For non-Indigenous allies, now is the time to step up, conference told

Now, more than ever, non-Indigenous allies must step up to support the rights, health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, reports Marie McInerney from a recent rural and remote health conference.

Marie McInerney writes:

Indigenous allied health leader Kylie Stothers has urged her non-Indigenous colleagues in remote and rural allied health to step up their support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues, patients and families, including through small, achievable acts of allyship.

Stothers, a Jawoyn woman born and living in Katherine in the Northern Territory who is Deputy CEO of the Indigenous Allied Health Association (IAHA), made the call at last week’s 15th National Conference for Rural and Remote Allied Health in Mildura, on the lands of the Latji Latji and Barkindji peoples.

Acknowledging genuine allies in the room “who are doing the hard work and the hard lifting”, Stothers told delegates they should not think that only the CEO or managers, or waiting for the right funding, can get things done.

“Leadership is in every single one of us, and we have an obligation to do something about it,” she said, showing a photo and quote of IAHA’s CEO, Donna Murray, a proud Wiradjuri and Wonnarua woman, who reminds her team at IAHA that: “Leadership is a practice. It’s not a position.”

Stothers described the importance of small “one percent-er” acts as “something that doesn’t take a lot of resources or training, you can do it by the end of this week…”

She later gave examples during an interview with Croakey, such as health services playing Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander radio stations and/or having copies of the Koori Mail in their waiting rooms.

Another suggestions was for health professionals to speak directly to their peak organisations about what they are doing to grow and strengthen the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workforce in their fields. (More examples follow in table below).

Stothers urged allies to be prepared to take a stand on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues, particularly in the wake of the defeated Voice referendum and the recent Northern Territory election, with the new Liberal National Party Government unveiling punitive approaches to youth crime, including dropping the minimum age of criminality to just 10 years.

Queensland is also set to follow suit, with new Liberal National Party Government pledging to introduce ‘adult crime adult time’ legislation by Christmas that will increase sentences for youth offenders, which critics warn will particularly impact young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and send more children to adult watch houses.

“Now, more than ever, I say to my allies in the room, you need to be a genuine ally, you need to show up when the times get tough,” Stothers said, delivering the conference’s opening plenary address.

She showed photos of her teenage son, and her nephew (also her son by kinship) – one born during the NT Intervention, when the Australian Government “made polices and laws that directly impacted the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in the NT”.

The other boy will soon turn 10, the age of a child that the NT has now fixed as the minimum age of criminal responsibility.

A collage, ending her address, aimed to “show the strength of families and generational support”.

Her nephew sits at the steering wheel of a car, “hoping to take control of his life, but he lives in an era where he potentially could be in youth detention from the age of 10 rather than be supported to be the best version of himself”.

Other photos of white and black cockatoos “represent the need to supportive systems and communities to enable our children to thrive, to have dreams and aspirations and not just survive and be what the ‘stereotypes’ or statistics tell us”, she said.

Making a difference

In a later interview with Croakey, Stothers also urged allies to not underestimate the power they have to make a difference, including when it comes to voting, and to recognise the privilege that many have in not being “political footballs” as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are.

“I grew up as a Jawoyn woman in Katherine, and I knew the role of politics before many of my friends had to understand. I already knew what the power of voting meant before I got to 18, whereas my non-Indigenous friends at school were privileged not to understand the power of that,” she said.

The types of change now being introduced by the new NT Government “absolutely impacts my people, my families, my children”, she said.

In response to such changes, Stothers said IAHA will find ways to work with all governments.

But she said: “It is a little bit scary when I have to think about the great initiatives we’re doing at IAHA to keep young people engaged in school systems and to become their best versions of themselves when we have other parts of our community who think that punitive measures and locking children up are the answer.”

“The impact of colonisation is not going to be an easy fix, but when you discard the strengths that come from community…like some of the work we’re doing at IAHA, then you’re actually going to have a whole generation that’s going to miss out on these opportunities that are out there to make change.”

“We need people to be genuinely coming to the table to work together to make a change that supports this generation and future generations to come,” Stothers told the conference.

She quoted Indigenous leader Patrick Dodson, a family friend, that those who lead must care for those who come behind them, to work “generationally”.

