Croakey is closed for summer holidays and will resume publishing in the week of 13 January 2025. In the meantime, we are re-publishing some of our top articles from 2024.
This article was first published on Tuesday, October 15, 2024
A new cultural safety guide about assistive products aims to support First Nations people to stay strong, healthy and connected as they age.
This article is published by Croakey Professional Services as sponsored content.
Croakey Professional Services writes:
As First Nations people grow older, simple tools can help them to spend more quality time with family and to participate in cultural activities, including sharing stories with young people and spending time on Country.
These tools, known as assistive products, include items such as mobile phones with big buttons, button hook and zip pullers, pill organisers, walking poles and double handled mugs.
Assistive products can help maintain or improve functioning and independence as people grow older, and are sometimes also called aids, equipment, durables, medical equipment, and appliances.
Traditionally they have not always been provided in ways that foster self-determination of First Nations people during their ageing journey, limiting their uptake and usefulness.
New guide
However, a new guide has been developed with the aim of supporting cultural safety in how the mainstream sector designs and delivers information about assistive products to older First Nations people.
The LiveUp Better Practice Guide for culturally safe information about assistive products was developed by iLA, a not-for-profit organisation, which is funded by the Department of Health and Aged Care to develop the LiveUp initiative.
LiveUp is a free, national online healthy ageing guide that empowers older people to have greater choice and control by providing information about low-risk and under-advice assistive products. It also connects older people to locally relevant activities and networks to support their wellbeing and reablement.
LiveUp was created in response to the 2020 Review of Assistive Technology Programs in Australia, which identified a need to protect and promote older people’s independence by increasing their awareness and understanding of assistive products and services.
The new cultural safety guide identifies nine principles for providing culturally safe information about assistive products (as outlined in the diagram below).
It is designed to share better practice for communicating up to date information about assistive products to First Nations communities and peoples in a way that is engaging, relatable and culturally respectful.
This is especially important as the numbers of older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are projected to grow significantly, and the Australian Government invests in reforming in-home aged care.
Building trust
The guide was developed following research conducted through First Nations enterprise CultureLink and positive change agency Think HQ, which found that awareness, engagement and uptake of the LiveUp initiative among First Nations people remained comparatively low.
Barriers included the absence of culturally safe and appropriate delivery of information.
“There was a need for a separate marketing strategy, a separate support strategy that’s tailored for our mob and the context in which we live,” said CultureLink research lead and Noongar man, Professor Shane Hearn.
“We needed to speak to Aboriginal recipients, service providers, and organisations that represent Aboriginal people – three sources of information that are critical to achieving successful engagement through creation of an identity within iLA that resonates with them and builds trust,” Professor Hearn said.
Consultation with First Nations people and service provider staff conducted by iLA explored what culturally safe information about assistive products would look like.
The feedback highlighted the importance of providing information to First Nations people and communities in a way that is meaningful to them, removing the “white-lens” that is so often applied.
“The Government has stolen culture and taken away culture for so many years, we need to now give back to culture as much as possible, through resources that can be owned by community,” a Traditional Owner shared.
The feedback demonstrated the need for safe and relevant information to improve engagement and uptake of assistive products, which can vastly improve quality of life for First Nations older people, beyond independent living.
Comments from a Traditional Owner expressed the need to “…deepen older First Nations people’s experiences of [assistive products] with culture, Country and community, those things are their protection to help them thrive as they grow older”.
The guide demonstrates how assistive products can help facilitate ongoing participation in cultural activities, and connections to community and Country, as well as enhancing self-determination and agency.
It takes a strengths-based approach; for example, products such as a car transfer bar, seatbelt reacher and swivel cushion can support with travel to ancestral lands and sacred sites.
Likewise, a pill organiser can help to take the stress out of travelling so older First Nations people can enjoy creating new memories with their family.
“Age is an opportunity, to watch, listen, feel and learn from our environment,” says an example given in the guide.
“You might like to get out of your daily routine and have new experiences…by visiting a new place with your family… It’s a great way to keep active and improve your mood.”
Capacity building
While the provision of services and information for First Nations people and communities is best developed and delivered by First Nations organisations and professionals, Professor Hearn says there are simply not enough Aboriginal organisations in these areas to carry the load, and not enough Aboriginal professionals in mainstream services to ensure culturally safe delivery.
For this reason, it is necessary to build the capacity of non-Indigenous staff and organisations in mainstream service delivery to provide culturally appropriate information and services around assistive products, he says.
“There are not enough Aboriginal professionals in these areas so we have to engage non-Aboriginal organisations, especially in aged care, and teach them the cultural ways and build cultural awareness so that they can work effectively with our mob, otherwise we’re never going to close that gap,” he said.
“Aboriginal organisations cannot take on the load alone so it’s important that we can actually collaborate and work in partnership on these types of projects. I believe that iLA, through this process, have worked with great empathetic understanding of the Aboriginal way, and that will ensure the program’s sustainability and long-term success.
“When you’re working with Aboriginal people with lived experience and non-Aboriginal people who are wanting to lean in and understand more, you get the indications that the program will be a success.”
Professor Hearn said that for organisations and service providers to develop their capacity in culturally safe communications, there needs to be a clear focus on the attributes of listening and understanding, which enable effective knowledge translation.
“In the past many organisations have seen this as being too hard,” he added.
In practice
The Australian Rehabilitation & Assistive Technology Association (ARATA) – the peak body for stakeholders involved in the use, prescription, customisation, supply and ongoing support of assistive products – provided positive feedback on the LiveUp Guide.
ARATA’s Strategic Executive Advisor, Dr Libby Callaway, said the Association valued iLA’s commitment to listen to community about how First Nations people access information about low-risk assistive technologies.
“The guide provides an important first step in improving engagement and uptake of assistive technologies among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities,” she said. “The next step is for policy makers and assistive technology providers to listen and apply these learnings across both policy and practice.”
Dr Callaway noted that whilst iLA acknowledges the guide is inclusive of only some First Nations community perspectives, it provides new information for mainstream healthcare providers that has not existed before.
“The assistive technology sector now needs to do the next piece of work and think about how their organisations will apply these principles in practice, and authentically listen to and learn from First Nation communities about culturally safe good practice steps of assistive technology provision,” she added.
iLA is currently developing informational materials about assistive products tailored exclusively for First Nations people. This is in partnership with Little Rocket, Victorian Aboriginal Health Service, Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation Inc and an Elder working group. The materials will be available through LiveUp in both print and online later this year.
Photo credit details: All photos were supplied through iLA’s collaboration with Indigenous Australian-led creative consultancy, Campfire x, and Guriwal Aboriginal Corporation.
This article was funded by iLA. It was written on behalf of Croakey Professional Services by Larissa Andrews, and also edited by iLA, Jade Bradford and Dr Melissa Sweet.
