Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples' health

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as Australia's First Peoples, have lived on and cared for the land for millennia. Their view of health is holistic: it reaches beyond one person's physical state to the community's social, emotional and cultural wellbeing as a whole, looks at life in its entirety and holds a cyclical understanding in which life, death and life follow one another. Psychologists are expected to let an understanding of colonisation and its effect on health, and of the severe social and health inequity these communities carry, shape how they deliver services; that inequity is why cultural safety for these Peoples is addressed on its own.

• CPD entries for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, health and cultural safety training
• Client assessments recording social, emotional, family and community context for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients
• Referral relationships with local Aboriginal community controlled health organisations

• Cultural safety training done once and never refreshed
• Assessment confined to individual symptoms with no community or family context