Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander | Social Work

RUNNING HEAD: SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE 0
ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Analysis...........................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................6
Appendices......................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people face various social, political and health which leads
in affecting mental health and increase inequalities among the community. Therefore, the
estimation revealed there are various factors which affects the overall lifestyle and through
which community face from issues and challenges. The increases in violence among the women,
unequal distribution of income, high rate of poverty and lack of government policies to reduce
the stress and unequal opportunities among the community. In this report, analysis is done to
understand the role of social work practice in struggles over inequality and social justice for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People.
Analysis
Dudgeon, P., Milroy, H. & Walker, R., 2014. Working Together: Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Mental Health and Wellbeing Principles and Practice. 2nd ed. Canberra:
Commonwealth of Australia.
The aim of the chapter is to understand the contemporary life of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander in Australia, therefore it provide complete information regarding the history and culture
of and Torres Strait Islander (Dudgeon et al., 2014). The analysis revealed that land of is the
fundamental aspect of the community, every individual of the community has some connection
with the specific country and culture. The connection of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
with their country were very deep and more in comparison to the other Australians. At the time
of colonization the various laws were developed for the communities which include “The
Western Australian Aborigines Act 1905”, “Native Administration Act 1936” (Dudgeon et al.,
2014). However, it is also analyzed that Kinship system also introduced to connect with the
external people based on their relationship. The estimation also describes that in the earlier
70,000 years the mental health of Torres Strait is considered far better in comparison to the
current year.
In the year 1967, the rights were provided to Aboriginal community which includes “the
prohibition on racial discrimination; land rights; and the facilitation of self-determination”.

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However, still community does not get equal rights and suffered more from inequalities. Torres
Strait Islander culture is unique but their philosophies and ethics is highly similar with the
Aboriginal people. The chapter also describes that the community face from various
contemporary issues such as due to colonization children were removed from their families,
removable from land, increase suicide rate; more than 71% of the people from community
become victimized of alcohol, lower education (Dudgeon et al., 2014). The racism is also the
challenge through which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander are suffered.
Lippmann, L., 1994. Generations of Resistance. Melbourne: Longman.
The Aboriginal community has unique culture; the objective of the chapter is to describe the
challenges faced by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community (Lippmann, 1994). The
estimation revealed that there is increase in the violence among the community. The estimation
revealed that community health and social as well as emotional wellbeing is negatively affected.
It is because of lack of education and employment facilities to the community, this is due to the
reason that in the current year only 50% of the people in the community was educated and is
aware about their rights and regulations (Lippmann, 1994). In the current year estimation
revealed that 90% of the aboriginal community people die because of lack of better treatment
facilities in comparison to other communities. However, in this chapter it is described that these
issue arises due to different social political and legal factors.
The chapter also describes that not efficient treatment is provided to the patients due to lack of
facilities to the people. There are various factors which affects the rights and increase the issue
for the community that is social factors in which it provide unequal income to the community
and the other lack of treatment facilities and other factors increase the risk of effecting mental
health and reducing overall rights and adopting culture and ethics in the country (Lippmann,
1994).
Bennett, B., Zubrzycki, J. & Bacon, V., 2011. What do we know? The experiences of social
workers working alongside Aboriginal people. Australian social work , 64(1), pp.20-37.
Researchers revealed social work practice is considered important in the Aboriginal people
communities but still it is become disadvantage for the communities, it is because of not meeting
the expectation and needs of the communities (Bennett et al., 2011). The objective of the

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research is to understand the information regarding the sustaining of workers and the approaches
it used for integrating ad adopt different knowledge,, skills and philosophies for conducting the
work. The information is gathered from taking interview from the Aboriginal as well as Non-
Aboriginal workers who all experienced with the Aboriginal communities.
The results of the researchers describes that Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal workers increase
their relationships with other communities as well as clients which supports them to adopt the
principle of reciprocity, integration as well as increase the values among the Aboriginal
community. This also results in increasing the different skills which includes deep thinking,
listening etc (Bennett et al., 2011). The estimation also revealed that both communities’ workers
understand the influence of the personal and cultural identities as well as their influence on the
Aboriginal people practice. However, in comparison to other studies, this study describes that to
maintain social work practice individual should follow some principles which includes
“respecting, understanding, valuing the knowledge of Aboriginal “. Further, this skills support
the community to become reflective and to understand their self practice but still issues arises
while using their skills, knowledge in different areas of workplace (Bennett et al., 2011).
Discussion
The above analysis revealed that there are various issues which are faced by Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander community in which major challenges are increasing inequalities and
unequal rights among the community. Therefore, the social work practice can play the significant
role in providing social justice to the community which includes the counseling sessions will be
developed for the community. So that their problems will be investigated and analysis can
different solutions can be provided to different people due to diverse people in the community
and can reduce inequalities and provide social justice to the community (Ridani, et al., 2015).
The psychotherapy can also be provided to the families, individual and to the different groups it
is because this can help them to enhance will social and mental health as well as can also support
in increasing interacting with the other communities (Akbar & Hallak, 2019). The other social
work practice is to provide education to the community that is to increase awareness among them
about the problems and solutions will can does their emotional well being as well as can develop
the workers by maintaining ethics and philosophies in the workplace. This can also support in

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providing equal rights to adopt their culture in their country and can get equal income that is the
similar as other communities (Kilcullen, Swinbourne, & Cadet‐James, 2018).
Conclusion
From the above, it is concluded that aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community people are
more under the percentage of death rate and in getting lower income. It is because of not getting
affected by different social, economic and political factors which results in removing their
children from the family and influence the community women in negative manner. However,
social work practice also does not provide positive results but still more initiatives can be taken
by increasing awareness, organizing counseling sessions etc.

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References
Akbar, S. & Hallak, R., 2019. Identifying Business Practices Promoting Sustainability in
Aboriginal Tourism Enterprises in Remote Australia. Sustainability, 11(17), p.4589.
Bennett, B., Zubrzycki, J. & Bacon, V., 2011. What do we know? The experiences of social
workers working alongside Aboriginal people. Australian social work , 64(1), pp.20-37.
Dudgeon, P., Milroy, H. & Walker, R., 2014. Working Together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Mental Health and Wellbeing Principles and Practice. 2nd ed. Canberra:
Commonwealth of Australia.
Kilcullen, M., Swinbourne, A. & Cadet‐James, Y., 2018. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
health and wellbeing: Social emotional wellbeing and strengths‐based psychology. Clinical
Psychologist, 22(1), pp.16-26.
Lippmann, L., 1994. Generations of Resistance. Melbourne: Longman.
Ridani, R. et al., 2015. Suicide prevention in Australian Aboriginal communities: a review of
past and present programs. Suicide and Life
‐Threatening Behavior , 45(1), pp.111-40.

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Appendices
“Practice Framework for social work”
SOURCE: (Bennett et al., 2011)

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“Life Expectancy”
SOURCE: (Ridani et al., 2015)