Promoting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Safety

This document discusses strategies for promoting cultural safety in healthcare settings for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It explores the impact of cultural factors on health service delivery, communication and engagement techniques, and ways to support effective partnerships and community involvement. The strategies aim to ensure a safe and inclusive workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Promote Aboriginal and
or Torres Strait Islander
cultural safety

Contents
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
PART 1............................................................................................................................................4
Cultural safety strategic document for an identified workplace......................................................4
a) Workplace or clinic offering health services or care to aboriginal and TSI people...........4
b) Provide a short statement describing the purpose of your cultural safety strategic document
in this workplace due to COVID 19.......................................................................................4
c) Strategies for the staff or the workplace that will guide practice and the way in which the
workplace will present itself...................................................................................................4
PART 2............................................................................................................................................6
Do some research and find another strategy similar and review your strategy - what would
you change?............................................................................................................................6
PART 3............................................................................................................................................6
Communication and engagement strategies...........................................................................7
Discuss 2 communication techniques that are appropriate when speaking with Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people..................................................................................................7
Strategies for improved partnerships......................................................................................8
Evaluation of cultural safety strategies...................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
Books and Journals...............................................................................................................11

MAIN BODY
PART 1
Cultural safety strategic document for an identified workplace
a) Workplace or clinic offering health services or care to aboriginal and TSI people.
Port Augusta hospital and Regional Health Services is a hospital located in Australia. The
hospital aims to provide leadership, planning and coordination related to Aboriginal health
services, inform, advise and refer to mainstream services (Sentence, 2021). The other services
that are provided by the hospital are diabetes care, health screening, assist and counselling health
workers. Along with that understand the needs and culture of the Aboriginal community.
b) Provide a short statement describing the purpose of your cultural safety strategic document in
this workplace due to COVID 19
It is seen that COVID 19 is hitting the lives of people in an adverse way. It is vital to take
care of all the healthcare workers as they are providing help and taking care of the people
suffering from the disease. Cultural safety strategic document is a written document that includes
all the strategies that are being formulated for managing the culture in the workplace. It is
important to note that there should be fairness and all the workers should be provided
environment where they are able to work freely and are safe.
So the purpose here is to build strategies that will help the workers to remain safe and work
in a free manner.
c) Strategies for the staff or the workplace that will guide practice and the way in which the
workplace will present itself.
Strategies are the actions that are formulated to guide the employees and staff of healthcare.
It helps them to work effectively in the condition of COVID 19. These strategies will help to
manage the workplace and let the staff work in an effective manner (Mahoney and Fleming,
2020). This help to promote safe culture in the organisation so the patients are treated in a well
manner.
Cultural safety: These strategies will help to promote cultural safety and provide the staff a
healthy and safe place to work.
Cultural knowledge

 There will be proper document formulated and that will be provided to all so that they
come to know about the documents formed.
 A proper session in which benefits of bringing cultural safety will be communicated.
Cultural awareness
 To enhance the awareness there will be proper notices published at the notice boards.
 Timely meetings will be help that will help to ensure that all the staff members are
aware about the strategies formed.
Cultural sensitivity
 Programmes to build trust and rapport among all the individuals of the workplace
will help.
 Another important point is stop making assumptions. All the important points will be
communicated to all.
Cultural competence
 It is important to insure coordination among the workers.
 To incorporate culture specific attitude and the values in health promotion tools.
Communication
• Use of time dominant communicator and order to run people over the appropriate
conversation and managing interpersonal conversations.
• Increasing the use of passive communicator where it tends to turn the people of by
indirect and direct interpersonal communication (McCalman and et.al., 2020).
• Improvement in listening skills of different individual in order to understand the
communication in effective way.
Promotion of partnership and engagement
 To start some activities that help to engage the employees.
 To have informal meeting as well that helps to increase the relation among the staff
members of the hospital.