Stothers described how she incorporated the launch of SARRAH’s Reconciliation Action Plan plan and artwork by SARRAH Project Officer Syliva Rosas into her presentation.

“I didn’t know why Sylvia painted the story she did, but I took the time to read the story, to learn more about the elements of the story and then I embedded that into my keynote; that is what cultural responsiveness in action looks like,” she said.

Central to care

In her keynote, Stothers acknowledged her Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sisters and brothers in the room.

“Thank you for showing up, for the work you continue to do in remote and rural Australia,” she said.

“Your work is often not always valued or celebrated, but we see you, we know that many of you are key team members to makings things work in our communities and we thank you.”

Stothers said the health systems talks about patient or client centred care, but “forgets that for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, our culture, our families our ways of knowing, being and doing are essential to that care”.

“Culturally safe and responsive care is clinically safe care,” she said.

She asked delegates to think about the impact that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander allied health workforce has had on care in communities, and the challenges they face in building numbers and capacity – “you can’t be what you can’t see”.

She also called out non-Indigenous researchers, those working in remote and rural Australia who have been “getting their PhDs on the back of our poor health outcomes, our poverty, the diseases that exist only in Australia, that should only be existing in third world countries”.

“I hope you can look yourself in the mirror and think, ‘did I truly contribute to making a change, or was it my own personal ego at play?’,” she said.

“Our call to those who have benefited from our people, is: ‘what have you given back, what have you continued to do in growing and supporting the next generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workforce?’”

Cultural, social determinants

Stothers talked about the cultural and social determinants that had helped shape her and her career, coming from “a very long line of very strong matriarchal women”, including being inspired into social work by her grandmother Daisy’s health journey that saw her right leg amputated due to complications of diabetes in the mid-1980s.

“I watched as my mother and her siblings, and all my older cousins, navigate this new life that would see this fiercely independent mother and grandmother have to completely change her life,” she said.

“My career trajectory is and has been shaped by those cultural and social determinants that have impacted my lived experience. My passion for workforce in remote and rural Australia was ignited by the journeys of people such as my grandmother Daisy.”

Speaking about IAHA’s work, Stothers looked back to a keynote speech she delivered in 2015 at the National Rural Health Conference, where she highlighted “that the solutions to workforce shortages were waiting in remote and rural communities – our young kids were sitting in classrooms waiting for us to enable the pathways”.

“Sadly, mainstream [sector] didn’t take that up, but IAHA did,” she said, pointing to key IAHA programs established since then.

IAHA’s workforce initiatives include:

• National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Academy, which now has five sites around Australia, to increase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander high school student engagement, retention and successful completion of Year 12 with a Certificate III in Allied Health Assistance. Nearly 90 per cent of graduates have transitioned to either employment and or further education, and most who have gone through the NT academy are “returning home to remote and rural communities where they’re from”, she said.
• High School to Deadly Careers (HS2DC) program that brings Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander allied health students to rural and remote areas for immersion and inspiration.
• Flinders NT Remote Health Experience weekend designed by a team from Flinders University, Batchelor College, IAHA, Sunrise Aboriginal Health Service, Katherine Hospital and the Banatjarl Strongbala Wimuns Grup.

Stothers urged a strengths-based approach to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health issues and health workforce issues, instead of a deficit discourse approach.

“When we talk about health, it’s always about the deficit. It’s always about what’s wrong with us, how we can be fixed,” she said.

Stothers asked delegates to think about the following questions:

How do you thrive? Are you simply surviving every day? Or why are you trying to thrive? What keeps you grounded? What keeps you going? What keeps you passionate about remote and rural health?

As a freshwater person, she said Katherine River is what keeps her going. “When my river is not well, then I’m not well,” she said.

Stothers told Croakey about the huge impact “on water and water availability” that Katherine has endured from PFAS contamination from RAAF Base Tindal, fracking, and now the cotton industry.

Watch this video interview with Kylie Stothers at #SARRAH2024.

See the full conference program. Bookmark this link to follow ongoing coverage via the Croakey Conference News Service, and also follow this list on X/Twitter for ongoing news from #SARRAH2024 presenters and participants.