Western Health Aboriginal Health Cultural Safety Plan 2019 – 2021 Review

Karabena Consulting came highly recommended from other health organisations and they did not disappoint!

Kerry and her colleagues were easy to work with and provided timely, effective communication with our organisation.  COVID made engaging with our staff, patients, families and stakeholders challenging, however, they worked around these obstacles creatively.  Karabena Consulting reviewed Western Health’s existing Cultural Safety Plan and engaged Western Health’s patients, people and community to collect feedback and provide robust recommendations to inform our Cultural Safety Plan 2022– 2025.

Tanya Druce (she/her)
Manager Aboriginal Health, Policy and Planning

Western Health

Who funded the project

 

Karabena Consulting was engaged by Western Health to review the impact of Western Health’s Aboriginal Health Cultural Safety Plan 2019 -2021, the Western Health Aboriginal Employment Plan 2019 – 2021, and relevant policies to provide recommendations for the development of the Western Health Aboriginal Health Cultural Safety Plan 2022 – 2025.

To complete this project, Karabena Consulting:

  • Held consultations with stakeholders

  • Reviewed the Western Health Aboriginal Health Cultural Safety Plan 2019 – 2021, Western Health Aboriginal Employment Plan 2019 – 2021 and relevant policies; and

  • Submitted a report to Western Health documenting the findings of the reviews and consultations, and recommendations to inform the Western Health Aboriginal Health Cultural Safety Plan 2022 – 2025.

Summary

 

The aim of this project was to review the impact of Western Health’s Aboriginal Health Cultural Safety Plan 2019 – 2021 and the Western Health Aboriginal Employment Plan 2019 – 2021, and undertake consultations with relevant stakeholders to inform the development of the next iteration.

Project Aims

 

To complete this project, Karabena Consulting:

  • Held consultations with:

    • Western Health staff across all sites

    • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients/clients of Western Health and their families

    • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community representatives from the regions serviced by Western Health

    • Local Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations

  • Reviewed the Western Health Aboriginal Health Cultural Safety Plan 2019 – 2021, Western Health Aboriginal Employment Plan 2019 – 2021 and relevant policies. These were assessed against a nationally benchmarked Cultural Audit Tool developed by Karabena Consulting

Methodologies

 

The following outputs were produced:

  • An internal consultation report documenting the findings of the reviews and consultations, and recommendations to inform the Western Health Aboriginal Health Cultural Safety Plan 2022 – 2025

  • A summary report

Outputs

 

Western Health announced their Aboriginal Health and Cultural Safety Plan 2022-2025, which draws from the consultations undertaken by Karabena Consulting. The new plan focuses on:

  • ‘building a culturally-capable workforce;

  • ensuring healthcare systems are responsive to Aboriginal people’s cultural knowledge, beliefs and values; and

  • supporting a well-resourced Indigenous health workforce and creating physically welcoming spaces.’

Public response

 

Aboriginal Health Cultural Safety Plan 2019 – 2021 Review

  • Our review found that COVID-19 impacted the capacity of Western Health to fully implement all strategies in the Cultural Safety Plan.

  • Staff and patients could not meet face-to-face to achieve goals that required face-to-face engagement.

  • Despite this, Western Health demonstrated improvements in their engagement with Aboriginal people across their sites and campuses.

  • Evidence shows a reportable positive link between cultural safety and health and wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients.

Aboriginal Employment Plan 2019 – 2021 Review

  • The Aboriginal Employment Plan has not been implemented, predominantly because there were no targets set in the Plan

  • To overcome this issue, we recommended:

  • Employment outcomes and SMART goals are used to measure the impact of Aboriginal employment, and

  • Combining the Cultural Safety and Aboriginal Employment Plan to develop a Western Health Cultural Safety and Aboriginal Employment Plan 2022 - 2025

Aboriginal Health Policy Review

Recommendations include that Western Health:

  • Commits to the inclusion of Torres Strait Islander people in its catchment area and more broadly in addition to its commitments to Aboriginal people to avoid inadvertent marginalisation of Torres Strait Islander people within their catchment area and across Melbourne.

  • Develops a Reconciliation Action Plan as a foundation for a commitment to co-design, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service users, of all policies intended to shape user experience of WH facilities.

  • Develops an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-specific meta policy and delineates between organisational and patient experience focused policy.

  • Commits to developing trauma-informed practice, policies and processes - particularly to reflect the lived experiences of Stolen Generations people who experience racism and who require healing as well as health services.

  • Commits to integrating access to cultural healing, healers and cultural practices in its facilities (including dying on Country, use and respect for cultural totems, traditional medicines, use of music in healing and so on) and articulates these methodologies in their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policies.

  • Reviews policies to support the greater inclusion of suitably qualified Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people within its key governance structures as an important part of securing culturally safe and otherwise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patient-centred care across its facilities.

  • Supports Wilim Berrbang to lead a process in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents, carers, families, children and young people are empowered to co-design a dedicated Western Health Child Safe Standards Implementation Plan for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in response to broader Child Safe Standards.

Findings from consultations

The consultations emphasised the importance of achieving Indigenous employment goals and targets, with a key recommendation that consideration be given to developing a Cultural Safety Monitoring and Evaluation Framework

Project Outcomes

 

Western Health; cultural safety; hospitals; policy audit; review; Aboriginal employment

Key Words

 
Peter Imboy