Introduction by Croakey: The impacts of the Voice to Parliament referendum on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and their mental health and wellbeing will be examined during a webinar on Friday, 21 June, hosted by Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Australia.
Participants will hear about findings from focus groups revealing the racism and stresses faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people during the referendum, highlighting the importance of efforts to support and promote social and emotional wellbeing through initiatives such as the Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Declaration.
The Declaration is an important mechanism for driving systemic changes across mental health systems, and an implementation plan will be released in coming months, to guide actions over the next decade, according to Rachel Fishlock, Chief Executive Officer, Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Australia.
Rachel Fishlock writes:
The Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Declaration (the Declaration) is a call to action for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership in the Australian mental health system.
Its goal is to achieve the highest attainable standard of social and emotional wellbeing, mental health, and suicide prevention outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Social and emotional wellbeing is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander concept of health that includes mental health, but also many other areas of health and wellbeing. Described in the seminal Working Together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing principles and practice, it’s a multidimensional concept that extends beyond mainstream understandings of mental health.
It includes a collective sense of self that is defined by connection to body, mind and emotions, family and kinship, community, culture, Country, and spirit and ancestors. Because of this, the social and emotional wellbeing of individuals, families, and communities are shaped by these connections. ‘Connection’ refers to the many ways in which people express and experience these areas of social and emotional wellbeing throughout their lives. People might experience healthy connections and a feeling of resilience in some areas, and difficulty and the need for healing in others.
The nature of these connections will change across the lifespan, too, reflecting the different needs of children, adolescents, adults, and Elders. The long history of colonisation, intergenerational trauma, racism, and structural discrimination that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have experienced have a significant impact on our social and emotional wellbeing.
Social and emotional wellbeing is integral to the way our people maintain good mental health. Therefore, it should be accounted for in the wider mental health system, in the same way we account for suicide prevention. The work of Gayaa Dhuwi to achieve the best social and emotional wellbeing for our people is fundamental to the wide-scale systemic changes our mental health system needs.
System change
The Declaration is one of the ways in which we can change the mental health system. It draws on the nine principles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional wellbeing, first proposed in the 1989 National Aboriginal Health Strategy and expanded upon in the 1995 Ways Forward Report. It focuses on a ‘best of both worlds’ approach to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health, social and emotional wellbeing, and suicide prevention – promoting an appropriate balance of clinical and culturally informed mental health system responses.
The Declaration highlights five themes:
- Indigenous concepts of social and emotional wellbeing, mental health, and healing should be recognised across all parts of Australia’s mental health system.
- Indigenous concepts of social and emotional wellbeing, mental health, and healing combined with clinical perspectives will make the greatest contribution to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ wellbeing.
- Indigenous values-based outcome measures in combination with clinical outcome measures should guide the assessment of services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
- Indigenous presence and leadership are required across all parts of Australia’s mental health system.
- Indigenous leaders should be supported and valued to be visible and influential in Australia’s mental health system.
To support the implementation of the Declaration throughout Australia, a Framework and Implementation Plan have been developed. These will translate the aspirational picture outlined in the Declaration into tangible actions over the course of the next 10 years.
As with the Declaration, the Framework and Implementation Plan are also based on five themes:
- Cultural strength
- Best practice
- Best evidence
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander presence
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership and influence.
Priorities and goals
The Framework and Implementation Plan outline strategies to be undertaken over the next 10 years, priority actions for the next year, and realistic goals for what will be achieved after 10 years, should all strategies and actions be implemented.
The Declaration and its Framework and Implementation Plan are key features of the system architecture to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ social and emotional wellbeing, mental health and prevent suicide.
The Implementation Plan is aligned with several other strategies and other key facets of the emerging system architecture, including:
- The National Agreement on Closing the Gap
- National Strategic Framework for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Mental Health and Social and Emotional Wellbeing 2017-23
- Social and Emotional Wellbeing Policy Partnership
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Workforce Strategy.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander presence and leadership in Australia’s mental health system is vital to achieving the highest standard of social and emotional wellbeing, mental health, and suicide prevention outcomes for our people.
In 2022, the rate of death by suicide for our men was 2.6 times higher than that of non-Indigenous males, and 2.5 times higher for our women. Reducing deaths by suicide and suicidal behaviour among our people, and ensuring high levels of social and emotional wellbeing, are issues of major concern – this work can’t wait.
Full implementation of the Declaration would reflect a fundamentally new way of providing mental health, social and emotional wellbeing, and suicide prevention services to our people.
As the recent Productivity Commission’s Review of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap found, we can’t keep making small tweaks to business-as-usual processes – we need to make substantive and systemic changes. Implementation of the Declaration is a great place to start, and we look forward to launching the Declaration Implementation Plan in the coming months.
Find out more about the Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Declaration at www.gayaadhuwi.org.au
Story of the artwork
Aunty Roma Winmar created the visual identity for the Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Declaration in 2015. The artist explains the work as “three tiers (starting from the bottom right hand corner) representing different people talking with each other, at various stages and on state, regional, national levels, about health, wellbeing, empowerment, and leadership. From there, it shows alliances and conversations with international community. It is about people coming together to find ways of understanding and acknowledging problems, and developing pathways and responses that lead to action that is practical, progressive, needs based, relevant to current situations, and that strengthens resilience and builds capacity in the collective: within the structure of the community.”
(A section of the art work is displayed in the feature image above, which was published with permission.)
Webinar details
Register here for the webinar.
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