sentences:  She was awarded the National Aboriginal Overseas Study Award to study employment programs with a number of Native American communities in the United States in 1977.She was appointed as Commissioner for Aboriginal Planning in 1986, becoming the first Aboriginal person to head a government department in Western Australia, and in 1988 was appointed as a magistrate in the Perth Children's Court, at which time she was the first full-time and first Aboriginal magistrate in the state's history.In 1990, she was appointed as one of the first five commissioners of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), for one year.