Supporting all staff and students to develop important Indigenous cultural understanding.

Indigenous artwork by Lucy Simpson

Artwork by Lucy Simpson, Gaawaa Miyay Designs, gaawaamiyay.co.

The Faculty of Health considers Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ health to be everybody’s business, and acknowledges that ongoing colonisation and racism are vital determinants impacting on the health of Indigenous peoples.

We are therefore committed to supporting all staff and students to develop new knowledge and skills that will enable meaningful engagement with Indigenous peoples, communities and their organisations.

Indigenous Cultural Respect

Graduates have professional cultural capability which contributes to the health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians, inclusive of physical, social, emotional and spiritual wellness.

Course Intended Learning Outcomes

On completion of their courses graduates will be able to:

  1. Demonstrate respect and value for world view differences and in particular Australian Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing
  2. Critically reflect upon the impact of ongoing colonisation and its perverse discourse on Indigenous Australians and their health and wellbeing
  3. Recognise the diversity of Indigenous Australians and integrate this knowledge into practice

Process for developing the Faculty’s Indigenous Graduate Attribute

Initially, targeted invitations were sent to key stakeholders across both the Faculty and university to form a working party. This group consisted of Indigenous academic staff members; language, learning and curriculum development academics and other interested personnel.

The initial step was to focus on developing a meaningful collaborative process for progression of work. This was realised through the building of a safe environment for exploring intercultural and cross-cultural information. In order to achieve this safe environment, a number of processes were used. At the first meeting a focus on key areas of work for progression was discussed and outlined. Four areas of priority were identified (with ongoing reflection and adaptation over time); these were the development of:

  1. a graduate attribute focusing on professional cultural capability to enable health graduates to work respectfully with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
  2. a context statement to articulate the importance of this work for the faculty
  3. a core set of course learning outcomes to assist program staff with their curricula alignment
  4. key resources and processes to support non-Indigenous staff to teach Indigenous content in a safe way, to transform thinking and enable students to develop the articulated graduate attribute.

The initial meeting revealed a common goal, which was to acknowledge, confront and make a difference to the significant inequities that sustain the unacceptable health status of Indigenous Australians. A frank and informed approach was undertaken with discussions and dialogue shared by experts in the field, with specific reference to the ongoing effects of colonisation and racism. At all times, a strong focus on the need to provide education focusing on the strengths of Indigenous Australians and hopes for a shared future was held.

UTS Research on embedding the Indigenous Graduate Attribute

The REM Collaborative’s paper on work to embed the attribute in the Faculty of Health was recently published in the Journal of Transcultural Nursing. 

To cite this work: Power, T., Virdun, C. Parker, N. Van Balen, J. Sherwood, J. Gray, J. & Jackson, D. In Press, ‘REM: A collaborative framework for building Indigenous cultural competence’, Journal of Transcultural Nursing.

Abstract

The well-documented health disparities between the Australian Indigenous and non-Indigenous population mandates a comprehensive response from health professionals. This article outlines the approach taken by one faculty of health in a large urban Australian university to enhance cultural competence in students from a variety of fields. Here we outline a collaborative and deeply respectful process of Indigenous and non-Indigenous university staff collectively developing a model that has framed the embedding of a common faculty Indigenous graduate attribute across the curriculum. Through collaborative committee processes, the development of the principles of “Respect; Engagement and sharing; Moving forward” (REM) has provided both a framework and way of “being and doing” our work. By drawing together the recurring principles and qualities that characterize Indigenous cultural competence the result will be students and staff learning and bringing into their lives and practice, important Indigenous cultural understanding.

© The Author(s) 2015.

Related: Read Professor Juanita Sherwood’s paper on a decolonising methodology to improve health outcomes.