Some learning changes what you know. Other learning changes how you see people, history, and human experience. Beyond Awareness: Understanding Aboriginal Australia is a reflective cultural learning experience created to encourage deeper understanding through storytelling, history, emotional reflection, and lived experience. Guided by Donna Hensen, this course explores Aboriginal identity, culture, colonisation, the Stolen Generation, survival, and contemporary realities in a way that encourages empathy, respectful understanding, and meaningful reflection. Rather than focusing only on facts, this course creates space for learners to connect emotionally with the human impact behind Australia’s history and develop a deeper appreciation for Aboriginal perspectives, resilience, and culture.
International award-winning Australian Aboriginal artist, educator, and teacher.
On behalf of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child sexual abuse, Donna spent several years interviewing Aboriginal abuse victims in indigenous communities. As a trauma counsellor and community liaison, Donna supported many clients through this difficult process.
Donna has been teaching the latest counselling techniques to clients such as Gestalt Therapy Australia’s upcoming year three students, University Queensland Psychology students, and many more, bringing a modern approach to counselling that reduces stress and anxiety within clients.
Donna is a Wailwan/Wiradjuri woman from outback NSW. Donna is from the stolen generation, and she wanted to create training resources to educate mainstream Australians (without blame, guilt, or anger) about Aboriginal people and to bring Indigenous wisdom to the counselling field.