Challenges Faced by Mental Health Workers in Working with Indigenous People

0Running head: WORKING IN INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
Indigenous people
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Author’s note

1WORKING WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
Indigenous Australians or Torres Strait Islander peoples are minority racial group in
Australia who are residing in Australia before the colonisation of British. They suffer from many
health related disadvantage and experience many disparities in health outcome compared to non-
indigenous Australians. Mental health issue is also highly prevalent in the group and mental
health workers in Australia are challenged by the need to fulfil both health needs and cultural
preferences in care (McGough, Wynaden & Wright, 2018). With this context, the main purpose
of this essay is to discuss about the challenges faced by mental health worker in working with
indigenous people and evaluate the importance of respecting the culture of the indigenous group.
Aboriginal people are strongly connected to their culture. The aboriginal community is
centred around values of strong kinship, family ties and network (Stewart, Moodley & Hyatt,
2016). However, the colonization of Australians was one negative event in their life that
contributed to many adversities for them and loss of traditional life and land. Experiences of
poverty and marginalization further created additional risk of persistent stress for the groups. All
these changes in their life resulted in the increased in mental health and other health issues for
the group (Das et al., 2018). The burden of mental illness for indigenous Australians can be
understood from the fact that they have high rate of mental illness, suicide rate, alcohol abuse
and drug abuse compared to the rest of the population. According to the Australian Bureau of
Statistics (2016) report, 29% of indigenous people have self-reported depression, anxiety,
behavioural ad emotional problems. The rate was higher for older age groups compared to young
people. The rate of suicide is also increasing and the self-harm report for the group suggest that
165 indigenous Australians died as a result of suicide in 2017. Hence, mental health workers
have a greater responsibility to understand the root of mental illness and provided appropriate
mental health services for recovery of the group.

2WORKING WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
In response to the increase in incidence of mental illness for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people, it has been found that mental health workers have a greater responsibility to
address risk factors and provide appropriate treatment for the group. However, review of
evidence suggests that mental health inequity still exist for the group because of poor utilization
of service. Cultural insecurity is one major factor that prevents indigenous Australians from
adequately utilizing health services. They report about barrier like fear or lack of mainstream
health facilities, lack of respect from health care providers and lack of culturally appropriate
services for the group (Lai et al., 2018). In contrast, from the perspective of mental health care
providers, it has been found that they face barrier in providing appropriate service to the group
because of client non-attendance and challenges in relationship building with indigenous client
(Reifels et al., 2018). Relationship building with the indigenous community is dependent on
active grass root engagement with the group and practicing cultural safety (). However, research
evidence regarding the delivering of cultural safety by mental health workers in Australia
revealed many gaps in skills of workers. Mental health clinicians were found to have limited
experience, skills and knowledge to work with Aboriginal people. This limitation significantly
influenced their ability to engage with indigenous people. Organization limitation is understood
from the fact that they were given limited opportunities to professional development in the
context of working with culturally diverse group. Just like indigenous people, mental health
workers also reported feelings of fear, tension and mistrust while working with Aboriginal
people (McGough, Wynaden & Wright, 2018). This limitation clearly shows what limitations
lead to challenges for mental health workers in working with indigenous Australians.
Health care interaction is an important initial strategy to address disparities. However, for
non-indigenous mental health worker providing care to indigenous Australia, the key barriers in