Search Results (463)

Where we find and form identity and belonging, meaning and purpose, is often entangled in the dynamics that play out between people and place, and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, the legacy and ongoing experience of invasion and colonisation. Place-based understandings of identity and its importance in shaping young people’s experience of what is possible and probable in their futures might be critical to framing cross-cultural work with young people impacted by violence and trauma. This paper draws on practitioner reflections of work with young Aboriginal women both on, and off Country, highlighting common and distinct themes related to identity formation and migration in navigating new futures. These include connection to Country and spiritual connection, family and kinship relationships, Women’s Business and felt cultural safety. The findings illustrate a meaningful parallel instructive to practice; for both young women and practitioners, access to cultural knowledge and connection is strengthened by endorsement and in turn strengthens understanding and experienced safety. This work emphasises the importance of creating culturally connected opportunities, sensitive to dynamics of place, to support positive identity expression and wellbeing. Full article

Background/Objectives: Improving health outcomes for Indigenous people by strengthening the cultural safety of care is a vital challenge for the health sector. University Departments of Rural Health (UDRH), academic centres based in regional, rural, and remote (RRR) locations across Australia, are uniquely positioned to foster a culturally safe rural health workforce through training, education, and engagement with Indigenous communities. This narrative review examines the contributions of UDRHs to health workforce issues through analysis of their publications focused on Indigenous health. Methods: Research articles relating to workforce were identified from an established database of UDRH Indigenous health-related publications published 2010–2021. Results: Of 46 articles identified across the 12 years, 19 focused on developing the understanding and cultural safety skills of university students studying in a health field, including campus-based Indigenous health education and support for students undertaking rural clinical placements. Twelve articles investigated cultural safety skills and recruitment and retention of the rural health workforce. Fifteen articles focused on Indigenous people in the health workforce, examining clinical training and resources, and the enablers and barriers to retaining Indigenous students and workers. Conclusions: This analysis highlights the sustained efforts of UDRHs to improve Indigenous health through multiple areas within their influence, including curriculum design, health student training on campus, and rural placement opportunities to transform understanding of Indigenous strengths and disadvantages and rural health workforce development. A continuing effort is needed on ways UDRHs can support Indigenous health students during their studies and while on placement, how to improve cultural safety in the health workforce, and ways to better support Indigenous health professionals. Full article

Bring them home, keep them home is research based in New South Wales (NSW) Australia, that aims to understand successful and sustainable reunification for Aboriginal families who have children in out-of-home care (OOHC). This research is led by Aboriginal researchers, and partners with Aboriginal organisations. It is informed by the experiences of 20 Aboriginal parents and family members, and more than 200 practitioners and professionals working in child protection and reunification. This paper traces the evolution of Bring them home, keep them home which is now at the forefront of influence for NSW child protection reforms. Using specific examples, it highlights the role of research advocacy and resistance in challenging and disrupting systems in ways that amplify the voices of Aboriginal families and communities and embeds these voices as the foundation for radical innovation for child reunification approaches. The paper shares lessons being learned and insights for Aboriginal-led research with communities in the pursuit of restorative justice, system change, and self-determination. Providing a framework for liberating Aboriginal families from child abduction systems, this paper seeks to offer a truth-telling and practical contribution to the international efforts of Indigenous resistance to child abduction systems. Full article

This article critically considers sample multigenerational oral traditions of Numic-speaking communities known as the Nüümü (Northern Paiute), Nuwu (Southern Paiute), and Newe (Western Shoshone), written down over the last 151 years. Utilizing the GOAT! phenomenological method to compare the onto-epistemologies of Numic peoples with a wide range of data from (G)eology, (O)ral traditions, (A)rchaeology and (A)nthropology, and (T)raditional knowledge, the author analyzed 824 multigenerational ancestral teachings. These descriptions encode multigenerational memories of potential geological, climatic, and ecological observations and interpretations of multiple locations and earth processes throughout the Numic Aboriginal homelands within California and the Great Basin. Through this layered and comparative analysis, the author identified potential convergences of oral traditions, ethnography, ethnohistory, rock art, and geological processes in the regions of California, the Great Basin, and the Colorado Plateau, indicative of large-scale earth changes, cognized by Numic Indigenous communities as earth birthing events, occurring during the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene to Middle and Late Holocene, including the Late Dry Period, Medieval Climatic Anomaly, and Little Ice Age. Full article