PART 2
Do some research and find another strategy similar and review your strategy - what would you
change?
It is important to communicate the plan and ask about the feedback. As the feedback tell
about the areas that are good and the points or strategies that need improvement. As it will help
to improve and change the strategies and it will be beneficial for the organisation as well as the
healthcare staff (Canuto, and et.al., 2018). As per the feedback 50 staff members out of 150 said
that the some of the strategies need improvement. So that changes are mentioned are below:
Cultural knowledge
The sessions will take place but there will be discussion related to past, present as feel as
future outcomes. There will also be time given for discussion after the session.
Cultural sensitivity
 To accept the cultural sensitivity new and open approach will be used.
Communication
 There should be two way communications and a proper feedback will help to find out
that the receiver has understood the information or not.
It is important to take care of all these strategies and make changes as it will be beneficial for
the staff members.
PART 3
a) Discuss how cultural factors may impact or have a negative effect on health service delivery to
Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander clients.
There is impact of cultural factors on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients. As if there is
emotional impact on these people (Fernando and Bennett, 2019). They are conscious as COVID
19 is causing their lives in danger. Along with that if the present situation of the hospital is not
healthy then it will be difficult to work. It is seen that lack of trust is a problem that causers
negative impact on these people.
b) List three key aspects of cultural safety
The key aspects include the following:
1. Shared respect
2. Shared meaning

3. Shared knowledge
c) How your strategies ensure Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander will feel safe the
workplace.
The strategies are formulated from the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. The
aim of the strategies is to provide them safe environment. The strategies help to ensure that there
are proper facilities provided to all the workers (Coleman, Hartz and Dahlen, 2020). As COVID
19 is causing problem and there is danger for the workers. But if there will be safe culture where
all the staff members are taught to follow the measures that will help them to remain safe and
healthy. It will become there habit and they will be work effectively.
Communication and engagement strategies
Discuss 2 communication techniques that are appropriate when speaking with Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people
To communicate effectively with them, these two techniques can be used:
 It is vital to use clear language. Explain the points that are used so that they are able to
understand the message (Dennis and et.al., 2017). If jargons are used then provide
explanation related to them.
 Do not use the works that have different meaning in different communities.
Work practice, policy or strategy of a workplace that would demonstrate respect for the cultural
differences of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people
It is seen that there is practice of solving the issues that are faced in the workplace. This
policy help to reduce the problems that are faced by Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander
people and shows that the cultural differences are being respected.
When and why you would utilise an aboriginal liaison officer and Culture specific tools and
resources, when dealing with specific issues you may encounter at your workplace.
Aboriginal Liaison Officers is an individual that engage with patients, to hospitals and
health clinics and assist in co-ordinating arranging, and providing culturally appropriate health
care. It is important that whenever there are conflicts in organisation and not sorted at the level of
staff. Then it is the role of Aboriginal Liaison Officers to take actions and find solution of the
problem. There are various resources that are used to find the solution of these problems.

Strategies for improved partnerships
How you would support the development of effective partnerships between staff, Aboriginal
and/or Torres Strait Islander people and their communities.
It is important to support the partnership among the staff, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait
Islander people and their communities. It can be done by showing trust in the community. As
well as communicating with them on regular basis helps to support them. If there any problems
that are facing and may occur should be solve this will also help them to build good relations and
work effectively. The support will be helpful as it will help them to work in a safe culture and in
a free manner.
b) List 3 resources and discuss that support and promote partnerships and or indigenous
community involvement
Time: It is vital to provide them time and understand and listen to what they are facing. It is
seen that time is a resource that will help these people. It is analysed that time to communicate
and promote partnership or indigenous involvement will be helpful (Fleming, Creedy and West,
2020).
Money: There is need of money in to support and promote the partnership. Money is one of
the most important resource that is required at the time this indigenous community involvement.
Documentation: There is requirement of proper written and notes documents that support
the partnerships and or indigenous community involvement. It will help in long run.
c) List and describe three ways to support the delivery of services or programs to encourage
Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people to increase participation.
The ways that can be used to increase the participation are mentioned below:
 They should be made aware about the services and its benefits.
 There should be good relations among them as it also help to engage them to participate.
 They should be told about the advantages and benefits that they will get due to
participation.
c) Identify (3) strategies that encourage self-determination and community control in services
and programs with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
The three key strategies that can be used are mentioned below:
Freedom: All of them should be given right to freedom and another point is they should be
provided with equal rights.

