Health And Welfare Of Social Concerns

Running head: ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER CULTURAL SAFETY
ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER CULTURAL SAFETY
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ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER CULTURAL SAFETY1
Project 1- ATSI History and Culture
1) Cultural safety is regarding community as well as individual development in
managing individuals’ own health and welfare and social concerns. As a practice, cultural
safety necessitates health organizations to assess their individual practices to break the
barricades in attaining cultural consideration and responsiveness. Studies explain that cultural
safety can significantly progress the nature and opportunity of healthcare services to
Aboriginal and Torres Islander people and constructively influence the inclusive welfare
(Malaspinas et al., 2016). ATSI in Australia exhibited intense spiritual and cultural linkage to
land before the arrival of European settlers. Thus, being compelled to shift from customary
regions, cultural and spiritual practices essential to cohesion and welfare of Aboriginal
Australians failed to be maintained. European settlers did not identify Aboriginal culture as
well as the close association between Aboriginal individuals and the land was not recognized
as per the British Law.
2a) The European Settlement exhibited an upsetting impact on ATSI people who have
lived in this nation for decades. Their cultural patterns evolved for more than 60,000 years
thus creating Indigenous Australians the guardians of the world’s earliest inhabitant values
(Tan, 2017). However, the impact ensued to struggle over land and resources as well as
vehemence. Furthermore, critical impacts of Aboriginals resulted in the form of mass killing
and supply of food containing arsenic and other poisons.
b) Although Policy changes have focused on issues created by the past, did not
eliminate the past. The account of forceful relocation on assets, the position of several
thousands of families in institutes along with the loss of land as well as culture have been
marked in the detriments which till the present, haunt number of Aboriginal individuals in
recent times. Loss of land as well as culture has resulted in undermining the traditional
legacy and power of Aboriginals (Tobler et al., 2017). Although, the outstation undertaking

ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER CULTURAL SAFETY2
with permitting of land possessions have been considered as factors of what has been viewed
as a form of revival of Aboriginal practice as well as culture, it is still evident that since
initial days, loss of culture and land had weakened Aboriginal laws, culture and religion.
Australian Aboriginals encounter critical choices about their livelihoods and their position in
their own communities.
c) The impact of European settlement has led Indigenous Australians to be in highly
disadvantageous state deprived of the rights of full citizenship of the newly developed nation
on basis of their racial identity. According to Tan (2017), the Constitution of Australia does
not comprise of a charter of fundamental freedoms and offers no significant protection
against racial discrimination. The Constitution still does not take into consideration the
presence of Aboriginals before the European Settlement as it had been documented during
the marginalization of Aboriginals from the consultations of the creation of new nation on
their inherited lands and waters.
d) The social as well as financial impact of conquest and power of Australian
Aboriginals has accrued across groups after the European colonization. Such an impact has
been instigated by strategies and practices which have thoroughly posed challenges on the
cultural safety of ATIS. According to Laidlaw and Lester (2015), in many occurrences, it has
been consequential in the communication of suffering, poverty as well as additional forms of
detriment from generation to generation. The trauma and sufferings viewed in recent times
can be linked to the continual impact of dearth of opportunities in preceding generations
which involves poor sustenance and insufficient education and healthcare.
3) The detrimental impact of racial discrimination and historical events due to the
European Settlement shed light on the encounters of psychological distress for Aboriginal
Australians. The disparities between the wellbeing conditions of Indigenous and non-
Indigenous populations tend to be predominant within Australia (Shepherd et al., 2017). The

ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER CULTURAL SAFETY3
present deteriorated nutritional health of number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
individuals contradicts vastly to the condition previous to European settlement in Australia,
when ATSI individuals showed vigorous health conditions and experienced diverse
traditional diet which had been low in energy density as well as rich in nutritional value. The
health of ATSI individuals showed non-communicable chronic illnesses with cardiovascular
disease and diabetes. These two diseases have been followed by mental illnesses with
harmful health risk behavioural patterns related to alcohol and drug usage.
4) There can be found an increased level of occurrence of cognitive deterioration in
remote Aboriginal communities due to numerous risk issues associated with alcohol and drug
abuse, inhaling petrol, high prevalence of cognitive trauma, central nervous system toxicities
and deprived nutrition (Laidlaw & Lester, 2015). The factors which have added to recounted
raised levels of disability, mental ailment, and dementia as well as acquired brain injury have
been associated with the extreme marginalisation and impaired decision making experienced
by Aboriginals since European colonization.
Trauma has affected Aboriginal Australians ability to communicate by disrupting the
associations they had as a child with family as well as social and emotional wellbeing. In the
view of McGough, Wynaden and Wright (2018), Aboriginal Australians have experienced
lack of opportunities to develop empathy for other individuals and consequently fail to see
their own behavioural outcomes on peers and family.
Generational trauma has altered the way Aboriginals understand and deal with their
emotions as well as associate with others. Bodkin-Andrews and Carlson (2016) have noted
that the word ‘shame’ might imply differently to ATSI individuals, but is commonly used as
to explain things which others perceive as embarrassing or private or which is related to
stigma and unconstructive implications. Nonetheless, in order to evade shame and