Cultural Safety
and Community Development
David Lines - J: Community Development Manager | P: 08 8971 9314 | E:
david.lines@kwhb.com.au
Position Vacant - J: Ngumpin Liaison Officer | P: 08 8971 9300 | E:
hr@kwhb.com.au
The Community Development and Cultural Safety staff closely supports the CEO and other staff by providing cultural advice from both community men’s and women’s perspectives.
This year, the Community Development and Cultural Safety area continued to develop, with the recruitment of a Ngumpin Liaison Officer, Ros Frith, joining the Community Development Manager David Lines. This team worked hard to ensure that a Ngumpin perspective was included in all activities and at all levels of the organisation, for example during recruitment, organisational planning, the development of service delivery methods resources and evaluation.
A large part of their work was also to closely support Ngumpin employees, and this year saw a significantly increased focus of Aboriginal Health Worker’s needs. One strategy was to include an AHW Educator into the permanent staffing establishment, and project work was undertaken by a project officer to ‘set up’ this role. The focus of the role will be to strengthen the skills of registered AHWs and to develop a framework for support of Trainee AHWs.
The Ngumpin Reference Group
An important process which happened throughout this year was the increasing role of the newly established Ngumpin Reference Group, a consultative group which is made up of board members, Aboriginal Health Workers and ex-Aboriginal Health Workers.
A large part of their work was in assessing the cultural appropriateness of materials and activities intended for use in our communities.
They review health promotion material and strategies to be used at annual community events and in KWHB health centres. The NRG provided input and guidance about all health promotion material and strategies for cultural appropriateness to ensure material/strategies are understandable to Ngumpin and effective in a remote community context. This group, together the development of the Ngumpin liaison role, help keep the activities of the service relevant in meeting the health care needs of the people of our region.
The NRG made significant contributions to numerous proposals and resources, ensuring that they were culturally appropriate and did not have an institutionalised or non-aboriginal perspective. That the information and health skills can be incorporated into everyday family life in a community setting.
Orientation of new staff
All new permanent recruits spent one-to-one time with the Community Development and Cultural Safety staff. In addition, the Ngumpin Reference Group was heavily involved in the scripting and filming of a cultural orientation video, which will be made available to new recruits and placed on the organisation’s intranet.
Increased focus on AHWs needs and
Skills support
Work undertaken has included:
Clarifying and strengthening relationships with Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE) lecturers.
Providing information sessions to remote health centre staff about the support required for trainees.
The project officer spending time at each health centre working alongside trainees to assist assignments and clinical skills assessment in order to gain a better appreciation of strengths and challenges.
Active follow up with each trainee when they complete study blocks
Conducting an in-service training workshop focussing on clinical skills for all registered and trainee AHWs.
Developing resources for orientation of all new staff to highlight the importance of the AHW role and provide guidelines for supporting AHWs at clinic level.
Advocacy
KWHB’s AHWs provided input into the Review of the AHW Profession being conducted for NT DH&F by Human Capital Alliance consultants. The purpose of the review is to examine issues affecting recruitment & retention of AHWs. Better links with Batchelor Institute have been established to provide information and monitor progress for trainee AHWs. Teleconferences with lecturers to discuss specific needs of individual trainees have been conducted regularly.
The Community Development Manager arranged for BIITE lecturers to make a web-based presentation to Health Centre Coordinators about the AHW Trainee’s course content, and the role and responsibility of health centre staff in supporting trainees.
AHW In-service training
The Community Development team facilitated an in service training workshop specifically for AHWs at the request of the AHWs, on updating clinical skills and better use of the Patient Information Recall System Communicare. The Primary Health Care Manager, Clinical Quality Coordinator and AHW Educator facilitated a number of clinical skills stations
Supporting Board and Open Community Meetings.
The Community Development and Cultural Safety staff play an important role in helping to organise and support key governance meetings. In many instances this involves updating community members about health service activity and issues, explaining complex health information and new legislative requirements, and encouraging input and feedback from community representatives about their experience with health services.
Building Better Support Systems for Community Support Workers
Building structures and support within a health centre setting for employment locally recruited Community Support Workers (CSWs) is of high importance to KWHB. However, the organisation realises that a lot of groundwork needs to occur in order to create a successful model. Therefore, the model of integrating CSWs into health centres is still at an early stage with KWHB, but an important element of Integrated Primary Health Care Model that came into life early in 2008.
The Community Development and Cultural Safety team continue to play an important role in facilitating discussions and planning around how to successfully embed CSWs within the health centre teams, looking at, for example: development of structured tasks; the need for a buddy/mentoring system – gender appropriate one to one role modeling/partnering for CSWs; training support; and orientation of new staff to the role of the CSW and support they will need to provide.