Support: They should always provide with support and all the resources that are required by
them to work effectively (Calvert, 2019).
Knowledge: Here knowledge means guidance. That will help them to avoid the mistakes.
e) Outline your knowledge of the concept of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander
cultural safety in the community services and health context in fifty words, and describe its
relationship with:
i. Cultural awareness: It is important that there is cultural awareness. As all the members
should be made aware about the history and the culture that was followed. It helps to enhance the
trust and accept the culture in an effective way.
ii. Cultural competence: It is the ability of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander to know
and work, interact and develop healthy working relations. So that they are able to work in a
healthy environment and effective way.
iii. Cultural knowledge: As it is important for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander to have
proper knowledge and understanding of culture. This can be done by making them aware about
the norms, strategies and beliefs that are shared.
Evaluation of cultural safety strategies
a) Indicate one (1) outcome against which cultural safety strategies can be measured
As all the situation is in control. The staff members are able to work in an effective way. As
well as all of them are accepting the culture and are safe. This shows that the strategies are
working in an effective way and the situation is in control.
b) Explain how you evaluated your strategy, using appropriate resources
It is vital to check if the strategies are working or not. So evaluation was done in the form of
feedback as the view point of the members on which the strategy will be implemented was taken.
It is seen that by communicating with the changes were suggested and that were used to enhance
the effectiveness of the strategy.
c) How you would evaluate other cultural programs and services against desired outcomes.
Evaluation is an important part of providing transparency for programme success against
goals and providing insight to ensure that programme effect continues to change. As a result, an
evaluation system must allow for the measurement of achievement against goals as well as the
sharing of evaluation results.

d) How and or why you revised your strategies based on evaluation with appropriate
engagement of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people
It is important that the strategies that are formulated should be evaluated and checked.
They were evaluated by taking feedback from the members for whom they are formulated
(Jaenke and et.al., 2021).. It is vital that the changes are made as per their demand as the
strategies are made for their benefit.
e) One (1) piece of legislation which ensures Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander
cultural safety.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 are formulated
for protecting them and their cultural safety. The Act ensures the cultural safety of Aboriginal
and/or Torres Strait Islander. It is declared that the area, class or object of this group will be
protected from any threat of injury.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Calvert, P. (2019). Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency Have your say:
Consultation on the definition of ‘cultural safety’.
Canuto, K and et.al., (2018). “I feel more comfortable speaking to a male”: Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander men’s discourse on utilizing primary health care
services. International Journal for Equity in Health, 17(1), 1-11.
Coleman, R., Hartz, D., & Dahlen, H. (2020). The experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Bachelor of Midwifery students: An integrative literature review. Women and
Birth.
Dennis, S. L., and et.al., (2017). The Aboriginal Staff Alliance Network, Succeeding in the
Educational Health Workforce. In 6th Annual NHMRC Symposium on Research
Translation, co-hosted by NHMRC and the Lowitja Institute.
Fernando, T., & Bennett, B. (2019). Creating a culturally safe space when teaching Aboriginal
content in social work: A scoping review. Australian Social Work, 72(1), 47-61.
Fleming, T., Creedy, D. K., & West, R. (2020). The influence of yarning circles: A cultural
safety professional development program for midwives. Women and Birth, 33(2), 175-
185.
Jaenke, and et.al., (2021). Health care provider perspectives on cervical screening for Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander women: a qualitative study. Australian and New Zealand
Journal of Public Health.
Mahoney, R., & Fleming, M. (2020). Promoting health in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
communities. Health Promotion in the 21st Century: New approaches to achieving
health for all. Allen & Unwin, London, 88-116.
McCalman, J., and et.al., (2020). “It’s all about relationships”: The place of boarding schools in
promoting and managing health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
secondary school students. Children and Youth Services Review, 113, 104954.
Sentance, N. (2021). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Protocols.