National Reconciliation Week invites all Australians to reflect honestly on past and present harms, and on our shared responsibility for change. Reconciliation is inseparable from our purpose. Our work exists because institutions sometimes failed to listen, failed to act, and failed to protect people from harm. This reflection explores how reconciliation challenges us to examine power, centre voices that have been historically excluded, and ensure our work is experienced as fair, culturally safe and worthy of trust, recognising that this commitment requires ongoing humility, accountability and care.

Kooyoora CEO Fiona Boyle sat down with the Deadly Grannies on Dja Dja Wurrung Country to reflect on their experience of the 2025 Provincial Walkabout. In a conversation marked by honesty, warmth, grief and humour, they shared what it means to learn on Country, listen deeply and walk together through truth-telling, connection and community.

In this interview Kooyoora CEO Fiona Boyle speaks with Indigenous Anglican Bishop, Bishop Chris Macleod about reconciliation in practice, and the role leadership, accountability and respect play in building safe organisational cultures.

Cultural safety is central to trust, access and justice, and remains critical to Kooyoora’s safeguarding work. As part of this commitment, CEO Fiona Boyle participated in the Victorian Provincial Walkabout 2025, an eight day journey created by the Anglican Church to deepen understanding of Victoria’s colonial history and the ongoing impacts on First Peoples. This followed Kooyoora’s participation in a previous Walkabout held in the Northern Territory in 2024. The 2025 journey, organised by Reverend Canon Shannon Smith and Ken Hutton, executive officer to the Archbishop of Melbourne, was undertaken in response to the work of the Yoorrook Justice Commission and supports deeper learning through place-based engagement, community connection and truth telling.