Developing a Rights-Based Approach to a Public Health Issue

This report discusses strategies for ensuring a proper approach to combat mental health issues among indigenous Australians. It also discusses different challenges and evaluation procedures.

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Running head: Assessment item 3
ASSESSMENT ITEM 3:
DEVELOPING A RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH TO A PUBLIC
HEALTH ISSUE

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Background................................................................................................................................3
Strategy to ensure rights-based approach...................................................................................4
Potential challenges for implementation....................................................................................6
Sustainability, evaluation, and monitoring.................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
Reference list............................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Mental health issue is a serious problem that is affecting indigenous Australians. Although,
this group of population in Australia suffers from various other health issues like diabetes in
this report main focus of discussion is mental health. Greater than 30% of aboriginal people
are suffering from some kind of mental health distress. Risk of mental distress like dementia
is higher in Aboriginal people living in remote areas. In this report, strategies for ensuring
proper approach has been discussed that can help to combat this serious public health issue.
Moreover, different challenges and evaluation procedure have been discussed in a proper
way.
Background
The population that is impacted by mental health issue is indigenous Australians, which
includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. History of this group began around 65000
years before and they arrived in Australia from Asia and Indonesia (Frank & Pollack, 2017).
It is estimated that aboriginal population is around 300,000 to 1,000,000. This indigenous
group thrives upon natural environment and does hunting as well as farming for collection of
good. Above 30% of this population is suffering from various psychological issues, which
includes dementia and depression.
Mental health cases have increased dramatically among this population of Australia. About
12.4% of indigenous Australians whose age is 45 years are suffering from dementia, which is
much greater than non-indigenous people. Rate of suicide and other psychological problems
are increasing among this group of people. This group of people is facing discrimination and
devoid of other human rights. In addition, they are also facing difficulty regarding the
conflicts of demands of modernity and tradition. Different other factors that give rise to

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mental illness are racism, violation, and subjection to mental trauma (Povey et al. 2016). Loss
of identity and impact on culture also causes mental illness among indigenous Australians.
However, different approaches made by Australian human rights commission have failed to
improve their condition. Different other policies like mental health first aid training program
and youth mental health partnership have also been taken by government to improve their
mental conditions. Different risk factor of mental illness is tried to reduce by government of
Australia by forming different programs like alcohol and drug counseling.
Strategy to ensure rights-based approach
For addressing the current issue among indigenous Australians and integrative right based
strategy can be designed that will contain both policies and advocacy. This can be done by
forming a partnership between Australian human rights commission, government of
Australia and World Federation for mental health (WFMH). This integrated forum can
take a strategy of tackling different causes that impact on mental health. Educating
indigenous people and spreading awareness regarding different policies is the main aim of
this strategy. As opined by Lewis et al. (2019), educating a community is necessary to
discard malpractices like discrimination and social violation. This strategy is a combined
approach that can help to implement different policies, which can help to reduce different
causes of mental issue. Success of this strategy can be gained by equal participation of all
related organization in this strategy. They need to work collaboratively and implement
policies in a proper way.
This joint forum can conduct proper communication and supply essential information
regarding different social rights of indigenous people of Australia. As stated by Compton &
Shim (2015), effective participation and engagement of audience can help to gain success in
any right-based approach. After forming a leadership team, different care groups must be

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formed those will work on these areas. Teams need to have members from leadership,
government, and representative of the affected community.
Justification of strategy
It can be seen that Australian human rights commission has framed different policies and
article 17 states that indigenous people of Australia have every right to stop exploitation. In
addition, article 24 is related to different healthcare rights of indigenous people (McGough,
Wynaden & Wright (2018). Moreover, Australian government has also initiated different
programs to improve current condition of indigenous people. However, lack of awareness and
improper implementation of policies are the main causes of failure of these policies and
programs. Hence, this joint forum can work collaboratively for spreading awareness among
these communities. WFMH is a grassroots development and educational organization that is
concerned about global problem of mental health (Willox et al. 2015). They can help in
advocacy and preventing mental health disorder. This organization can help government to
frame proper policy that can help to eliminate the conflict between tradition and
modernization. Hence, a great cause of mental disorder among aborigines and other tribes in
Australia can be mitigated.
Development of implementation plan
The care groups that will be formed will implement the strategy by incorporating the model
of availability, accessibility, acceptability, quality (AAAQ). Apart from providing
education to indigenous communities availability of different care facilities and policies
needs to be ensured by leadership and acre providing teams. Facilities and policies need to
vary in respect to demands of communities. As stated by Li, Liu & Harmer (2016),
accessibility of legal and health services increases satisfaction rate of communities and
ensures equality. Accessibility of health facilities to fight against cases of mental diseases can
help to reduce discrimination. They will also feel a part of the community. These facilities

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and programs need to be provided by maintaining ethics and confidentiality. This can help
this joint committee to ensure trust of these communities of Australia. Moreover, good
quality support like education, policies and proper health facilities can help to mitigate this
issue.
Potential challenges for implementation
Strategy implementation plan
Steps of implementation Duration
Applying to all selected government
authorities
1-2 weeks
Meeting with government authorities 1-2 weeks
Arrangement of fund 4-6 weeks
Commencement of planned actions by using
AAAQ model
Long term continuous process
Table 1: Implementation plan
(Source: Created by Author)
Barriers to implementation and potential solutions
Development of partnership between government authorities is a difficult strategy to be
implemented and this approach may face various potential challenges. Firstly, resistance
from these chosen government authorities can be considered as a potential challenge to
implementation of this strategy. As opined by Shah et al. (2016), these government
authorities work independently and all of these authorities are taking initiatives to improve
mental health condition of indigenous people. They may show lack of interest in this strategy
based on rights. For mitigating this barrier, it is important to convince them through
prolonged discussion. Potential aspects of this strategy must be explained to members of
these government authorities getting their consent in implementation of this strategy.

