Call for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander/First Nations ReviewersAustralian Social Work

2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. ii-ii
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Torres Strait

scholarly journals Release of the National Scheme’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Cultural Safety Strategy 2020-2025; the impacts for podiatry in Australia: a commentary

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Gerrard ◽  
Shirley Godwin ◽  
Vivienne Chuter ◽  
Shannon E. Munteanu ◽  
Matthew West ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Outcomes ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Cultural Safety ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Torres Strait Islander Health ◽  
Safety Strategy

Abstract Background Developing since colonisation, Australia’s healthcare system has dismissed an ongoing and successful First Nations health paradigm in place for 60,000 years. From Captain James Cook documenting ‘very old’ First Nations Peoples being ‘far more happier than we Europeans’ and Governor Arthur Phillip naming Manly in admiration of the physical health of Gadigal men of the Eora Nation, to anthropologist Daisy Bates’ observation of First Nations Peoples living ‘into their eighties’ and having a higher life expectancy than Europeans; our healthcare system’s shameful cultural safety deficit has allowed for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child born in Australia today to expect to live 9 years less than a non-Indigenous child. Disproportionately negative healthcare outcomes including early onset diabetes-related foot disease and high rates of lower limb amputation in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples contribute to this gross inequity. Main body In 2020, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority released the National Scheme’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Cultural Safety Strategy 2020–2025 - empowering all registered health practitioners within Australia to provide health care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples that is inclusive, respectful and safe, as judged by the recipient of care. This recently released strategy is critically important to the podiatry profession in Australia. As clinicians, researchers and educators we have a collective responsibility to engage with this strategy of cultural safety. This commentary defines cultural safety for podiatry and outlines the components of the strategy in the context of our profession. Discussion considers the impact of the strategy on podiatry. It identifies mechanisms for podiatrists in all settings to facilitate safer practice, thereby advancing healthcare to produce more equitable outcomes. Conclusion Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples access health services more frequently and have better health outcomes where provision of care is culturally safe. By engaging with the National Scheme’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Cultural Safety Strategy, all registered podiatrists in Australia can contribute to achieving equity in health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

A First Nations Voice: Institutionalising Political Listening

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-542
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Appleby ◽  
Eddie Synot
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Structural Response ◽  
The Political ◽  
Governance Structures ◽  
Torres Strait Islander People ◽  
Australian State ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Careful Design

The Uluru Statement from the Heart offers an opportunity to reorder the Australian constitutional hierarchy as it relates to First Nations. The proposal for a First Nations Voice provides a tailored, structural response to the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people under the Australian state. For the First Nations Voice to meet this potential, it will require more than careful design of the Voice as a new constitutional institution; it will require existing constitutional institutions within the legislature and executive to learn to ‘listen’. This article draws on the political and democratic listening literature to examine how political listening might be practised at the interface between the First Nations Voice and existing constitutional institutions. We suggest five principles to guide this cross-institutional relationship together with ways these principles might be incorporated into governance structures.

Burn Injuries in Hospitalized Australian Children—An Epidemiological Profile

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Ryder ◽  
Tamara Mackean ◽  
Kate Hunter ◽  
Kris Rogers ◽  
Andrew J A Holland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Total Body Surface Area ◽  
Health Inequities ◽  
Hospital Length ◽  
Burn Injuries ◽  
Hospital Length Of Stay ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
Epidemiological Profile

Abstract Globally, First Nations children sustain burns at a higher rate than other children. Little is understood about how health inequities contribute, especially from an Indigenous viewpoint. We analyzed data from the Burns Registry of Australian and New Zealand (BRANZ) for acute burns in children (<16 years) admitted to hospital between October 2009 and July 2018. Descriptive statistics examined equity variables in patient and injury characteristics. Poisson regression was used to describe factors associated with bacterial infection. Indigenous research methods were used throughout. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children represented 10.4% of the study population. Health inequities were present for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children with longer hospital length of stay (9.5 vs 4.6 days), rural residency (61.3% vs 13.9%), lower socioeconomic status (72.2% vs 34.9%), and more flame burns (19.5% vs 10.6%) compared to other Australian children. Streptococcus sp. infection risk was four times greater in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children compared to other Australian children. Flame burns and high percentage total body surface area burns were a risk for Staphylococcus sp. and Streptococcus sp. infection in all children. The epidemiological profile for burn injuries managed in Australian burns centers differs between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and other children, indicating persistent health inequities. These differences should be considered in the development of injury prevention strategies and the clinical management of burn injuries for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families.

