Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts pens ‘Long Yarn Short’: A story of survival and a scathing look at the systems tearing families apart

Most people in their mid-twenties probably wouldn’t even think about writing a memoir, but for Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts, the timing was finally right.

Originally approached by her publisher a couple of years prior, Turnbull-Roberts admits she wasn’t in the right space then to delve back into her childhood. It wasn’t until she gave birth to her own daughter that she felt it was time.

“It was very much a symbolic moment of ‘I’m in a new time and a new moment’,” she tells Missing Perspectives.

“And so for me, when I got to 26, 27, when I really was ready to share the book out with the world and write it at that time, it was about actually being able to capture that period of my life and also recognising where I am now and very much how all of my work is very much influenced by that little chapter – but it’s no longer being that survivor and that little person that’s going through those foster placements and family policing systems and surviving, but actually I’m an older person now.”

At just 10 years old, Turnbull-Roberts was forcibly removed – stolen in the middle of the night – from the home she lived in with her father. 

In her new book Long Yarn Short,Turnbull-Roberts puts the reader in her position to describe the life-altering moment she was taken.

“Just before closing your eyes, you hear your father say, ‘Big girl … I am so sorry, pack some things, they are coming.’ He says it in a way that is all too familiar,” pens Turnbull-Roberts.

From that moment on, she spent her childhood surviving the foster care system.  

She says she wished there was someone, or people, independent from the system to advocate for her and her family, instead of tearing them apart. Now, she gets to be that person for other children. 

As the inaugural Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People Commissioner for the Australian Capital Territory, a human rights lawyer and a Fulbright scholar, the Bundjalung Widubul-Wiabul woman brings her own lived experience of the systems to challenge and change them.

“I’m a commissioner in my role and I’m actually able to do the work that I want to do to make sure that all our little people who are still going through those same f*cked up systems are actually able to have a space and voice heard.”

In Long Yarn Short, Turnbull-Roberts reflects on her childhood and motherhood with moments of joy and love throughout, but more than anything she uses her platform to call for action to tear down the systems that harmed her and which continue to wreak havoc within First Nations communities and families. 

The book is both a first-hand account of survival and an exposé of the foster care and family policing systems, the organisations that profit from them, the failures of successive governments and the long term impacts on the children that survive them. 

 Long Yarn Short author Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts
Long Yarn Short author Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts. Photo: Supplied

Turnbull-Roberts said writing the book felt like ‘a closing time’.

“Whilst the book touches on a lot, it talks about trauma, it talks about pain, but it also talks about healing and talks about strength, and it talks about something here in Australia, particularly around children and young people’s rights, where we don’t value enough of our children and young people here in this country. And I wanted to be able to capture that in this moment, in that time.”

When looking back on her childhood in contrast to the position she’s in now, Turnbull-Roberts says surviving as a child in the system, removed and distanced from culture and kin, didn’t leave a lot of time for dreaming about a future. 

“In the community that I grew up in and the space that I was in, like all our childhood was play, imagination, fun, and then the department comes in and takes that away – and you’re in this system and then you’re in this survival mode, so you don’t get time to reflect in the moment of what a future looks like or who can I be when I grow up,” she says.

Turnbull-Roberts describes herself as an “energetic and out there kid”, but, she says, that all changed when she was removed. “It took away that safeguarding for me to be able to be myself,” she says, and adds this is why culture, conversations with Elders and grounding is so important.

“I think of those old conversations those old people gave me when I was a kid, and there is a reason I have survived –  it’s because of my knowledge of my place and my country and who I am. That’s what my old people did. That’s why I’m very cautious of the position I’m in to make sure we’re not depriving children of that access to Eldership, to knowledge, to learning, because that’s the serious risk we pose.”

According to the Family Matters Report 2024 by the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children represent 41% of all children in out-of-home care despite making up just 6% of the total child population in Australia.

First Nations children are also 11.5 times more likely to be removed as infants. 

Alarmingly, the report found only 15% of government funding is spent on prevention such as Family Support Services, while the rest is spent on “child protection and out-of-home care services”, with just 6% of child protection funding directed towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled organisations. 

Turnbull-Roberts, as both a survivor and commissioner, would like to see funding redistributed.

“I believe that if we’re serious about the community determination and self-determination conversations that we’re having a lot more these days, then you actually need to put that into action and give our communities and mobs the opportunity to have that equity stance as well,” she says.

She also adds she would want to see all children released from prison immediately.

“More than half the children that are in custody are on child protection orders and then I would be supporting children and young people and Elders and safe people to bring back that connection piece of healing and bring back that respect and culture.”

Long Yarn Short by Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts
Long Yarn Short by Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts. Photo: Supplied/UQP

Although the flames of division are stoked by these systems for profit and career politicians to fulfil their own ambitions, Turnbull-Roberts hopes her book will have an impact on a human level to show that no matter who you are, there are ways to participate in your community to make it better.

“For me it would be amazing for readers to walk away and be like ‘Wow, oh yeah I can just go buy some groceries for someone and help them out’ or ‘I can advocate to my local ministers when there is a forced removal that takes place down the road and check in if the family needs anything’,” she says.

In the first pages of Long Yarn Short, Turnbull-Roberts dedicates the book to “the children and ancestors who didn’t come home”. In the pages that follow, she offers solutions to reimagine a world where families aren’t torn apart by a system founded on racism, where Indigenous kids can grow up strong in culture and community, and families are supported to thrive. 

“We are still here, and we’re facing the same horrific barriers, but we’re still here, we’re surviving and we’re not going anywhere.”

Top photo source: Supplied

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