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About Us
Boys from the Bush Projects is a not-for-profit organisation committed to improving the lives of some of the most disadvantaged people in this country; young uneducated, unkilled Indigenous people living in remote communities
Milton James - Operational Manager of the BftB Projects
Milton James grew up in rural South Australia, the son of a Signalman who was proud of his working class heritage. Milton's working life began in the mining industry, followed by qualification and considerable experience in the agricultural industry. In 1978, he travelled to India to work as a volunteer on a remote community development project in the poorest villages in the poorest state of India. This experience stirred him into studying social work and he began developing his career in rural South Australia and Victoria, with a particular passion for working with young people and Aboriginal families. In 1994, having just completed further studies in social work and working in Canberra, a visiting Aboriginal friend and mentor, the late Molly Dyer from Horsham in Victoria, noting his despondent state of mind, said to him; "Milton, this is no place for you. You don't belong here. You belong on the frontier." No sooner were these words spoken, Milton and his family left to work in the Torres Strait. Some years later, it occured to Milton that he had overshot the real frontier - remote area social work where young Indigenous people are truly deprived and where conventional forms of intervention had never operated successfully.
Abia (Casper) Ingui - Assistant Recruitment Officer
Abia Ingui, also known as Casper, is of Aboriginal-Torres Strait Islander decent and grew up on Cape York Northern Peninsula Area. Casper joined the the Boys from the Bush program when he was 16 years old and student at Wangetti Education Centre. A few years later he was employed by the program as a Recruitment Officer, Supervisor of other young participants and advisor to Milton James on behavioural management issues. He played a key role in the development of the Cape York Boys from the Bush petrol sniffing intervention strategy in 2002 and 2003.
He played a key role in the 2004-05 Work Socialisaton Trial and was the first Work Group Supervisor for the Work Placement Scheme in mid to late 2005. In early 2006 he left the scheme to work as a professional crayfish diver on the east coast of Cape York. He is now 24 years old and has agreed to return to the Remote Area Aboriginal Work Scheme as an Assistant Recruitment Officer of young people from remote northern communities wanting to working in the meat processing indistry.
Lorraine Watson - Senior Work Group Supervisor
Lorraine has a lifetime of experience, working since the age of 12, and is an Elder in her community at Fraser Coast in Queensland. She holds a Degree in Community Welfare from James Cook University in Townsville. On her travels worked in Lockhard River on Cape York as Train-the-Trainer to the women on child care and domestic violence issues. Travelling to other communities, Lorraine expanded her knowledge of the lifestyle and spiritually of her people. Lorraine joined the Cairns Department of Families in 1995 as a Generic Family Services Officer. With her experience she was able to team up with Milton James, Phillip Duncan and Neil Mayo in travelling throughout Far North Queensland, Cape York and the Torres Strait. The position required involvement in child protection, juvenile justice and as courts officer. Lorraine transferred to Townsville juvenile justice centre in 2000. She retired in 2003. She was prepared to sit back and relax in her twilight years. However, Milton has given Lorraine the inspiration to kick off the slippers to support and be part of the new improved work project.
Ross Walters - Member of the BftB Projects Association
Ross Walters is a long standing friend and professional colleague of Milton James. Ross played a key role in helping Milton to establish the Opged and Muri programs in the Torres Strait and the Boys from the Bush program on Cape York. Ross is a Torres Strait Islander raised on the mainland. He is a qualified secondary school teacher. Since 1972 he has worked in Brisbane, Toowoomba, Bathurst Island and Cairns. He was the School Principal at Wangetti Education Centre for eight years and more recently has been a teacher at Djarragun College at Gordonvale south of Cairns. Ross provides invaluable insight into the nature of young Indigenious people and their family dynamics. He is also very experienced at managing difficult behaviour in at-risk adolescents.
Steve Rothfield - Treasurer of the BftB Projects Association
Steven Rothfield is deeply committed to working in partnership with Indigenous leaders and has been personally involved in over 20 projects in Indigenous communities over the last 5 years in Victoria and Queensland.
He has had extensive business experience which included being the joint managing director of the Bryant and May Group which marketed and distributed branded consumer packaged goods in Australia and New Zealand with well-known brands such as Redheads matches, Wilkinson Sword razors, Antrid pest control and Love n Care detergents.
Previously Steven was the general manager of Pedersons a national office products chain, a senior management consultant at PA Consultants for over 5 years specialising in business feasibility, corporate planning and organisation reviews for both private, philanthropic and public sector organisations such as Dulux, CSIRO and Wesley Central Mission, a range of sales and technical specialist roles in the General Electric and Honeywell computer companies and a lending officer with AIFC a merchant bank.
Steven has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Melbourne University and an MBA also from Melbourne University where he graduated with distinction and the prize in Financial Management.
Phillip Duncan - President of the BftB Projects Association
Phillip Duncan is a Team Leader at the Cairns Youth Justice Service Centre who has provided Youth Justice services to clients and their families for over twenty years. He describes himself as an eclectic human services practitioner and line manager, who draws upon a wide range of disciplines and evidence based practice to service clients.
He continually seeks innovative and effective ways to provide better services to clents. Phillip has a strong professional focus on bridging the gap between rural, urban and remote Indigenious clients and the mainstream Australian community.
He is a strong supporter of the Boys from the Bush and has worked with Milton James its founder since its inception. he looks forward to the challenges of providing professional input with the roll out of the national RAAW Scheme.
Neil Mayo - Member of the BftB Projects Association
Neil Mayo is a long standing friend and professional colleague of Milton James. Neil is an Aboriginal of Kalkaddon-Pitta Pitta decent from Mt Isa, Camooweal, Lake Nash region. He holds a Batchelor of Social Welfare and has worked with young Indigenious offenders for over 20 years as a statutory Resource Officer for the Queensland Department of Communities. He is presently the Substance Misuse Manager for the Wuchopperen Health Service in Cairns.
