The experience of isolated practice for Indigenous mental health and addictions workers

Abstract

Background

In Australia, the gap in mental health and addictions outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is well documented. The integration of Indigenous mental health and addictions (IMHA) workers into mainstream mental health services has been adopted to provide more culturally appropriate services, and address health disparities. However, processes for utilizing the role and strategies for supporting this workforce are unclear. This study aimed to understand the experiences of IMHA workers in two Metropolitan Hospital and Health Services (HHSs) to assist in the development of policy and workforce support strategies.

Methodology

In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with IMHA workers (n = 17) and analyzed thematically.

Results

The IMHA workforce is extremely valuable, but complex, and confronted by challenging systemic barriers. Experiences of isolation, lack of cultural safety, and limits on practice are common. This situation creates difficulty for the IMHA workers and undermines their effectiveness to work in ways preferred by the IMHA workers.

Conclusion

Enhancing cultural safety for the IMHA workforce is a crucial precursor to achieving culturally appropriate service provision for Indigenous consumers. The interaction of cultural safety for IMHA workers with consumer outcomes and experiences is an important area for future research.

Keywords:

• Indigenous health workers
• Indigenous mental health and addictions workers
• Aboriginal Australians
• health care delivery
• cultural competence
• Australia
• culturally appropriate methods
• Indigenous health services
• Indigenous approaches to health
• structural racism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data related to this article cannot be made publicly available due to the consent not being obtained for this purpose.

Notes

1 For the purposes of this article, we respectfully use the term Indigenous rather than Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander or other terms, such as First Peoples, First Australians, or First Nations, to refer to peoples who are descendants of the original inhabitants of Australia. We have chosen this term because it has been used by the services involved in the study. We acknowledge the distinct history, culture, and heterogeneous nature of different clans and communities and do not intend to minimize those differences.