Annotated Bibliography: Indigenous Australian Children and Adolescents

This annotated bibliography examines three key research articles focused on the social and emotional wellbeing of Indigenous Australian children and adolescents. The first study by Chalmers et al. (2014) explores the development of culturally appropriate mental health first aid guidelines for Aboriginal adolescents, emphasizing the importance of cultural awareness and safe communication skills. Kilian & Williamson (2018) review existing literature on pathways to mental health care for Indigenous youth, highlighting the limitations of current systems and the need for culturally tailored approaches. Finally, Singer et al. (2015) discuss the transformation of a mental health project into a community-driven process, stressing the importance of involving Indigenous communities in decision-making to improve outcomes. The bibliography highlights the critical need for culturally sensitive mental health services and the importance of community involvement in addressing the unique needs of Indigenous Australian children and adolescents.

Social and emotional wellbeing of Indigenous Australian children and
adolescents
Annotated Bibliographies
Chalmers, J., Bond, S. K., Jorm, F., Kelly, M., Kitchener, A., & Williams-Tchen, A. (2014).
Providing culturally appropriate mental health first aid to an Aboriginal or Torres
Strait Islander adolescent: development of expert consensus guidelines. International
journal of mental health systems. 8(1) 6 doi
:ijmhs.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1752-4458-8-6.
The purpose of this study was to develop a guideline for aboriginal adolescent mental health
first aid based on the backdrop of their current distrust for health care workers. The scope of
this study is aboriginal adolescent youths and it deals specifically with mental health first aid.
This research used the Delphi method with a sample size of panellist between 37-41
aboriginal adolescent mental health experts to arrive at a consensus with essential responses
agreed to by ≥ 90%.
The researchers developed a guideline based on the opinions of indigenous Australian mental
health experts to provide a framework for aboriginal adolescent’s mental healthcare first
responders.
This is significant to the broad topic of aboriginal adolescent and children social and
emotional wellbeing as it explores pathways of engaging aboriginal youth with the mental
healthcare system in an unforced motion by providing safe communication skills and cultural
awareness to healthcare workers.

This research article was sample specific - aboriginal Australia and experts in adolescent
mental health; providing duality and a balanced position of what aboriginal Australian youths
need to engage better with Mental health care system. Aboriginal adolescents with pre-
existing mental health conditions consulted creating a possibility of expert bias. The study
was limited by the availability of national data.
In conclusion, this research indicates that cultural awareness and safe communication skills
are key in providing mental health first aid to Australian aboriginal adolescents.
Kilian, A., & Williamson, A. (2018). What is known about pathways to mental health care
for Australian Aboriginal young people?: a narrative review. International Journal
for Equity in Health201817:12, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-018-0727-y.
The authors of this research aimed at identifying the patterns of indigenous Australian youth
who had been through the current mental health system and review the available guidelines
for care based and determining if the care so provided sufficed for a better emotional and
social wellbeing
This is a qualitative research that scanned 3439 articles; reviewed 70 and further analysed 28
based on algorithms relating to adolescent aboriginal mental health and care guidelines
The authors concluded that available research on aboriginal youth mental health is not
sufficiently tailored to meet their needs as they lack specificity and are not culturally
acceptable.
This is significant to the social and emotional wellbeing of aboriginal adolescents particularly
in determining the way forward for aboriginal youth mental health as it reviews available

articles with reference to present care guidelines and their deficiencies and the way to
counteract this.
The quantity and quality of the documents reviewed in this research and the development of
an associative chart indicating the emerging themes in aboriginal youth social and emotional
wellbeing are strengths of this review
The paucity of the literature reviewed considering the large range, varying methods, and
varying samples could affect the synthesis of review negatively. This research concluded that
there the current system does not fit aboriginal youth and children or incorporate their
cultural values. It also suggested further research on how better mental health outcomes can
be achieved for the social end emotional well being of aboriginal children and adolescents
Singer, J., Bennett-Levy, J., & Darlene, R. (2015, 23(6) ). “You didn’t just consult
community, you involved us”: transformation of a ‘top-down’ Aboriginal mental
health project into a ‘bottom-up’ communitydriven process. Australasian Psychiatry ,
614–619, DOI: 10.1177/1039856215614985 apy.sagepub.com.
This is a qualitative research reviewing ten principles used to engage aboriginal communities
in decision making. The aim of this study was to use practical solutions to engage the
community in aboriginal mental health research; positioning them as collaborators in a case
study of the development of a culturally acceptable e- mental health training.
Decision making was reviewed with a table of ten principles, (five essential principles and
five desirable principles) recreating the decision-making process from the aboriginal
collaborator's view point (bottom-up and not top to bottom which assumes the perspective of
the participants.

This is significant to the social and emotional wellbeing of aboriginal youths as it emphasises
self-involvement as a necessity for better outcomes. This article proposes that for aboriginal
youths to engage in any program or project aimed at improving their mental health they must
be involved in the decision making and in developing the strategies.
One of the strengths of this article is the inclusion of a relation chart which shows how key
indigenous organizational groups connect with researchers to improve the aboriginal mental
health workforce capacity and how communication builds trust which is key in engaging
aboriginal youths with the mental health care system. The authors concluded that tokenism
provides minimal results while bottom to top collaboration involving constant continuous
collaboration with the aboriginal organizations, leaders, community’s health workers and
individuals throughout the life span of a project would produce more feasible results in the
mental health of aboriginal Australians.