy knew with conviction that we had to offer this in expanded, scaled ways.
It took Troy another six months of working shifts with Corrections, a job that provided little positive impact for detained youth and strained our family life, to convince me there was an opportunity in this. (As it turns out, this job served a purpose, as some of the youths he had formed a relationship with, in detention, resultingly put their faith in us once our youth programs kicked off).
At Country Connect, we innovate, we spend countless hours on dirt roads, our staff sometimes swag it, we recruit based on cultural understanding, 4WD skills, and outback experience over formal support work qualifications. Over time, people labelled us “cowboys”—criticizing what they couldn’t replicate. We deliver supports to people that mainstream systems forget and fail to appreciate, requiring them to adapt to mainstream ways of doing things to be “eligible” for services.
We founded this organisation on the conviction that lack of choice is not fair, having zero supports available to you is not fair and certainly ad hoc-FIFO supports are not fair. Layer this with supports being delivered in a second, third or fourth language, with multiple cultural barriers in play, and that is if you are fortunate enough to be able to stay in your community with family. If you need supported independent living (SIL) supports, you will need to move to an urban centre.
Imagine living in a house with people you probably would not normally choose to live with, at the mercy of support workers who are exhausted, working multiple jobs, and who do not speak your language. Through anecdotal evidence it is fair to assume you will be accustomed to a western diet free of your ancestral and traditional foods, you will miss significant ceremonies, births and deaths, and you will need to relinquish the healing power of your own country. There’s a strong possibility that your family will not have the means or resources to visit, and years may go past without that connection. Chances are you’ll be choosing your physical care over mental health, albeit anecdotal evidence suggests that your physical health might begin to decline as your mental health worsens.
We founded Country Connect with the intent to do this better in a region that we grew to love, a region that gave us so much personally. It is in this region we love that we met and expanded our family, made lifelong friends, became family with others and found a lifestyle that fostered well-being.
Country Connect launched, full of hope and aspiration and positive affirmations from everyone who knew us, that it was a “no-brainer”. The reality nearly sent us broke. There was no funding tailored to new ventures. Key stakeholders failed to see our vision. We spent months homeless, living in shipping containers, sleeping on floors, in the car, camping, even living on a boat because we’d gone all in on a no-brainer that was apparently not a no-brainer.
Eighteen months later, with the support of a few beautiful people who finally saw the value in our proposition, and our no-brainer was finally coming to fruition. Our early profits went straight back into the business, reinvested into more vehicles and better vehicles, human resources and anything that would support greater reach throughout East Arnhem.
Aside from the day to day supports that we were delivering, some of our earliest milestones came when we facilitated two return to country journeys to Maningrida for a participant in SIL in Darwin. After a decade separate from their country, culture, and community this participant was finally provided the support to reconnect. These initial milestones paved the way for significant outcomes, with two participants ultimately returning permanently to their community due to the community-based supports we were able to establish where none had existed before. This was when we began to truly see the positive impact of our approach.
We built relationships with behavioural specialists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and psychologists who were deeply experienced in the region. Our collaborations amplified our impact, combining cultural and clinical expertise, showcasing the healing power of a two-way approach.
In 2022 the Northern Territory Department of Territory Families, Housing and Communities entrusted us with the care of some of the Northern Territory’s most vulnerable and neglected youth. Due to the faith placed in us, the Country Connect team have been able to positively impact tragically traumatised youth, and leverage the power of community, country, familial and kinship connections to change the trajectory of lives. We believe, and celebrate, that this opportunity has genuinely saved lives.
As our reputation grew, communities in the Tiwi Islands, Lajamanu, and Jabiru reached out, seeking our unique support services.
The further we went down this track, the more we realised that we needed to do more and that we probably could not do it without help. By year two of business, we had realised that the gaps were greater than we thought and we needed more resources, infrastructure and sometimes skills that we did not possess. Over the ensuing twelve months we made a decision to invest everything we had grown into a not-for-profit organisation. The logic of this flowed endlessly.
It allowed us to introduce more appropriate governance structures to support our vision. We have accessed additional skillsets and networks through the creation of a board. We have plans to establish a reference group with extensive lived experience to be a voice in co-design.
The NDIS framework, though well-intentioned, is currently far from flexible enough, broad enough or adequate enough to have sufficient impact in these regions and it does not prioritise Aboriginal views on health and wellbeing. Our Foundation allows us to diversify our income and funding to protect our ways of working.
The endurance and resilience required from our staff in these areas cannot be compensated adequately, exclusively through NDIS pricing models. Our Foundation allows us to do better for our staff.
Not least of all, our Foundation allows us to address the barriers that we had faced in 2021 that were still manifesting to some degree three years later, around people’s perspectives on our personal gain. The Foundation is opening these doors and overcoming prejudices that liberate us to run with our vision and to do more for the people we are committed to.
Our entire management team transferred over, our entire capital, assets, systems, contracts and resources all moved to the Foundation.
Today, six months into this new chapter as Country Connect Foundation, we’ve established valuable partnerships and are focusing on further collaborations. We aim to expand our employment strategy, facilitate more Return to Country trips, and build the infrastructure necessary for delivering culturally rooted care to people in their own communities, in their own way by people who they feel comfortable, confident and safe with. We strive to inspire and support young people to explore their identity, fostering connections that equip them to grow into impactful contributors and future leaders, with a lasting and meaningful impact on their communities.
To everyone who has supported us thus far, we see you, we appreciate you, and we are deeply grateful. We welcome anyone who would like to be involved - whether through partnerships or by joining our reference committee. Thank you for believing in our vision.