Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Safety Promotion

This assignment delves into promoting cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people within community services and healthcare systems. It addresses the importance of cultural awareness, relevant legislation, and strategies to enhance cultural safety in the workplace. The work identifies issues affecting engagement, such as loss of land and culture, and racism, and explores the impact of organizational culture on Indigenous engagement with services. It further discusses the reasons behind ill health in these communities, including lack of education and poor living conditions, and lists common chronic health issues. Finally, it outlines various ways to encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to participate in healthcare program planning and delivery, emphasizing networking, partnership, knowledge sharing, and open communication policies.

Promote Aboriginal and or
Torres Strait Islander cultural
safety

Table of Contents
Knowledge Activity (Q & A) .........................................................................................................1
Answer 1 ................................................................................................................................1
Answer 2 ................................................................................................................................1
Answer 3 ................................................................................................................................1
Answer 4 ................................................................................................................................2
Answer 5 ................................................................................................................................3
Answer 6 ................................................................................................................................3
Answer 7 ................................................................................................................................4
Answer 8 ................................................................................................................................4
References ......................................................................................................................................6
Country

Knowledge Activity (Q & A)
Answer 1
The Competent cultural awareness of the impression of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait
Islander people promote cultural safety in the community services and health context, by
providing the supportive environment and clear process for the workforce to explore the
cultural needs of the aboriginal and Torres strait islander patient. This is the very important
step towards the development of the safe and respectful organisation where the patient
along with their families and other community member's can feel comfortable to engage
with and receive effective care. That is very important to have the cultural Awareness in
the workplace of NHS and effective polices of the cultural valued and management which
help to manage the cultural safety (Rissel, & Bower, (2020)).
Answer 2
There are some key legislation which have crossed that affect Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people, such as Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999,
this act protects the Australian Government indigenous heritage significance. The Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, this act is protecting the areas and
objects which are particular significance to Aboriginals and Torres strait islander people. In
perspective of the aid of this act Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person or group of
individuals get permission to make the declaration to protect an area, objects or class of objects
from a threat of injury or desecration. Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976,
with the aid of this legislation basis upon which Aboriginal Australian people in the Northern
Territory can claim rights to land based on outdated occupation (Stajic, (2020)) .
Answer 3
There are the various types of the cultural safety management strategy which can be use
by the health care professionals to increase the cultural safety in workplace, such as individuals
can encouraged to reflecting on own cultural, attitudes and beliefs about the others, open and
respectful communication is can be implement to increase the cultural safety through clear, and
valued communication (Douglas, & Fitzgerald, (2018)). There is the need of developing trust
among the team members of the organisation workforce along with the transparency in order to
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increase the level of cultural safety. In another had there should be the recognising and avoiding
stereotypical barriers. Another most important strategy to increase the cultural safety within the
organisation is increasing the sharing of knowledge.
Answer 4
There are the various issues and factors which may have an effect on the engagement of
the Torres Strait Islander people with community services and health systems, below is the
illustration of the two identified issues which contribute to the engagement challenges.
The loss of land and culture- On the basis of the Aboriginal individuals their lore was
developed by the spirit ancestors during the Dreamtime to look after the and its peoples. The-
dispossessed of the land, lore and culture lead to the their dignity lose, l lose and low self esteem.
Aboriginals are the peoples who have a deep connection with their land or country, which is
central to their spiritual identity. Dreamtime stories teach the aboriginal peoples about the
importance of sharing with and caring for peoples of their community, It is involving the
nurturing the land and the significance of the land and its creatures. Due to the loss of the people
land and culture they lose their self esteem, dignity and trust from the others and that is the
reason which lead to the challenges of lack of the Aboriginals engagement to the community
services and health system. This reduce the Aboriginals sense of social support and belonging
and health system, engagement issues (Gordon, Dew, & Dowse, (2019)).
Racism and discrimination- These factors are highly recognised as the internationally
as a key factor which contributing to the health disparities. There is the huge connection of the
discrimination in the aboriginals physical and mental health along with the behavioural changes.
