Advocates in Indigenous health and wellbeing

In this unit, you will have the opportunity to develop practical skills required to improve Indigenous mental health equity and cultural safety in healthcare. Based on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Curriculum Framework, you will undertake five modules covering the domains of respect, reflection, communication, safety and quality, and advocacy. You will learn the importance of cultural humility, how culture relates to wellbeing and how worldview influences in guiding thoughts, feelings and behaviours. The unit facilitates your understanding of the impacts of implicit bias, stigma and racism and the influence of your own culture when working with culturally diverse others. Such an understanding provides the context for self-reflective practice, cultivating respect in order to relate to clients as a whole person, rather than merely focusing on symptoms and diagnosis of disorders. You will learn to integrate an awareness of lived experiences, and how to communicate in a culturally safe manner. Grounded in a strengths-based approach, you will learn to apply principles from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Psychology, as well as other the psychology of indigenous peoples.