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Bars Behind Me, po box 30, Dapto (2026)

15/10/2026

🖤💛❤️ A DEADLY SHOUT OUT TO OUR SISTA Marlene Tighe ! 🖤💛❤️

Tonight, our beautiful sista Marlene received a Deadly Encouragement Award, nominated by WIC UOW! 🏆👏🏽

And what a testament to her courage and determination!

After leaving school in Year 9, scarred by experiences of racism, Marlene found the courage to step back into academia and reclaim a space that once made her feel she didn't belong.

Tomorrow, Marlene submits her final assessment in Indigenous Trauma-Informed Response and Practice (ITRP), walking away with deeper knowledge and understanding of trauma, healing and culturally safe responses.

Sista, I am so incredibly proud of everything you are achieving. You are living proof that our past does not determine our future, and that it's never too late to reclaim our dreams.

I am your SUPER FAN! 🥹❤️

Congratulations, sista. Keep walking strong, keep breaking barriers, and keep showing our women what's possible.

THE BEST IS YET TO COME! ✊🏽🔥

13/10/2026

🖤💛❤️ CALLING OUR SISTAS WHO HAVE DONE JAIL IN NSW
**YOUR TIME. YOUR EXPERIENCE. YOUR VOICE. YOUR LEGACY.**

BARS BEHIND ME **Lived Experience Leadership Academy**
Sistas, if you've spent time inside a NSW women's correctional centre, this invitation is for you.

Bars Behind Me (BBM) is bringing together women with lived experience of incarceration to form an online leadership forum.
Not another program telling us what we need.

**A space where WE identify what needs to change.**
Through our Lived Experience Leadership Academy, BBM will create opportunities for women to strengthen their knowledge, build leadership and advocacy skills, develop networks and learn how to advocate for themselves and the women coming behind them.
And we have some important work ahead of us.

BBM has been invited to contribute to the NSW Inspector of Custodial Services' upcoming inspection of women's Correctional Centres in NSW.
We want the voices of women who have actually lived inside these systems to help inform our submissions and recommendations.
We're talking about the things that matter:

**1. Reception and basic dignity**
When a woman first arrives in custody, what should she be provided with? Surely a hairbrush, hair elastics, shampoo, conditioner and basic personal necessities shouldn't be too much to ask.

**2. Health screening and access to care**
What should a proper reception health assessment look like? What about mental health, trauma, medication, women's health and ongoing medical support?

**3. Case management and ownership of our time**
How do we give women meaningful involvement in their own case plans, program choices, goals and progression instead of simply waiting for someone else to make decisions?

**4. Real employment and industries for women**
Why shouldn't every woman who wants to work have access to meaningful employment, training and skills that can actually help her when she gets out?

**5. Culture, identity and connection**
How do we ensure Aboriginal women maintain meaningful connections to Country, culture, community, family and identity throughout incarceration?

**6. Planning for release from day one**
Housing, identification, employment, health, family reconnection and community support should not be last-minute conversations at the prison gate.

**7. Everything else WE know needs to change.**
These are just starting points. The women around this forum will help identify the issues, priorities and recommendations.

# # # LET'S BE CLEAR ABOUT ONE THING.
we cant stop police arresting our women or the courts putting them in jail.
what this is, is an opportunity to contribute recommendations that could change how our sista's are treated in correctional centres, and create responses to our women that are built by our women.

# # # HOW WILL THE FORUM WORK?
Our yarns will take place through a private Facebook Messenger group chat called:
**Lived Experience Leadership Forum**
We'll connect regularly, share experiences, identify issues, develop recommendations and build our skills together.
You don't need qualifications, a fancy title or experience writing submissions.

**Your lived experience is the truth you bring.**
WHO CAN JOIN?
This particular forum is exclusively for Aboriginal women who have served time in a NSW correctional centre.
We are starting with a small circle of sistas who understand the experience and want to contribute to something bigger than ourselves.

🖤💛❤️ HOW TO GET INVOLVED
**There are two ways to have your voice heard.**
**1. JOIN OUR LIVED EXPERIENCE LEADERSHIP FORUM**
inbox me to be added to our group chat

**2. MAKE A WRITTEN SUBMISSION**
Not everyone has time or wants to participate in group discussions, and we respect that.
If you would prefer to put your experiences, concerns or recommendations in writing, we welcome your contribution.
Your submission can address any aspect of your experience within a NSW women's correctional centre, including what worked, what didn't and what you believe needs to change.