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who inject drugs face persistent health inequities, highlighting the need for programs that meet the needs of these groups. This study explored how intersectional stigma and discrimination affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s access to quality healthcare. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants aged ≥18 years who had injected drugs within the past 12 months were recruited from two regional needle and syringe programs (NSPs) and a major city NSP in Queensland, Australia. Participants completed a structured survey and yarned with an Aboriginal researcher and non-Indigenous research assistant about their healthcare experiences. Through a process of reflexive and thematic analysis, three major qualitative themes emerged: participants’ social circumstances and mental health challenges made help-seeking difficult and complex; enacted stigma and racism diminished access to health services and the quality of care received; and injecting drug use was associated with disconnection from culture and community. Privileging the expertise and voices of those with lived/living experience is essential for the creation of culturally safe, inclusive, and destigmatising healthcare services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who inject drugs. Full article

Access to high-quality, culturally responsive nutrition advice during pregnancy is necessary for optimal health outcomes for mothers and babies. Evidence indicates that age, education and access to trained healthcare practitioners have a positive correlation with healthy food intake and positive outcomes. There are limited studies that discuss the importance of providing culturally responsive nutrition advice to pregnant Indigenous women. Therefore, this paper investigates the sources from which Indigenous women access nutrition information, assesses its adequacy in meeting needs, and identifies the effective ways to deliver this information. This study took place in Queensland (QLD), New South Wales (NSW), and Western Australia (WA), which were chosen to represent diverse cultural communities. A total of 103 participants were recruited, including Indigenous women and healthcare practitioners. Focus groups were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed. Participants indicated that pregnant women are highly interested in improving their nutrition knowledge during pregnancy and actively seek information from their healthcare practitioners and dietitians. Findings suggested dissatisfaction with the information received, as it failed to address their needs. Results of this paper call for an urgent increased presence of community dietitians in antenatal clinics dedicated to Indigenous pregnant women as an additional way to provide families with the information they need for healthy pregnancies. Full article

Aboriginal communities in Australia have long advocated for self-determination in child protection. This includes appeals for greater structural authority in systems of care and protection, with Aboriginal children in the care of Aboriginal agencies. Advocacy from agencies, including the Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency (VACCA), has resulted in legislative and funding reforms in Victoria that place Victorian Aboriginal community-controlled organisations (ACCOs) at the forefront of responses supporting Aboriginal children and families. This article provides an overview of that advocacy, the context in which the reform arose. Then, it details how VACCA has implemented the reforms by developing a model for Aboriginal child protection centred on culture, self-determination and human rights. Importantly, it discusses the process and negotiation of transferring authority exercised by the government to ACCOs and offers insights for the system and practice transformation. This article outlines how ACCOs like VACCA are shifting the language, culture and practice of child protection. Full article

To explore Indigenous patients’ use of a primary urgent care centre (PUCC) at a co-located general medical practitioner (GP)-led primary healthcare service (GP service) in regional Queensland, Australia, secondary data analysis was conducted using the 65,420 deidentified PUCC patients from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021, including Indigenous status. A Mann–Whitney U test and Chi-Square test were used to analyse patients’ arrival times, reasons to attend PUCC, and frequency of attendance. The proportion of Indigenous patients from the communities attending the PUCC was 9.8% while the proportion of Indigenous people in the general population was only 3.8%. Indigenous patients were more likely to be new patients to the GP service (13.6% never visited the GP service prior to PUCC) compared to non-Indigenous (9.6%) patients. The peak hours of attendance for Indigenous people were 11 a.m.–12 p.m. and 2 p.m.–3 p.m. while it was 10 a.m.–12 p.m. for non-Indigenous patients. The most common reason for attending PUCC for both patient groups was superficial injuries. The second most common reason was digestive issues for Indigenous patients and musculoskeletal issues for non-Indigenous patients. These findings provide insights for enhancing future PUCC models to better meet the community needs, especially the underserved Indigenous population in regional areas. Full article

