It has taken Michael Welsh a lifetime to face up to the trauma of being torn from his mother and siblings, but the apology, delivered a decade ago, helped him to heal.

Key points: Stolen Generation survivors return to Parliament House for 10th anniversary of apology

Stolen Generation survivors return to Parliament House for 10th anniversary of apology Kevin Rudd apologised to survivors in 2008

Kevin Rudd apologised to survivors in 2008 Healing Foundation CEO says Stolen Generations are frustrated by lack of national compensation scheme

"It's made a big difference to me in my life, through my life, where I've journeyed, it's made a difference to my children, and my brother and sisters," he said.

"It was a magical moment for me."

He was just eight years old when he was taken from his mother by welfare officers at their home in Coonamble in the central west of New South Wales, in the 1960s.

He did not see his mother again until he was 17.

Mr Welsh and other surviving members of the Stolen Generations returned to Parliament House in Canberra today, to relive the day the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said sorry.

In 2008, Mr Rudd described the forced removal of Aboriginal children as "a blemished chapter in our nation's history".

During an emotive speech, as the nation watched on, Mr Rudd said successive governments had inflicted "profound suffering and loss" by removing tens of thousands of Indigenous children over several decades.

Richard Weston, chief executive of support organisation the Healing Foundation, said the national apology was a vindication for the Stolen Generations.

"It finally was a proper acknowledgement of the atrocities and the hurt and pain that they experienced," Mr Weston said.

"For the Prime Minister to give the national apology, say sorry in the Australian Parliament, and have that broadcast across the nation was really significant and it was a step in the right direction."

Indigenous community members in the public gallery applaud the apology on February 13, 2008. ( Reuters: Mark Baker )

Compensation has since been paid to some eligible survivors in New South Wales, Western Australia and Tasmania, and the South Australian Government established a $6 million fund last year.

But Mr Weston said the Stolen Generations were frustrated that there has never been a national compensation scheme, and ageing survivors feared the Government had forgotten them.

"We need national leadership to ensure Stolen Children all over Australia have access to an equitable scheme," Mr Weston said.

"We've seen a redress scheme for the victims of child sexual abuse but, to date, the Government's been silent with regards to the Stolen Generations."

Mr Welsh said Stolen Generations groups had limited funding to deliver programs to reunite families who were fractured by the removal of children.

"We are still coming back together to be healed up from the breakdown of our family structure," he said.

"There's a lot more work that needs to be done, we would appreciate it if they involved us more, when they're coming up with policies, to ask us and walk down the same line as us.

"Because we do know our pain and we do know how to heal it."

Healing Foundation CEO Richard Weston believes more needs to be done for ageing Stolen Generation survivors. ( ABC News: Bridget Brennan )

The Healing Foundation estimates about 20,000 Stolen Generations survivors are still alive, with about 100,000 second generation descendants spread across Australia.

The Federal Government is funding new research by the Healing Foundation to assess how trauma is affecting ageing Stolen Generations survivors and their children.

"We need to understand the trauma that has affected the lives of Stolen Generations, but how that has been passed on to their family members."

In 1997, Bringing Them Home — a national inquiry into the Stolen Generations — estimated that as many as one in three Indigenous children were removed from their families between 1910 and the 1970s.

Children were taken from their homes or on their way to school to be put into institutions, fostered or adopted out to non-Indigenous families.

The inquiry made 54 recommendations, but 21 years on, the Healing Foundation said many had been implemented poorly or not at all.