**Email your written submission to:**
[email protected]
**Closing date: 31 October 2026**

Written contributions will help inform BBM's advocacy and recommendations to the NSW Inspector of Custodial Services. We will keep everything anonymous

*From prison to purpose. From lived experience to leadership.*
**BARS BEHIND ME**
*Culture First. Lived Experience Led.*

11/10/2026

The last 2x workshops for this year. What a way to end the year.

11/10/2026

🌊 **SALTWATER — AND A LITTLE BIT OF HOLLYWOOD 🎥🖤💛❤️**

Today at Saltwater, we did something unusual.

**We ditched the cameras.**

The weather was beautiful, the food was cooking, our sistas were together, and sometimes you don't need to document the moment.

**You just need to be in it.**

We cooked up a feast for lunch, yarned, laughed and welcomed a special guest to our circle — Katrina, who is beginning the journey of documenting the story of Bars Behind Me and the exciting new future we are creating.

So instead of taking photos today, we spent the morning talking about the ones already stored in our hearts.

The women we've met.

The connections we've made.

The education system we've walked through.

The Saltwater yarns.

The hard days.

The wins nobody else saw.

The women who found their feet.

The women who found their voice.

And the extraordinary community that has grown around BBM.

This week, the cameras officially start rolling, where we'll capture a milestone very close to our hearts — women from our BBM circle reaching the final stages of their **2026 Indigenous Trauma-Informed Response and Practice postgraduate studies** and submitting their final assessments.

Because that's part of the story we want to tell.

Not simply what our women have survived.

**What they're becoming.**

The next leg of the BBM journey might get a little bit Hollywood. 🎬😂

There'll be cameras following us as we capture some pretty important milestones and document this next chapter as it unfolds.

But the heart of this story will remain exactly where it has always been:

With culture., with our women. with our stories.

Because sometimes the oldest solution is still the strongest one.

🌊🖤💛❤️

**Bars Behind Me**
*From prison to purpose.*

08/10/2026

This month, Bars Behind Me is lighting its first National Campfire

A monthly online yarn for First Nations leaders, ACCOs, women with lived experience, community organisations, practitioners and genuine allies across the country.
BBM will hold the space ... but the Campfire belongs to all of us.
No hierarchy. No conference. No waiting for the next forum to find each other again.
Just a regular place to connect, share what's working, strengthen referrals, exchange knowledge, build relationships, co-design ideas and, when we need to ... stand together in solidarity.
Because somewhere in this country, someone may already hold part of the solution you're looking for.
And the people closest to our communities often carry the strongest solutions.

🔥 Our first National Campfire is happening this month.

Before we gather, we want to know who's coming, what you carry, what you're looking for and what you want us to yarn about.
👇 Register here to take your place around the fire:

07/10/2026

FOR MY SISTAS

Don't come through our doors
and tell me what's wrong with you!
Every system you've ever walked through
has already asked you that.

What's your diagnosis?
What's your drug of choice?
What's your charge?
What's your risk?
What's your problem?

Nah, Sis.
Not here.

Here, I want to know
What do you carry?
What did you learn in all those years you thought you were only surviving?
What strength did you build when nobody was coming to save you?
What do people already come to you for?
What breaks your heart?
What fires you up?
What do you know that somebody with ten degrees could never learn from a textbook?
And who could you become
if somebody stopped managing your problems long enough
to recognise your power?

Because I don't want you coming to BBM to receive a service.
I want you coming here to remember yourself.

Come and sit with us.
Come to Saltwater.
Come have a feed.
Come sit quietly if that's all you've got today.

You don't have to arrive with a dream.
You don't even have to believe in yourself yet.
We'll hold that belief for a little while
until you're strong enough to carry it yourself.
Then we'll start looking.
Not at everything that's wrong.
At everything that's there.
Your voice.
Your humour.
Your fight.
Your culture.
Your knowledge.
Your stubbornness.
Your softness.
Your survival.
Your ability to read a room because you've spent a lifetime needing to.
Your ability to sit beside another woman in darkness without being frightened of her darkness.
Because you've been there too.

