Fact sheet: Professional competencies for psychologists. Understanding Competency 8: Demonstrates a health equity and human rights approach when working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, families and communities
Dhoombak Goobgoowana: A History of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne-Volume 1: Truth
Dhoombak Goobgoowana acknowledges and publicly addresses the long, complex and troubled relationship between the Indigenous people of Australia and the University of Melbourne. It is a book about race and how it has been constructed by academics in the University. It is also about power and how academics have wielded it and justified its use […]
The importance of Indigenous centres/units for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students: ensuring connection and belonging to support university completion
Indigenous student completion rates remain very low relative to non-Indigenous students. Some universities have higher Indigenous student completion rates than the national average but research-based evidence of these universities as ‘success models’ is limited. Drawing on findings from interviews with Indigenous university graduates and staff as part of a National Centre for Student Equity in […]
Listening more: Embedding Cultural Safety in Supervision. A Guide for Psychology Supervisors.
The Listening More: Embedding Cultural Safety in Supervision. A Guide for Psychology Supervisors is designed to support supervisors in being culturally safe and responsive in their supervision of Australia’s psychologists, specifically when working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This project was led by the Australian Indigenous Psychology Education Project (AIPEP), in collaboration with […]
Listening more: Embedding Cultural Safety in Supervision. A Reflective Journal for Psychology Supervisors.
Welcome to the one of two companion documents to the Listening More: Embedding Cultural Safety in Supervision. A Guide for Psychology Supervisors. (hereafter, the Guide). This document is the Listening More: Embedding Cultural Safety in Supervision. A Reflective Journal for Psychology Supervisors (hereafter, the Journal). The second companion document is the Listening More Manual of […]
Listening more: Embedding Cultural Safety in Supervision. Manual of Resources for Psychology Supervisors.
Welcome to the one of two companion documents to the Listening More: Embedding Cultural Safety in Supervision. A Guide for Psychology Supervisors (hereafter, the Guide). This document is the Listening More: Embedding Cultural Safety in Supervision. Manual of Resources which includes a sample of recommended reading and resources to assist psychology supervisors’ learning journeys. The […]
Webinar: Decolonising Mental Health Systems – Global Experiences of Wellbeing
What does decolonisation within psychology mean for me?
Overview This panel discussion will explore the definitions and application of decolonisation in Australia. Specifically, it asks: What role can psychology and psychologists carry out within a decolonisation agenda?What does it look like for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples & for non-Indigenous Australians? What actions/attitudes/behaviours are involved?, and What can the discipline do to […]
Cultural safety in Trauma-Informed Practice: What’s culture got to do with it?
Overview This webinar explores the importance of culture in therapeutic practice, and will cover: concepts of cultural awareness levels cultural protects holistic client conceptualization cultural worldviews the journey from unconscious incompetence through to unconscious competence taking a systems approach historical trauma 6 guiding principles of Trauma-Informed Practice the 5R’s of Trauma-Informed approach cultural practices of […]
A review of community engagement in cancer control studies among Indigenous people of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA
This review aimed to address studies of cancer control in Indigenous populations, with a focus on: (1) the nature and extent of community engagement; and (2) the extent to which community engagement has facilitated successful outcomes. Articles addressing Indigenous cancer control using some degree of community engagement were identified by a search of the following […]
Facilitating Sustainable Disaster Risk Reduction in Indigenous Communities: Reviving Indigenous Worldviews, Knowledge and Practices through Two-Way Partnering
The Sendai Framework of Action 2015–2030 calls for holistic Indigenous disaster risk reduction (DRR) research. Responding to this call, we synergized a holistic philosophical framework (comprising ecological systems theory, symbolic interactionism, and intersectionality) and social constructionist grounded theory and ethnography within a critical Indigenous research paradigm as a methodology for exploring how diverse individual and […]
Synergy of systems theory and symbolic interactionism: a passageway for non-Indigenous researchers that facilitates better understanding Indigenous worldviews and knowledges
Historically, non-Indigenous researchers have contributed to colonisation by research based on Western positivistic philosophical frameworks. This approach led to disembodying knowledge from Indigenous people’s histories, worldviews, and cultural and social practices, thus perpetuating a deficit-based discourse which situates the responsibility of problems within Indigenous peoples and ignores the larger socio-economic and historical contexts in which […]
AIATSIS Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research
What Contributions, if Any, Can Non-Indigenous Researchers Offer Toward Decolonizing Health Research?
