![Sarah Cleaves, the manager of the Baya Gawiy early childcare centre at Fitzroy Crossing.](http://web.archive.org./web/20140917005307im_/http://images.theage.com.au/2014/09/12/5761243/Article%20Lead%20-%20narrow6120713910ccn91410700745261.jpg-300x0.jpg)
Sarah Cleaves, the manager of the Baya Gawiy early childcare centre at Fitzroy Crossing. Photo: Tony McDonough
The future of some of the most disadvantaged children across Australia is now in limbo, following the federal government's withdrawal of funding from 38 Aboriginal Child and Family Centres.
"We are in no man's land. No one wants to take ownership," said Catherine Edwards-Bott, the executive director of the indigenous-run Brewarrina Business Co-operative. The co-op manages two Aboriginal Child and Family Centres in the poorest local government areas in NSW.
These centres were previously funded under the $300 million "closing the gap" partnership between the states and the federal government to provide early childhood services and health programs to Aboriginal children and their families.
Ms Edwards-Bott's centres, one in Lightning Ridge and the other in Brewarrina, have been given a small reprieve by the state government, which has provided $500,000 for a year, but nobody will sign the leases on the properties.
Other centres have been less lucky: 26 have no long-term guarantee of funding. Some had barely opened before funding was axed. Some had not moved into custom-built premises. Two out of the 38 have received nothing since the National Partnership Agreement, introduced three years ago, was cut in June 2014. Another 11 centres have been given some limited funding that will last between six months and two years.
"To say it is a mess is an understatement. To say that Aboriginal people feel betrayed is an understatement," said Frank Hytten, the chief executive of the Secretariat for National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC). "This is yet another betrayal by white fellas of Aboriginal people. Promises made and promises broken."
Many people were overlooking the centres' role as community-managed hubs.
"Lots of Aboriginal people don't like using mainstream services because the history has been that if they do, their children keep being taken away," Mr Hytten said.
Ms Edwards-Bott said many Aboriginal families refused to enter their children's primary school, located across the road from one of the centres, but happily attended parenting and other programs run by the co-op.
A Victorian centre, Bubup Wilam at Thomastown, has attracted 58 children since it opened, with many going on to the local primary school that did not even know these children lived in the area. Half of its 26 staff members are Aboriginal. Like many of the centres, Bubup Wilam runs an early learning program, health checks, nutrition and family support services.
In Fitzroy Crossing, the Baya Gawiy early childcare centre – with similar services to Bubup Wilam – will close in late December if no other funding is found.
Its manager, Sarah Cleaves, said the centre played a huge role in getting Aboriginal children ready for school. "Many of our children have early life trauma, some have foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or they are developmentally delayed. So the integrated service provision is designed to get them to start school on par with other Australian children."
In addition to providing the children with 80 per cent of their nutritional needs, the centre's program was designed to create an early love of learning and teach children about structure, show them how to sit down and listen to a teacher.
"If they haven't been to a centre like ours, they hit school and they see it as alien," Ms Cleaves said.
The centre's closure will also mean many Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal professionals whose children attend the childcare centre may have to leave the remote town because there are no other childcare services in the Kimberleys.
"We have a manager of Centrelink [child], the [children of the] only permanent GP in town, health services ... and other services who run BP roadhouse, their children all come to us," she said.