And when you find that thing—
we're going to grow it.
Maybe you'll go to uni.
Maybe you'll get a trade.
Maybe you'll start a program.
Maybe you'll run a business.
Maybe you'll speak into a microphone.
Maybe you'll sit at a government table where people once spoke about women like us without women like us in the room.
Maybe you'll become a mentor.
Maybe you'll become an Elder.
Maybe you'll change things quietly inside your own family.
That's leadership too.
And BBM will give you somewhere to practise.
Run the yarn.
Chair the meeting.
Welcome the next sista.
Write the idea.
Build the program.
Speak on the panel.
Sit at the table.
Get it wrong.
Learn.
Come back.
Try again.
Because this isn't a place where we throw women away when they stumble.
And one day, Sis,
I hope you walk through those same doors
and realise something has changed.
You're not asking anymore—
“What can BBM do for me?”
You're standing there saying—
“I've got something I want to bring.”
That's the moment.
Because I don't want to build followers.
I want to build women
who eventually don't need me.
Women who know their own voice.
Women who know their own power.
Women who make their own tables
when nobody gives them a seat.
And when the next sista arrives
with her head down,
carrying every label the world has ever given her,
maybe you'll recognise her.
Maybe you'll remember
when that was you.
And you'll pull out a chair.
Sit here, Sis.
We've been waiting for you.
Because today's sista finding her feet
might be tomorrow's mentor.
Tomorrow's student.
Tomorrow's facilitator.
Tomorrow's CEO.
Tomorrow's Board member.
Tomorrow's community leader.
Tomorrow's founder.
And somewhere behind her
will be another young sista watching,
thinking....F**k.
Maybe I can do that too.
That's how we change things.
One woman finds her power.
Then turns around
and holds the light
while another woman finds hers.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Until there are so many of us standing,
they can no longer build systems for us
without us.
So no, Sis.
You are not coming here
to become my client.
And you're not coming here
to become the next me.
You're coming here
to become the first you.
And I cannot wait to meet her.
BELONG.
DISCOVER.
DEVELOP.
PRACTISE.
LEAD.
GIVE BACK.
Culture First.
From prison to purpose.
Mic drop!

07/10/2026

This is your invitation to have your say on the direction Bars Behind Me takes over the next 3years.

We want everyone to have a say, so we can better serve our sista's and community in a way that is built by everyone.

Please share; no personal information is collected. All responses are confidential.

06/10/2026

To my sista’s sitting in the darkness of the choices you once made…

To the ones carrying shame for the life you lived, the things you did, the people you hurt, and the person you once became just to survive…

I need you to know this....Every minute of every day is YOUR opportunity to make something right.

If life gives you an opportunity to say I’m sorry — don’t let it pass you by.

Don’t run from it because it hurts.

Sit with it.

Sit with the grief.
Sit with the shame.
Sit with the truth of what you did and the pain you caused somebody else.

Because accountability fu***ng hurts.

Sometimes it feels like the biggest punch in the guts you could have taken from the strongest person on earth.

Cry.

Grieve.

Own it.

And then, when you’ve dried your eyes, stand back up.

Go wash your face in the saltwater of our people.

Let that shame become the driver of your change — not the weight around your neck.

You are allowed to hold your head a little higher when you know you are no longer running from who you were.

Look people in the eye.

Say good morning to the stranger walking past you.

Walk through this world knowing:

Yeah. I did that.

I cannot undo what I did.
I cannot take back the words I said.
I cannot erase the pain I caused.
And I am not entitled to anybody’s forgiveness.

But I can make damn sure that life stays behind me.

I can live differently NOW

I can make my apology mean something through the way I live every single day from TODAY.

And with every step forward, make yourself one promise:

Never go back into that darkness again — unless you are carrying a lantern to help guide another sista home.

Your past should never be hidden.

It should become evidence that our people can change.

That we can take accountability.

That we can heal.

That we can come home to ourselves.

And that even after everything…

we can still choose who we become next.

🖤💛❤️

23/09/2026

*****BBM does not own these opportunities...sharing only******

Campbelltown TAFE – 12 October - TAFE NSW is proud to partner with the First Nations Employment Pathways (Muru) at Western Sydney International Airport to deliver a culturally safe, practical employment workshop for our First Nations community who are interested in jobs at Western Sydney's new airport. The workshop will help participants understand the range of training and employment opportunities available across the airport and the aviation industry while providing hands on support to prepare and apply for suitable roles. See attached Flier.

Security Course – Expressions of Interest are now open for entry-level security licencing training delivered through our culturally safe, community led job readiness program. This opportunity is designed to support First Nations participants to build confidence, skills and gain the necessary licencing to be able to transition from training into employment outcomes in Security. As a security guard you have the opportunity to play an important role in responding to incidents, stepping up as a leader and keeping community safe. Security licence training through our partner program offers reliable employment, flexibility, pathways for growth across a range of career opportunities in security including placement at Western Sydney International Airport. See attached flier or QR code below.

20/09/2026

It's time to come together; no woman can do this alone!
Culture first; we know the way!

Bars Behind Me

15/10/2026

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11/10/2026

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