In the midst of an ugly court battle with her violent former partner, she told a Family Court-appointed psychologist that she shared her bed with her children at night.

Sue is the daughter of a survivor of the stolen generations, and, like many Aboriginal people, was raised to keep her kids close.

But the court psychologist was critical, telling her dual sleeping was not appropriate and noting this example of "poor parenting" in the court report.

"They made me feel like a bad mother. I needed to go where there was a service that understood how culture was intertwined with the dynamics of family," said Sue.

Her experience is an example of the gulf in understanding that often exists between mainstream family violence services and Indigenous people.

These are highlighted in a new report from Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety, which confirms Indigenous women suffer higher levels of family violence, as well as injury and death, than non-Indigenous women.

They are 35 times more likely to be admitted to hospital due to family-violence assaults than non-Indigenous women.

No single cause can explain this, but a complex array of factors include the ongoing legacy of colonisation, intergenerational trauma, alcohol and other drugs and poverty, it finds.

Indigenous women are often loath to report violence, the report finds. They fear negative repercussions from police, a loss of privacy in small communities and the death of men in custody.

And the "Western feminist" approach to understanding family violence, focused on gendered power dynamics, is seen as too narrow to encompass the nature of family violence in Indigenous families.

There was a desire to consider violence within a family as an issue that also stems from contemporary social and economic problems and historical trauma, said researcher Dr Anna Olsen, from Australian National University.

Sue agreed: "I think it's about the community having lost its way ... we have lost a sense of self-empowerment and self-determination."

Antoinette Braybrook, the head of the Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention and Legal Service, said these approaches are not mutually exclusive, and emphasises the gendered nature of the issue. About 90 per cent of her service's clients are women.

"It's important to say that family violence is not only perpetrated by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men. The women we work with are hurt by men from many different cultures and backgrounds," she said.

Sue was supported by the legal service during her gruelling court battles and has since donated money to its "Sister's Day Out" initiative, an awareness-raising event for Aboriginal women on family violence, which is dogged by funding uncertainty.

Family violence is the main reason Aboriginal children come into out-of-home care in Victoria, closely followed by alcohol and drugs, said Andrew Jackomos, the Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People.

Mr Jackomos has undertaken an exhaustive analysis of the files of 1000 Aboriginal children in out-of-home care and will soon give a report to Minister for Families Jenny Mikakos.

*Not her real name

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