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TRANSCRIPT
When Clinton Schultz signed up to study psychology more than 20 years ago, he found what he was being taught was consistently at odds with his understanding of well-being.
"I made university quite difficult for myself because I did choose to, I guess, raise the discomfort that I had with a lot of what was being taught in the program that I'd chosen to undertake. So at that stage, so we're talking over 20 years ago, there was very little cultural responsiveness within psychology, particularly the way that it was taught at universities. And so I was constantly battling with my lecturers and with the university around what we were being taught and how I didn't see it as applicable to working with my own mob."
The Gomeroi Gamilaroi man is now a registered psychologist, and the Director of First Nations Strategy and Partnerships with Black Dog Institute.
He's one of a number of First Nations health advocates and practitioners presenting at a Preventative Mental Health Conference this week.
About a decade ago, he says he and other leading First Nations voices in the industry came together to develop a Social and Emotional Wellbeing framework led by First Nations wisdom and experience.
" In its first instance, we really developed that framework to help non-indigenous people understand an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspective of a more holistic wellbeing concept. But since then, it's been really beneficial to many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for them to be able to work with their own mobs and to better explain their understandings with their employers and with their organizations."
He says it aims to offer a new model of understanding wellbeing which reflects the depth, complexity and connectedness of First Nations ways of knowing, being and doing.
"So it highlights a bunch of the, I guess, different domains or elements that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have identified are important to them in terms of their overall sense of strong positive self. And they include things like connection to strong mind and body, connection to community, connection to family, connection to country, the environment, nature, connection to spirituality."
This model of Social and Emotional Wellbeing informed a training workshop which was held last year for a number of Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations.
Professor Pat Dudgeon, Director of the Centre of Best Practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention at the University of Western Australia, led the workshops.
The Bardi woman from the Kimberley was Australia’s first Aboriginal psychologist and has become a significant leader in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing.
Speaking at the Preventative Mental Health Conference, Professor Dudgeon says the training aimed to address critical gaps in how mental health is talked about and understood.
"When we were doing work with some of the Aboriginal medical services is that sometimes our people don't know, intuitively they know what a social and most wellbeing is, but they haven't had an opportunity to articulate it, to think about it. So they know Western ways is not fitting. And so we decided that we probably needed to do some training."
First Nations health advocates say the latest report on Closing the Gap Targets shows traditional approaches to mental health are clearly not working.
The report released last month found just four of the nineteen targets are on track.
Among those targets Australia is failing to meet, the country is moving backward when it comes to reducing suicide rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people , which are now more than three times higher than for non-Indigenous Australians.
Mr Schultz says there's huge need for broader and deeper understandings of wellness, including the way that past and ongoing trauma continue to impact Abroiginal and Torres Strait Islander people's wellbeing.
"And part of that is about understanding that as Aboriginal peoples, we've always had an understanding of cell memory. Many people will yarn about it in terms of the soul and the soul being all that memory that's held in ourselves, all that epigenetic and genetic memory that's held in ourselves. So the information from the past that they carry with us and what it is that we do today that continues to write that narrative into the cells that we then share and take forward."
Angela Jackson, Social Policy Commissioner at the Productivity Commission, says there has been a growing understanding in recent years that preventative mental health support is essential to improve mental health outcomes in Australia.
But, she says this hasn't coincided with strong and effective government investment in what's proven to work.
"Everyone sort of accepts that if you invest earlier or stop problems are happening, then that can save money and improve outcomes and improve people's lives. Yet we see continually an underinvestment in prevention across the board and across different areas of policy, including mental health. So last year, the Productivity Commission was asked to look at what things it could do or what things the government could do to lift productivity across the care sector. And the thing that we really focused on was, well, how do we lift this investment in prevention across the board?”
She says the Productivity Commission came up with a National Prevention and Early Intervention Framework, which aims to clearly capture the benefits of investing in prevention and early intervention.
Ms Jackson says the framework shows there are clear long-term financial benefits.
"And at the Productivity Commission, we're interested in this for a number of reasons, but it does have an economic dimension to it. We put that figure in terms of the cost of poor mental health in Australia at around $200 billion per year back in our 2020 report. And that there is no doubt that given what has occurred over the last five years, that that number is now much, much higher."
She says the hope is, if governments can clearly see these benefits, they will be far more likely to make important investments in much-needed preventative health.
Ms Dudgeon and Mr Schultz both stress how important a holistic understanding of First Nations wellbeing must be in shaping new approaches to preventative mental health programs, services and outcomes.
Mr Schultz says there's a need for a new system that listens and responds to First Nations wisdom.
"Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practitioners in the mental health space is still heavily governed by non-indigenous systems. And there can be conflicts and contradictions that can be quite tiring and challenging for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practitioners, and just generally Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who work in the health and community services kind of space. So we still do experience high levels of burnout amongst our workforce, and a lot of that is from the colonial load that we still are faced with day-to-day."
Readers seeking support can ring Lifeline crisis support on 13 11 14 or text 0477 13 11 14, visit lifeline.org.au or find an Aboriginal Medical Service here. Resources for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders can be found at Headspace: Yarn Safe.
