Understanding Aboriginal Models of Selfhood: The National Empowerment Project’s Cultural, Social, and Emotional Wellbeing Program in Western Australia

Culturally safe and responsive interventions that acknowledge Aboriginal models of selfhood are needed. Such interventions empower Aboriginal peoples and communities by increasing self-determination over individual and community social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB). In response to this need, the National Empowerment Project developed the Cultural, Social, and Emotional Wellbeing Program (CSEWB). The CSEWB aims to strengthen […]
Indigenous Healing Practices in Australia. Women & Therapy

Indigenous Australian women are among the most disadvantaged women in the world. Over two centuries of colonization have had a damaging impact on perceptions of their gender roles and status as well as many other consequential oppressions. These experiences have affected the social and emotional wellbeing of Indigenous women of all ages, resulting in socio-economic […]
Enhancing wellbeing, empowerment, healing and leadership

This chapter explores the relevance of Aboriginal perspectives of empowerment, healing and leadership, as strategies to address the social inequality and relative powerlessness of Aboriginal people in contemporary society. These Aboriginal-led strategies are key social determinants that influence Aboriginal health, mental health and social and emotional wellbeing. Programs that facilitate Aboriginal understandings of healing, empowerment, […]
Social determinants of social and emotional wellbeing

This chapter explores current understandings of the social determinants of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional wellbeing and its development. We show that the determinants of this wellbeing are multiple, interconnected, and develop and act across the lifecourse from conception to late life. This chapter firstly focuses on the theoretical frameworks linking social […]
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social and Emotional Wellbeing

This chapter examines understandings of social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) with the aim of clarifying the relationship between SEWB, mental health and mental health disorders from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ perspective. The chapter begins with a brief historical overview of how the term ‘social and emotional wellbeing’ emerged as a signifier of Aboriginal […]
Making Tracks: A Trauma-Informed Framework for Supporting Aboriginal Young People Leaving Care

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people leaving out-of-home care are even more likely to experience poor outcomes and with more serious consequences This framework is a trauma and attachment-informed approach embedded in a cultural, ecological and developmental perspective. It aims to help workers recognise and make sense of many of the young people’s behaviours, […]