Scott Milne - Member of the BftB Projects Association
Milton James and Scott Milne grew up in the country town of Loxton in South Australia, they both worked with troubled youth and disadvantaged groups in a variety of contexts. They undertook their Social Work degrees together and after completing their qualifications both worked in Canberra in the child protection field. Scott and Milton first seriously began to explore solutions to indigenous concerns during the 1980’s. In the mid 1990’s Scott worked as a hospital and community health Social Worker in Canberra and Milton moved to the remote Torres Strait. They continued to keep in contact and whilst in 2000 Scott ran a national conference on Indigenous issues entitled: Social Workers Putting Aboriginal Reconciliation into Practice, Milton was working in the Torres Strait and searching to build a new beginning for troubled indigenous youth on the frontier. The Boys From The Bush formed in the imagination and Milton’s journey trekked into remote area Social Work, where young indigenous people are truly deprived and where conventional forms of intervention had never operated successfully. At each step, Milton and Scott discussed progress.
As a Social Worker, Scott has served on the Australian Association of Social Workers ACT Branch Committee for ten years and also served as President, Vice President and Continuing Professional Education Convener.
Peter Botsman - Member of the BftB Projects Association
Peter Botsman studied at Cornell University, New York, from 1972 to 1974 and completed a joint BA (Hons) degree at Griffith University, Queensland in 1976. Following a Diploma of Education from Melbourne University and a Master of Philosophy from Griffith University, he completed his doctorate at the University of NSW in 1987.
He was a lectuer in Technologhy Studies at the University of Technologhy, Sydney, from 1986 to 1987. In August 1987 he was appointed Director of the Evatt Research Centre and in 1988 Executive Director of the Evatt Foundation. From 1988 to 1996 the Foundation released a number of influential reports. Those which were co-authored, written and planned by Professor Botsman include:
The Capital Funding of Public Enterprises (1988),
State of Siege: Vertical Fiscal Imbalance and the Future of State Government (1989),
The State of Australia Series Report (1993, 1994, 1995 & 1996),
Enterprise Bargaining in Higher Education (1994),
Creating Jobs (1996),
and Unions 2001 (1997).
In 1991, Botsman won a Harkness Fellowship to the City University of New York and wrote USA Care: A National Health Insurance Strategy for the USA (Chicago, 1991). His work was well recognised in the USA, he was invited to President Clinton's inauguration in 1992 and continues to work with key American policy makers.
In 1997, Botsman was appointed Associate Professor in Public Health and Public Policy at the University of Western Sydney (Macarthur) and Head of the division of Public Health. Professor Botsman took up an appointment as Professor of Public Policy, University of Queensland and Executive Director of The Brisbane Institute from 1 March 1999 to 1 March 2001. During that time The Brisbane Insitute emerged as Queensland's pre-eminent public policy forum featuring a wide range of international, national and local speakers.
In May 2001, Professor Botsman returned to Western Sydney as the Foundation Director of the Whitlam Insitute and resigned from the position in November 2002.
Botsman is an inter-disciplinary public intellectual. His major publications have been written on a wide variety of subject areas including the banking industry, health research and development, the waterfront, the NSW power industry, unemployment, financing aged care, community employment co-operatives and a new model of family centred services for children with developmental disabilities.
Professor Botsman's The Great Constitutional Swindle A Citizen's Guide to the Australian Constitution was shortlisted for the Centenary of Federation Prize in 2001 and his book with Mark Latham The Enabling State went through a number of print runs.
Botsman currently works hard as voluntary secretary of the ISX, editing Australian Prospect, writing a series of papers and books, contributing to national newspapers and working at a variety of consultancy projects. In 2007 he wrote Polity, Capability, Culture about the future of Indigenous governance and sovereignty and in late 2007 he ran a revolutionary mining training strategy in South Hedland that took 19 trainees into full time work in the mining industry.
Dr Greta Galloway - Member of the BftB Projects Association
Greta Galloway is a social worker currently employed as a senior lecturer at James Cook University on the Cairns campus. Greta has experience working with children and families both in Australia and in South Africa. Greta has been involved in a number of projects with Indigenious people, including the facilitation and writing up of an Indigenious women's healing workshop; developing an anti-violence package for Aboriginal families and is currently involved in a project elucidating healing practices helpful to Aboriginal people experiencing violence and abuse in their lives. Greta always works from a stance of acknowledging the shared historical space between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and non-Indigenious Australians; a space which has privileged non-Indigenious people at the expense of the first nations people of this country.
Dr Yolie Swinkels - Member of the BftB Projects Association
Dr Yolie Swinkels is a friend and colleague of Milton James. Yolie is a criminologist and she is and has been a strong supported of the Boys from the Bush Program since its inception.
Yolie holds a number of degrees and qualifications from recognised tertiary institutions, including a PhD in Applied Criminology (2003). This major research titled: "Restorative Justice in Cairns and Cape York: Community based Justice in Urban and Remote Communities", evaluated efforts to reduce juvenile recidivism through pilot community conferencing programs in Far North Queensland.
In her position as a Special Project Officer, Yolie conducted an audit in youth justice and child protection matters in remote indigenious communities. This project involved an extensive evaluation and audit of existing youth justice programs. It also included an analysis of child safety service delivery to the remote indigenious community of Aurukun.
Yolie's professional research provided valuable evidenced based knowledge and a in depth understanding of the trends and patterns of juvenile offending, for the Department of Communities in the Cairns Region.