Lava rises, locally known as stony rises, are Pliocene–Holocene volcanic landforms occurring throughout the Victorian Volcanic Plain (VVP) in Victoria, Australia. Stony rises are not only important to understanding the geological history of Victoria but are culturally significant to Aboriginal Australians and have ecological importance. Currently, the mapping of stony rises is manually performed at a case study level rather than a landscape level. Remote sensing technologies such as LiDAR data, satellite imagery, and aerial imagery allow for the mapping of stony rises from an aerial perspective. This paper aims to map stony rises using remotely sensed and geophysical data at a landscape level on a younger lava flow (~42,000 years old) within the Victorian Volcanic Plain (the Warrion Hill and Red Rock Volcanic Complex) by utilizing an object based random forest machine learning approach. The results show that stony rises were successfully identified in the landscape to an accuracy of 78.9%, with 2716 potential new stony rises identified. Out of 34 predictor variables, we found the most important variables to be slope gradient, local elevation, DEM of Difference (change in height), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Clay Mineral Ratio, the concentration of radiometric elements (Potassium, Thorium, and Uranium), Total Magnetic Intensity, and Ecological Vegetation Class (EVC). The results from this study highlight the ability to detect a volcanic landform at a landscape scale using an ensemble of predictor variables that include topographic, spectral information and geophysical data. This lays the foundation towards a uniform approach for mapping stony rises throughout the VVP and similar landforms (such as tumuli) worldwide. Full article

Coaching is an important form of professional development for the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce. However, educators working in remote contexts do not always have access to this type of support. This paper explores the effectiveness of a virtual (online and telephone) coaching program focusing on the implementation of evidence-informed Conversational Reading strategies in supported playgroups for Aboriginal families in the Northern Territory of Australia. Fourteen Family Educators and Family Liaison Officers across ten Families as First Teachers playgroups in the Northern Territory participated in the coaching program over twelve months. Coaching records, planning documents, participant feedback, and video recordings of participants’ practice were analysed to explore the impact and acceptability of the coaching program. The findings indicate that participation in the cycle of virtual coaching, planning, and reflection supported participants in implementing evidence-informed teaching strategies, offering language-rich experiences to children frequently and with increased fidelity, and engaging with families about their use of these strategies in the home. The model of coaching developed shows promise for wider implementation in ECEC contexts, particularly in remote communities where access to high-quality professional learning and development can be limited. Full article

This article examines Healthy Homes, a program intended to initiate a new approach to housing repairs and maintenance in remote communities in the Northern Territory of Australia. It argues that while the evidence for associations between poor housing and poor health outcomes is clear, greater attention should be paid to the implementation of health-focused housing interventions. Healthy Homes was examined through interviews with public servants, Aboriginal community-controlled organisation staff, and householders, alongside participant observation during maintenance projects and Condition Assessment Tool inspections. Routine housing, inspections, and expenditure datasets were also analysed. Across 5498 houses subject to Healthy Homes and over a twenty-month period, only 1315 Condition Assessment Tool inspections were completed, which is the key mechanism for generating preventive maintenance work. Expenditure on repairs and maintenance was stable between the old maintenance model and under Healthy Homes. Most Healthy Homes remote housing maintenance contracts were awarded to Aboriginal business enterprises. This article finds that Healthy Homes did not effectively shift remote property management to prioritise preventive maintenance. Issues with data collection and monitoring, program implementation, and contractual arrangements impeded more consistent and effective attention paid to the condition of housing health hardware. Future investment into the implementation of health-focused remote housing preventive maintenance programs must attend to the details of program design, including the data collection processes and contractual terms for service providers. Full article