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Secondly, if they agree to enter into partnership with each other, unequal contribution may
occur after starting of work. Unequal participation may lead to emergence of different kinds
of problems between partners and they may fail to work collaboratively. Same level of
cooperation is required from the side of each other selected government authorities. They
must share one common vision to improve mental health of indigenous people. According to
Kerridge, Lowe & Stewart (2009), all of the members of this integrated forum needs to focus
on their aim and need to cooperate with each other. It is important to protect the mental health
of indigenous people without thinking about personal benefit.
Thirdly, implementation of this strategy may face difficulty in arranging fund. For example,
this integrated forum needs to conduct campaigns, offer better education facilities for
indigenous children and other social activities to protect rights of these groups of Australians.
It requires large manpower and supporting materials as well. As stated by Kelly et al. (2013),
it is very obvious that huge fund is required to implement this strategy into practice. All
members of this integrated forum must discuss and develop strategies to raise fund.
Cooperation from all of them is required for mitigating this challenge.
Fourthly, lack of understanding about the agenda of implementing this strategy in
members of the integrated forum may delay the success of this right based approach. As
stated by Chang & Kelly (2007), inadequate knowledge and lack of enthusiasm may consider
as potential barriers to this approach. However, this challenge can be mitigated by
maintaining effective communication and transparency between government authorities.
Fifthly, all of these members of this forum have different policy framework and they are
habitual to maintain those policies through their action. In case of developing this
partnership, they may require to modify their policies. According to Browne, Smye & Varcoe
(2005), it is important to modify policy framework as per the requirement and support from
all Australian citizen is required to generate expected outcome through implementation of

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this strategy. Support from all levels may help to form and perform this forum for improving
mental health condition of indigenous people.
Sustainability, evaluation, and monitoring
Ensuring sustainability is an important part of implementation of strategy in practice. In case
of developing partnership between Australian Human Rights Commission, Government of
Australia and World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH), cooperation and equal
participation must be there to ensure sustainability. According to Raphael, Curry-Stevens &
Bryant (2008), it is important to increase awareness of indigenous people of Australia about
the process to improve their mental health. Most of them are not aware of their rights and this
strategy may fail if it does to get support of the group of indigenous Australians (Kirmayer,
Brass & Tait, 2000). All of the chosen authorities are liable to modify their policies regarding
this fact for protecting rights of indigenous people in Australia. In addition, it can be stated
that provision of best effort by all of the members may lead to ensuring of sustainability.
Evaluating and monitoring help to ensure strong impact of strategy implementation on target
population. In this case, monitoring of every step of implementing the strategy and evaluation
of effectiveness of each of the tasks may help to improve mental health of aboriginal people.
As opined by Smith et al. (2014), right based approach implementation is difficult as it faces
various barriers during implementation. In this case, survey of leaders of these authorities can
be done once in a week for understanding effectiveness of policy and advocacy. Contribution
of each of the members must be evaluated on regular basis for identifying potential gaps.
Mistakes taught to improve actions and members of this integrated forum may learn from
their mistakes in primary stage of planning for their agenda. Effort of this forum must be
evaluated through evaluation of its impact on the society. Change in rate of mental health
issues, improvement of education facilities for indigenous children, rate of violence and rate

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of discrimination must be measured twice in 4 months for understanding effectiveness of
proposed right based approach. As suggested by Smylie (2001), detail information regarding
impact of this strategy on life of indigenous people must be evaluated with the help of
assessing annual report issued by government. On another hand, utilization of fund must be
monitored and maintained properly. It is difficult to arrange fund for improving mental health
condition of indigenous people. Therefore, it is very obvious that fund must be used
carefully. These authorities must consider barriers of their agenda and they must develop
effective strategies to measure potential impact of barrier before finding solutions.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that prevalence of mental issue can be
diminished by application of proper strategy. Different factors like discrimination and
violence can be mitigated by applying policies and providing services to affected
communities. Proposed strategy of education and spreading awareness regarding different
policies by forming a joint committee can help to improve the current situation. Different
government organizations like human rights commission of Australia and government of this
country has taken various initiatives. However, joint approach and assistance from WFMH
can help to increase effectiveness of this strategy. Moreover, application of proper plan is
essential that can help to gain desired objectives of this approach. This approach is policy
based that can help to eliminate different malpractices like discrimination, lack of education
and social violence. Moreover, a proper way can be proposed to indigenous group of people
that can help them to maintain their tradition and accept modernization. This can help to
reduce the public issue of mental health.

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Reference list
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