Four non-Indigenous academics share lessons learned through our reflective processes while working with Indigenous Australian partners on a health research project. We foregrounded reflexivity in our work to raise consciousness regarding how colonizing mindsets-that do not privilege Indigenous ways of knowing or recognize Indigenous land and sovereignty-exist within ourselves and the institutions within which we […]
Aboriginal Participatory Action Research: An Indigenous Research Methodology Strengthening Decolonisation and Social and Emotional Wellbeing
This discussion paper explicates the concepts and application of a critically reflexive and transformative Indigenous Research Methodology (IRM) — Aboriginal Participatory Action Research (APAR) — designed to centre and increase Indigenous voice and ‘epistemic self-determination’ in Indigenous research and psychology. The intent is to justify and legitimate Indigenous knowledges and methodologies as authentic, rightful, valued, […]
Relationally Responsive Standpoint
This paper is a commentary responding to the problem of Indigenous post-graduate students and scholars struggling with an understanding of Indigenous Standpoint Theory and either disengaging with it or including it in shallow or tokenistic ways that fail to advance knowledge in this emergent field (Foley, 2018). A framework grounded in respectful protocol is suggested […]
Ethical conduct in research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and communities: Guidelines for researchers and stakeholders
Working Together with Remote Indigenous Communities to Facilitate Adapting to Using Energy Wisely: Barriers and Enablers
A $12 million Commonwealth funded consortium project trialled energy efficiency initiatives in six remote Indigenous communities over three years. This project, which won several awards, employed and educated over 80 local Yolŋu to educate their fellow community members to use power wisely. The research and evaluation component was designed together by Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers […]
Housing and Overcrowding in Remote Indigenous Communities: Impacts and Solutions from a Holistic Perspective
Over three years, a $12 million Commonwealth funded consortium project implemented energy efficiency initiatives in six remote Indigenous communities. An ecological community-based participatory action research design that utilized qualitative and quantitative research approaches in a multiple methods design was employed to clarify how Yolŋu use power, to identify the barriers and enablers of Yolŋu using […]
The Study of Environment on Aboriginal Resilience and Child Health (SEARCH): a long-term platform for closing the gap
The full potential for research to improve Aboriginal health has not yet been realised. This paper describes an established long-term action partnership between Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs), the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of New South Wales (AH&MRC), researchers and the Sax Institute, which is committed to using high-quality data to bring […]
‘We’re checking them out’: Indigenous and non-Indigenous research participants’ accounts of deciding to be involved in research
Background: It is important for researchers to understand the motivations and decision-making processes of participants who take part in their research. This enables robust informed consent and promotes research that meets the needs and expectations of the community. It is particularly vital when working with Indigenous communities, where there is a history of exploitative research […]
Role of non-Indigenous researchers in Indigenous health research in Australia: a review of the literature
Objective This paper explores the body of knowledge around Indigenous health research and aims to outline what roles are appropriate for non-Indigenous researchers within Indigenous health research in Australia. Methods A literature review was conducted using CINAHL, PubMed and Scopus in May 2015. The search terms were ‘non-Indigenous researchers’ AND ‘Indigenous health research’ and other […]
Changing the acculturation conversation: Indigenous cultural reclamation in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand
In constructing this chapter the authors make a claim for an Indigenous perspective that is grounded in decolonisation, the struggle for social justice, cultural reclamation and the development of Indigenous kowledges. This offers the opportunity to view acculturation and the associate research through a different lens. In taking this stance, a critical psychology, Indigenous standpoint […]
Letters: Would the Northern Territory plan pass the Government’s own ethical guidelines?
One of the sad realities of human nature is our propensity to seek immediate solutions that at first glance appear simple and effective yet ignore the complexities of a given situation. In Australian history, particularly for Indigenous people, there are many examples of ‘simple’ solutions that have had devastating consequences, and the only good thing […]
Western psychotherapeutic practice: engaging Aboriginal people in culturally appropriate and respectful ways
Until recently the majority of psychologists in Australia have been confronted by the lack of information relating to culturally appropriate methods of engagement and therapy with Aboriginal clients. Findings from a qualitative study undertaken in Western Australia indicated that Aboriginal conceptualisations of mental health appear more holistic and contain elements that are both cultural and […]