Improving the Service to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders through Innovative Practices Between Aboriginal Hospital Liaison Officers and Social Workers in Hospitals in Victoria, Australia†

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Bnads ◽  
Elizabeth Orr ◽  
C John Clements
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Indigenous Health ◽  
Public Hospitals ◽  
Cultural Safety ◽  
Colonial Legacy ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
First Nations People

Abstract Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have suffered violence and extreme prejudice in every walk of life as a result of the European colonisation of Australia. We acknowledge the ongoing colonial legacy to this suffering and discuss how cultural safety is a solution to overcoming some elements of the disadvantages that still beset Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in terms of accessing health care. Accessible and culturally safe health services are critical in reducing health inequalities for First Nations’ people because of the burden of ill-health they experience. ‘Cultural safety’ in this context refers to approaches that strengthen and respectfully engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures in mainstream services. Alongside holistic Indigenous health and primary prevention approaches, a broad range of medical, socio-cultural and allied health support is needed to alleviate these inequalities. In this article, we describe how the working relationship between Aboriginal Hospital Liaison Officers and Social Workers in public hospitals in Victoria, Australia, contributes to cultural safety, and thereby improves the quality of care and a reduction in discharges against medical advice by Aboriginal patients. We conclude that elements of this model may be applicable to improving care for First Nation peoples in other countries.

scholarly journals Social Exclusion/Inclusion and Australian First Nations LGBTIQ+ Young People’s Wellbeing

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-51
Author(s):  
Karen Soldatic ◽  
Linda Briskman ◽  
William Trewlynn ◽  
John Leha ◽  
Kim Spurway
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Population Group ◽  
Emotional Wellbeing ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
The Impact

There is little known about the social, cultural and emotional wellbeing (SCEWB) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ young people in Australia. What research exists does not disaggregate young people’s experiences from those of their adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ peers. The research that forms the basis for this article is one of the first conducted in Australia on this topic. The article uses information from in-depth interviews to inform concepts of social inclusion and exclusion for this population group. The interviews demonstrate the different ways in which social inclusion/exclusion practices, patterns and process within First Nations communities and non-Indigenous LGBTIQ+ communities impact on the SCEWB of these young people. The research demonstrates the importance of acceptance and support from families in particular the centrality of mothers to young people feeling accepted, safe and able to successfully overcome challenges to SCEWB. Non-Indigenous urban LGBTIQ+ communities are at times seen as a “second family” for young people, however, structural racism within these communities is also seen as a problem for young people’s inclusion. This article contributes significant new evidence on the impact of inclusion/exclusion on the SCEWB of Australian First Nations LGBTIQ+ youth.

scholarly journals The Uluru statement

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse John Fleay ◽  
Barry Judd
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Social Reconstruction ◽  
The Road ◽  
Australian State ◽  
Commonwealth Government ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
Economic Future

From every State and Territory of Australia, including the islands of the Torres Strait over 200 delegates gathered at the 2017 First Nations National Constitutional Convention in Uluru, which has stood on Anangu Pitjantjatjara country in the Northern Territory since time immemorial, to discuss the issue of constitutional recognition. Delegates agreed that tokenistic recognition would not be enough, and that recognition bearing legal substance must stand, with the possibility to make multiple treaties between Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders and the Commonwealth Government of Australia.  In this paper, we look at the roadmap beyond such a potential change. We make the case for a redistributive approach to capital, and propose key outcomes for social reconstruction, should a voice to parliament, a Makarrata[1] Commission and multiple treaties be enabled through a successful referendum. We conclude that an alteration of the Commonwealth Constitution (Cth) is the preliminary overture of a suite of changes: the constitutional change itself is not the end of the road, but simply the beginning of years of legal change, which seeks provide a socio-economic future for Australia’s First Peoples, and the oldest continuing cultures in the world. Constitutional change seeks to transform the discourse about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander relations with the Australian state from one centred on distributive justice to one that is primarily informed by retributive justice. This paper concerns the future generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, and their right to labour in a market that honours their cultural contributions to humanity at large.   [1] Yolŋu ceremony for coming together after a struggle.

scholarly journals Acknowledgement of Country

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
TESOL in Context Journal Coordinator
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
English Language ◽  
Torres Strait Islander People ◽  
Australian Council ◽  
First Languages ◽  
Torres Strait

Acknowledgement of CountryIn the spirit of reconciliation the Australian Council of TESOL Associations (ACTA) acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. We acknowledge that the arrival of the English language to this continent impacted the traditional languages and cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and celebrate the work to reclaim or maintain these languages. ACTA members teach English in addition to supporting the maintenance and development of First Languages, and encourage the acquisition and use of other languages – including First Nations Languages.

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