Healing

Question 1

Indigenous Identity and wellbeing:

Answer 1

• ‘Health’ for Australia’s Indigenous Peoples focuses not only on physical health but also encompasses spiritual, cultural, emotional and social wellbeing. Health is more than the absence of sickness; it is the relationship with family and community, providing a sense of belonging and a connectedness with the environment.

Question 2

Negative factors on determinants of social and emotional wellbeing:

Answer 2

• Gaps in public health and community infrastructure.
• Access to services and systems that support health and wellbeing.
• Poverty & economic justice.
• Racism and other forms of discrimination.
• Exposures to trauma (inter-generational).

Question 3

Positive factors on wellbeing:

Answer 3

• Community participation and connectedness.
• Sovereignty and self-determination.
• Empowerment.

Question 4

Trauma informed practice:

Answer 4

• Create a safe space.
• Facilitate personal storytelling on their terms and in their own time, in as little or as much as they wish to disclose.
• Disclosure of trauma deepens over time.

Question 5

Reconciliation:

Answer 5

• Reconciliation has been defined as “a process where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, non-Indigenous Australians and Australian governments forge a new relationship based on mutual understanding, recognition and respect.”

Question 6

Eight key issues of reconciliation:

Answer 6

• greater understanding of the importance of land and sea in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies;
• better relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider community;
  recognition that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and heritage are a valued part of the Australian heritage;
• a sense for all Australians of a shared ownership of our history;
• a greater awareness of the causes of disadvantage that prevent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from achieving fair and proper standards in health, housing, employment and education;
• a greater community response to addressing the underlying causes of the unacceptably high levels of custody for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
• greater opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to control their destinies ;
• agreement on whether the process of reconciliation would be advanced by a document or documents of reconciliation.

Question 7

5 dimensions of reconciliation:

Answer 7

• Historical acceptance.
• Race relations.
• Equlity and equity.
• Institutional integrity.
• Unity.

Question 8

Critiques of the reconciliation approach:

Answer 8

• Largely symbolic, and not achieving active restitution or reparation.
• Assimilationist; fitting Inidgenous peoples into white norms and avoiding conflict in favour of ‘harmonious social and racial relations’.

Question 9

Restitution and reparation approaches:

Answer 9

• Compensation

- Returning of historical/cultural artifacts.