Embrace Co-Director Professor Helen Milroy has called for progression from a cultural awareness model to true cultural safety in Australian healthcare settings at a panel discussion held at Curtin University’s enAble Institute.
Genuine collaborative partnerships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous-led organisations, widespread use of the social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) model in healthcare, and the embedding and development of trauma competence and cultural safety were among the requirements to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health outcomes, Professor Milroy said.
Professor Helen Milroy presents at the Curtin event.
The panel discussion came on the eve of the annual Closing the Gap statement, delivered each year by the Australian prime minister on the anniversary of the apology to Indigenous Australians by then-leader Kevin Rudd in 2008. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today used the statement to announce a national commissioner would be appointed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people.
Other The Kids Research Institute Australia speakers at Curtin’s The Big Issues in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health: A Panel Yarn included Head of the Kulunga Aboriginal Unit Cheryl Bridge, Research Assistant and PhD student Shakara Liddelow-Hunt and Associate Professor Bep Uink.
Parliamentary secretary to the WA state minister for mental health Pierre Shuai Yang and deputy commissioner of the WA Mental Health Commission Julia Knapton also addressed attendees at the event.
Ms Bridge revealed the cultural change that had already occurred at The Kids Research Institute Australia following her development of Guidelines for the Standards for the Conduct of Aboriginal Health Research.
“At the heart of our standards is that you have to always go back to community,” Ms Bridge said.
“Teams are now coming to us and saying, ‘how do we do this right?’.”
Head of Kulunga Aboriginal Unit Cheryl Bridge discussed improving standards of Aboriginal research at the event.
Mx Liddelow-Hunt discussed the need to create cultural safety for early career researchers and Associate Professor Bep Uink explained the need for governance and data sovereignty to lie in the hands of Indigenous communities in which researchers collect data, not the other way around.
“It’s not just artwork and Traditional Knowledge [where ownership should be conceded to Aboriginal communities]” Associate Professor Uink said, adding that point of ownership should include ease of collection, access and deletion, among other aspects.
“Not having a say on the mental health data collected about you, who gets to use it, who gets to access it, is so detrimental to wellbeing.”
In her keynote speech, Professor Milroy said there was a collective feeling of “existential despair” among some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people following last year’s Voice referendum.
“If we’re really to reflect on Australia, post-referendum, it’s not a culturally safe place,” she said.
“There is this hypocrisy in that we’re expected to be well when everything goes against us.”
The panel forum was well attended in person and online.