People with feeling of being discriminated not trust on the other communities due to which their
engagement to the health care system and communities get effected, because people with the fear
of racism and discrimination do not even want to interact with the other community peoples. Due
to all these reasons health care system are facing the challenges of people engagement to health
care system and program. In order to engage the aboriginals to the health care system, health
care provider who were able to build strong and trusting relationship and care. Management of
the strong relationship key strategy of the sustaining engagement and if the relationship broke
down as result of the discrimination or distrust and due to this Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples were likely to disengage from healthcare services (Hickey & Kildea, S. (2021)).
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Answer 5
The selected workplace is National Health Services in Australia, this is leading the
Medicare foundation in Australia universal health care scheme since 1984. The impact which
might the NHS own culture have on the Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people’s
engagement with the services within NHS workplace is vary on the codes of practices
implemented in the organisation. The National Safety and Quality health services standards are
clinical convergence standard, partnering with consumers standards, preventing and controlling
health care associated infection standards, medical safety standards, comprehensive care
standards, communicating care standard, communicating for safety standard, blood management
standards, responsive to acute deterioration standard (McGlade, (2019)).
There is the very important role of the NHS standards in the Aboriginals engagement
with health care system, for example infection control standard involves make the culture of
effective leadership under which the leader describe, implement and monitor system to prevent
and manage the health care associated infection and antimicrobial resistance. The safe and
appropriate prescribing use of the antimicrobial agents through antimicrobial stewardship and
consumer engagement is done and achieve effectively. Another example of the NHS culture
which impact the Aboriginals engagement is medication-al safety standards, according to which
the health care system leader must lead and monitor the medication incident's and improved and
safe use of the medication. On the basis of this standard organisation reduce the common cases
of the medication incidents by improving the governance and quality measures, they should also
improve the patient and clinician communication partnership. This cultural standard of the NHS
is providing better access to patient information
and clinical decision support, with the influence of which higher engagement of the Aboriginals
is can be achieved (Guenther, & Osborne, (2020)).
Answer 6
The reason behind the ill health of the Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander due to the
key factors like lack of the relevant and culturally appropriate education, poor living conditions,
feelings of isolation and vulnerability are as follows.
Lack of the education causes the ill health of the community by effecting their health
behaviour and lifestyle, because people due to the lack of the appropriate knowledge of health
food, hygienic and workout do not follow the right lifestyle and hence it lead to the ill health.
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Poor living condition like homelessness contribute to the ill health because this impact the people
skin hygiene, respiration etc. due to the higher exposer to the dust, wetness and unclean water.
Isolation of there people lead to the ill health by increasing their mental stress and emotional
challenges.
Answer 7
There are some more common chronic health issues which is most likely to happen with
the List three chronic health conditions which Aboriginal and/or Torres Islander people are likely
to suffer from, such as the respiratory diseases, heart and circulatory diseases, high blood
pressure, kidney diseases, diabetes and cancer. influenza, measles, tuberculosis and sexually
transmitted diseases, are three most common chronic health issues from which the selected
community is suffer (Fleming, & Baldwin, (2020)).
Answer 8
There are the various ways for the Aboriginals and Torres islander people encouragement
to participate in the health care program planning and delivery, below is the explanation of all
those strategies and polices.
Network with the local aboriginal community – This is one of the most effective way
of encouraging the participation of the Aboriginals in the health care and educational program's
planing and delivery. This is involving the attending indigenous led events, because there is the
huge pressure in the indigenous peoples to engage with the local non indigenous communities
which make them feel discriminated and dominated. So that is important to go and participate in
their activities which will help them to feel equal and encourage them to participate with the
organisation for planing of the healthcare programmes (Green, & DiGiacomo, (2020)).
Partnership with the aboriginal and Torres islander peoples – In order to increase the
participation of the Aboriginals community with health care system programmes planing and
delivery. There is the need to get know then well and attend their local events and begin with the
relationship trust development. For the most effective participation organisation have to invite
the community and communicate open with then along with the management of transparency of
the health care program's and activities.
