Celebrated in October every year, Blue Knot Day was established by Blue Knot Foundation, Australia’s leading national organisation working to advance the needs of the one in four Australian adults living with the long-term impacts of childhood trauma.
Formerly called ASCA, Blue Knot Foundation offers a broad range of vital services. These include our specialist Blue Knot Helpline, educational workshops, professional development training, supervision, consultancy and other services.
Blue Knot Foundation’s logo features a tangled knot – symbolising the complexity of childhood trauma. Blue is the colour of the sky and a clear blue sky provides the space for new possibilities. Blue Knot Foundation empowers survivors to untangle the knot of childhood trauma and the complex issues with which they grapple. In so doing it provides hope and optimism for recovery.
This year’s Blue Knot Day falls on Monday October 24, with events held throughout the country during the week of October 23 to 30. The theme for 2016 is “together we lead the way to survivor recovery”.
People cannot heal in isolation. Part of the recovery process involves communities coming together to acknowledge survivors’ strengths and challenges while spreading messages of hope and optimism.
On Sunday October 23 at 3pm the Pitt Street Uniting Church, together with South Sydney Uniting Church, will hold an interfaith service of lament and hope in support of Blue Knot Day.
The gathering will include people from Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths who will join together and mourn with, and for, those who have been betrayed and wounded in childhood. The service will name our hurts, bear witness to the experience of adult survivors of child abuse, hear a story of recovery, reflect in silence and with gentle music, and pray for justice and healing. The setting will be full of symbolism recognising the grief of those who have been abused and the ways in which their emotions and lives have been tangled and distorted by abuse. As the service progresses, a message of recovery will come through, all the more powerful through the human connection we all need and cherish.
“Every night will have its morning, every pain will have an end, every burden will be lightened.”
