Review of the Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm Healing Framework and the ACT Treaty Living Web
ACT Government
Who funded the project
Karabena Consulting was engaged to test the synergies between the United Ngunnawal Elders Council (UNEC) work on the ACT Treaty, the ACT Treaty Living Web, and the Healing Framework to be implemented at the Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm (NBHF).
The Healing Foundation developed an evidence-informed Healing Framework focused on providing a complementary culturally focused program that specifically addresses historical trauma while promoting cultural determinants of health and wellbeing. The program focus is to complement, rather than co-opt or replace existing models of care based on seven principles:
Reconnecting
Safety
Empathy
Engagement
Trust
Peaceful
Care
The United Ngunnawal Elders Council (UNEC) led the consultation on establishing Treaty for Ngunnawal people in the ACT. The Treaty is an ‘ongoing’ process of choice to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities can meet their social, cultural, and economic needs particularly around:
Housing
Health and wellbeing
Intergenerational wealth, and
Institutional representation
The Ngunnawal ‘Living Web’ is made up of elements that can be activated in ways that support the delivery of a person-centred healing strategy that recognises different people have different healing needs. These elements include:
Housing
Employment
Education
Youth
Justice
Health
Culture
Aged Care
To ensure synergies between these Ngunnawal-led pieces of work, Karabena Consulting undertook a review of the NBHF framework, mapped it against our cultural safety tool, then matched this body of work to the Treaty aspirations in the region.
We provided the following recommendations based on our review:
Enacting a protocol to ensure the Healing Framework contributes toward improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patient experience.
Activating measures to record cultural safety, access to services, the impact of trauma-informed processes, treatment, and discharge strategies.
Establishing an accessible and culturally safe patient complaints and dispute processes.
Ongoing monitoring of policies and procedures during implementation.
Summary
The primary aim of this project was to make recommendations to the NBHF Management Board to accept and progress the implementation of the Healing Framework as the basis for the operating model of the NBHF.
Project Aims
To complete this project, Karabena Consulting:
Conducted a systematic review of the Healing Framework and the Treaty work in the ACT.
Completed a cultural safety analysis using a KCT developed tool specifically for use within hospitals, clinical and therapeutic services.
Co-designed consultations with the ACT Government and the NBHF Management Committee.
Methodologies
The key outputs for this project were:
A review document for the Board of Management that outlined the purpose and the methodologies used to develop the review including testing synergies between Ngunnawal Treaty and NBHF assets.
A series of recommendations that could enhance the positive impact of the operating model.
Outputs
The project led to the adoption of a Healing Framework that supports:
Safety in cultural knowledge for staff.
Engagement in rehabilitation with pride and purpose for clients.
Adequate advice around protocols, partnership and programs that facilitate healing.
Access to specialists through the Indigenous Procurement Policy.
Advocacy for best practice and systems improvements.
Project Outcomes
Trauma Informed, Healing, Implementation, Cultural safety, Rehabilitation, Cultural strengthening, Employee wellbeing, vicarious trauma, healing informed recovery.