Sharing knowledge, art work excursions, sharing special stories, books, food- That is
one another most important strategy to encourage the Aboriginals participation, because the
sharing of Aboriginals art, books, food and stories make them feel encouraged and comfortable
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or common among the local non indigenous peoples with the influence of which they feel normal
and highly motivated to participate in the local health care system program planning.
Provide an open door policy- This is the communication policy in which leader and
manager leaves their office door open in order to encourage the openness and transparency with
the employees and key stakeholders of the organisation. This type of the polices management
application by the NHS is can be effective for the encouragement of Aboriginals participation in
the health care program planing and delivery, because this provide them freedom to questions,
complaints suggestions and challenges. There are some more important factors which affect their
participation with the organisation program's and activities, such as trust and accessibility are the
factors that influenced the service participation of the aboriginal people. Most of the Aboriginals
people prefer to access ACCOs because they do not trust non aboriginal workers and they trust
barrier are historical and cultural embedded in local aboriginal communities. So in order to
increase their participation there is the need of developing effective relationship with them.
The national aboriginal and Torres strait islander health plan 2013–2023- This is
another most important policy which help to guide the improvement of aboriginal and Torres
strait islander over the decade. This helps to encourage the participations of the community on
planning and delivery of the health care programs, by managing the free of racism and inequality
this provide the necessary platform to breach the health equality by 2031.
Implementation plan for the national aboriginal and Torres strait islander health
plan 2013–2023- This is another most important wider level legislation which outlines the
stakeholders needs to do to put health plan into the action. This policy is very essential and have
to be followed by the Australian National health services organisation in order to encourage the
Aboriginal community participation in the planing and delivery of the health care programs
(Hansen, , & Marchant, T. (2020)).
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References
Books and Journals
Rissel, C., & Bower, M. (2020). We need to value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural
education in the Northern Territory health services. Australian Journal of Rural Health,
28(5), 521-522.
Stajic, J. (2020). … but what about the Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Health Worker
academic? Transcending the role of ‘unknowing assistant’in health care and research
through higher education: a personal journey. The Australian Journal of Indigenous
Education, 49(2), 119-126.
Gordon, T., Dew, A., & Dowse, L. (2019). Listen, learn, build, deliver? Aboriginal and torres
strait islander policy in the national disability insurance scheme. Australian Journal of
Social Issues, 54(3), 224-244.
McGlade, H. (2019). My Journey into ‘Child Protection’and Aboriginal Family Led Decision
Making. Australian Feminist Law Journal, 45(2), 333-349.
Fleming, M. L., & Baldwin, L. (Eds.). (2020). Health Promotion in the 21st Century: New
approaches to achieving health for all. Routledge.
Hansen, L., Hansen, P., Corbett, J., Hendrick, A., & Marchant, T. (2020). Reaching Across the
Divide (RAD): Aboriginal Elders and Academics working together to improve student
and staff cultural capability outcomes. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education,
1-9.
Green, A., Abbott, P., Luckett, T., Davidson, P. M., Delaney, J., Delaney, P., ... & DiGiacomo,
M. (2020). Collaborating across sectors to provide early intervention for Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander children with disability and their families: a qualitative study of
provider perspectives. Journal of interprofessional care, 34(3), 388-399.
Guenther, J., & Osborne, S. (2020). Did DI do it? The impact of a programme designed to
improve literacy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in remote schools.
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 49(2), 163-170.
Hickey, S., Roe, Y., Harvey, C., Kruske, S., Clifford-Motopi, A., Fisher, I., ... & Kildea, S.
(2021). Community-Based Sexual and Reproductive Health Promotion and Services for
First Nations People in Urban Australia. International Journal of Women's Health, 13,
467.
Douglas, H., & Fitzgerald, R. (2018). The domestic violence protection order system as entry to
the criminal justice system for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 7(3), 41.
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