• ‘Courage’ needed to address disadvantage
• Transformative ‘Big Dream, Small Steps’ traineeships
• Overcoming fragmented child and family services
• CTG report shows ‘privileged’ claims absurd
• Study to help young men take care of mental health
• Sector Jobs
• Key Date – National Diabetes Week – 9–15 July 2023

The image in the feature tile by Dionne Gain appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald article Missing the target: goodwill fails to overcome entrenched inequalities published on 15 February 2020.

The NACCHO Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health News is platform we use to showcase the important work being done in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, focusing on the work of NACCHO, NACCHO members and NACCHO affiliates.

We also share a curated selection of news stories that are of likely interest to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector, broadly.

‘Courage’ needed to address disadvantage

The Coalition of Peaks, which was involved in a 2020 overhaul of the approach to closing the gap, said the barriers facing Indigenous Australians were the result of a “tremendous and successive failure of public administration” involving neglect, discrimination and the “whims of politics”. In a powerful argument for enshrining a Voice to Parliament in the constitution, the group argued: “Our seats at the table with governments and public servants have too often been temporary, interchangeable, and all for show”.

The arguments were detailed in a letter to the Productivity Commission’s first three-yearly review of the closing the gap targets. The Coalition of Peaks lamented the lack of overall progress. The latest Closing the Gap data, published on Wednesday, showed just four of 19 targets were on track to be met, and a further four were getting worse. The peak body said while it was encouraged by some of the progress, the overall efforts were “too inconsistent” and “lack the necessary courage”. In a stinging criticism, the peak body said governments and public servants had benefited from the “notorious reputation” of Indigenous affairs as the most difficult set of policy problems to address.

“It is without doubt that the barriers our people face are complex and multifaceted,” the letter stated. “But they are a consequence of what our people have endured for millennium. It has been a tremendous and successive failure of public administration featuring the whims of politics, neglect, discrimination, top-down approaches, legislative changes, defunding and investment, distributed responsibilities and everchanging goal posts.”

You can view the Australian Government Productivity Commission’s Closing the Gap Annual Data Compilation Report July 2023 here and the Narrogin Observer article Pilbara Aboriginal groups back Yes vote and call for real action to improve lives in full click here.

Transformative ‘Big Dream, Small Steps’ traineeships

To read the Mackay and Whitsunday Life article Taking Big Dreams To The Healthcare Horizon in full click here.

Overcoming fragmented child and family services

One of the biggest challenges for people who most need social services is navigating a fragmented service system. Everyone leads a complex life, and the issues we face don’t necessarily fit into neat boxes. Government services, on the other hand, are delivered in siloes through individual contracts, resulting in multiple individual services with little connection between them.

Services that help with issues such as child and family, early child education, domestic violence, homelessness / housing, health and mental health are all hampered when delivered in a fragmented way. Understanding the impacts of this and how to overcome them is important not only for those working in these systems, but the people designing and funding them as well. Those with the greatest need are least likely to access the services or receive the comprehensive support they need.

Social Ventures Australia (SVA) recently launched Happy, healthy and thriving children: Enhancing the impact of Integrated Child and Family Centres in Australia, a discussion paper, available here, exploring current integrated child and family centre (ICFC) models in Australia. It focuses on the key enablers and barriers impacting the outcomes delivered. ICFCs are not currently defined nor consistently recognised as a service model in the Australian early years landscape. There is currently no national approach to delivery, and no overall leadership or responsibility for outcomes. And while quality is essential for integrated centre outcomes, there is currently no overarching approach to measuring or assessing quality.

To view The Sector article Integrated child and family centres overcome fragmented service delivery in full click here.

CTG report shows ‘privileged’ claims absurd

Study to help young men take care of mental health

Curtin University has been given nearly $100,000 by Healthway for a study aimed to help young Aboriginal men aged 14-25 take care of their mental health and well-being. The research team will collaborate with young Indigenous men to understand their thoughts on mental health and how they currently promote their well-being, also exploring the challenges and factors that support mental well-being and resilience.

Lead researcher from Curtin’s School of Population Health, Professor Penelope Hasking, said the team will create and test mental health messages that are culturally appropriate and meaningful to young Aboriginal men. “We will conduct co-design workshops to develop new strengths-based approaches to increase mental health literacy and mental health promotion grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing and being, which might include social media campaigns or mass media campaigns,” she said. “We will soon be recruiting our research team to guide the project, which will comprise young Aboriginal men and Aboriginal Elders before we commence an initial pilot within the City of Stirling early next year.”

Lotterywest and Healthway CEO Ralph Addis congratulated Professor Hasking and her team, and all researchers who received funding through Healthway’s Targeted Research Round, “We look forward to the outcomes of all the research projects, including Curtin’s which will improve the mental health literacy and reduce health inequities among young Aboriginal men.”

To view the National Indigenous Times article Curtin University to conduct study into young Indigenous men’s mental health and wellbeing in full click here.

Sector Jobs

Sector Jobs – you can see sector job listings on the NACCHO website here.

Advertising Jobs – to advertise a job vacancy click here to go to the NACCHO website current job listings webpage. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find a Post A Job form. You can complete this form with your job vacancy details – it will then be approved for posting and go live on the NACCHO website.

Key Date – National Diabetes Week – 9–15 July 2023

Each day during National Diabetes Week 2023 NACCHO has been sharing information relating to diabetes as it impacts Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

An article published last month in the International Journal of Epidemiology – The impact of diabetes during pregnancy on neonatal outcomes among the Aboriginal population in Western Australia: a whole-population study, available here, found:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have a high prevalence of diabetes in pregnancy (DIP), which includes pre-gestational diabetes mellitus (PGDM) and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). The study which aimed to characterize the impact of DIP in babies born to Aboriginal mothers found DIP differentially increased the risks of fetal overgrowth, shoulder dystocia and congenital anomalies in Aboriginal babies. The study authors said improving care for Aboriginal women with diabetes and further research on preventing shoulder dystocia among these women can reduce the disparities.

Like many Aboriginal mothers in the Northern Territory, Desiree Weetra was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Photo: Michael Franchi, ABC News.