On my first day as an Aboriginal Research Officer, researching the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal children, I was given a report to read as background material for my new role. It evaluated the therapeutic service which had just employed me. I flicked through the report, my eyes alighting on a chart which outlined the types of trauma experienced by the service’s clients, including exposure to family violence and physical assault, such as being hit with objects. (The report referred to all children, not just Aboriginal.) The report went on to list rates of other forms of abuse — emotional abuse, sexual abuse and neglect. I had to think to myself, did I have the inner resources to do this job? In my role, while I would not be interviewing children directly, I would be talking to clinicians, psychiatrists and counsellors, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, who had worked therapeutically with Aboriginal children who had been abused. Would I have the resilience to withstand the vicarious trauma to which I would be exposed? My position was based across a consortium of three organisations, — an Aboriginal childcare agency, a therapeutic service and a university, — so I had a deep pool of knowledge and wisdom to draw upon in developing my report. But what of myself, and my own life experiences; what could I bring to this role?