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being and doing have fostered physical, social, and emotional wellbeing for millenia, forming a foundation of strength and resilience. However, colonisation, systemic violence and discrimination—including the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, which continues today—have disrupted this foundation, leading to compounding cycles of intergenerational and complex trauma. The enduring impact of intergenerational and complex trauma is exemplified in increasing proportions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being removed from their families and involved in the child protection and youth justice system—which represents a national crisis. Despite this crisis, the national response remains insufficient. To address these urgent issues, over 200 predominantly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stakeholders, participated in Gathering the Seeds Symposium, the inaugural meeting for the Replanting the Birthing Trees project held in Perth in April 2023. This meeting marked the beginning of a public dialogue aimed at Closing the Gap by advancing community-led strategies to break cycles of trauma and foster cycles of nurturing, recovery, and wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents and children across the first 2000 days. We outline critical shortcomings in the current child protection and youth justice systems, and the urgent need for child wellbeing reform. Importantly we highlight recommendations made in submissions in 2023 to two key Australian inquiries—the National Early Years Strategy and the Human Rights Commission inquiry into out of home care and youth justice systems. We argue that structural reforms and culturally safe and skillful care for parents experiencing trauma and violence is a serious gap, and a national priority. The first 2000 days represents a critical window of opportunity to transform cycles of trauma into cycles of healing. It is time to ‘replant the birthing trees’ and ensure that all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies and families can have the best possible start to life through comprehensive models of care grounded in recognition of the right to self-determination and culture. Full article

In this paper, we describe the developmental process of a culturally grounded Moombaki virtual reality (VR) game. We share how Aboriginal children’s drawings have informed the creation of an interactive learning platform for primary school-aged children attending schools in Wadjuk Boodja. The project focused on connecting students to cultural knowledge through immersive storytelling, creative exploration, and collaborative design by using small group yarning circles and game development activities. The aim of the yarning sessions was to identify, explore, and understand the knowledge Aboriginal children had of Aboriginal identity and culture, including protocols, ceremonies, stories, Dreamtime, languages, and traditional practices, and how best to represent these concepts in the cultural learning journey using virtual reality. Full article

(1) Background: Integrating native foods into food systems has shown promising benefits for health, the environment, and the revitalisation of Aboriginal culture. This study aims to explore the benefits, facilitators, and barriers of integrating Australian native foods into the current food system and how traditional knowledge around these foods can be revitalised in a culturally safe way. (2) Methods: This qualitative co-design study involved the following four phases: (I) Relationship building with the communities and cultural training for the research team; (II) Establishment of the Aboriginal Reference Group (ARG) for community involvement and governance; (III) Data collection through interviews and focus groups with participants from two urban Aboriginal communities in Sydney and experts in native foods; and (IV) Collaborative data analysis using both deductive and inductive thematic analysis. (3) Results: We interviewed 22 participants who acknowledged the nutritional, health, cultural, environmental, and economic benefits of Australian native foods. They strongly identified the impact of colonisation and imposed Western culture as root barriers impacting other barriers at the structural, socioeconomic, social, and environmental levels. Participants aspire to achieve food security and sovereignty in a more sustainable food system including native foods. To achieve their aspirations, a framework based on Aboriginal values and principles was developed to guide multicomponent initiatives using native foods. (4) Conclusions: A compassionate food model based on emancipatory community-based and land-based education is essential, connecting ancient and contemporary knowledge to transform the food system. Future research should focus on implementing and evaluating the multicomponent interventions suggested by the participants. Full article

The recognition and treatment of scabies has been incorporated into Australian guidelines for the prevention of acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD). The incidence of both diagnosed ARF and RHD is increasing in Far North Queensland (FNQ) in northeast tropical Australia, but the local burden of scabies is incompletely defined. We reviewed the results of every skin scraping collected in FNQ’s public health system between 2000 and 2023; 121/4345 (2.8%) scrapings were positive, including 19/1071 (1.8%) in the last 5 years of the study; the proportion of scrapings that were positive for scabies declined over the study period. Individuals who tested positive for scabies were no more likely to have had a prior diagnosis of ARF or RHD compared to the matched controls (1/101 (1%) versus 3/101 (3%), p = 1.0). During a median of 14.7 years of follow-up, individuals who tested positive for scabies were also no more likely to have a diagnosis of ARF or RHD than matched controls (2/100 (2%) versus 6/98 (6%); hazard ratio (95% confidence interval): 0.30 (0.06–1.50) p = 0.14). Microbiologically confirmed scabies is uncommon in FNQ and appears to make a limited contribution to the local incidence of ARF and RHD. Full article