Background The capacity of the Indigenous primary healthcare (PHC) sector to continue playing a crucial role in meeting the health needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is in large part reliant on the skills, motivation and experience of its workforce. While exhibiting many workforce strengths, the sector faces significant challenges in building and maintaining a strong and stable workforce. Drawing on data from one Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service (ACCHS), this study reports what is working well and what could be improved to strengthen the Indigenous PHC sector workforce.Methods Using grounded theory methods, interviews with 17 ACCHS staff from a range of organisational positions were transcribed, coded and analysed. This paper focuses on the strategies identified that contribute towards strengthening the Indigenous PHC workforce.Results Four overarching strategies for Indigenous PHC workforce strengthening were identified. These were Strengthening Workforce Stability, Having Strong Leadership, Growing Capacity, and Working Well Together . A range of enabling factors at the macro, community, organisational and individual levels were also identified.Conclusion Indigenous PHC services are already implementing many important workforce-development strategies that are having a positive impact on the sector. There are also several persistent challenges which need to be addressed through action at organisational and structural levels. Approaches to workforce strengthening in Indigenous PHC should be tailored to local needs to ensure they address the unique workforce challenges experienced in different contexts.

Background The capacity of the Indigenous primary healthcare (PHC) sector to continue playing a crucial role in meeting the health needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is in large part reliant on the skills, motivation and experience of its workforce. While exhibiting many workforce strengths, the sector faces significant challenges in building and maintaining a strong and stable workforce. Drawing on data from one Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service (ACCHS), this study reports what is working well and what could be improved to strengthen the Indigenous PHC sector workforce.Methods Using grounded theory methods, interviews with 17 ACCHS staff from a range of organisational positions were transcribed, coded and analysed. This paper focuses on the strategies identified that contribute towards strengthening the Indigenous PHC workforce.Results Four overarching strategies for Indigenous PHC workforce strengthening were identified. These were Strengthening Workforce Stability, Having Strong Leadership, Growing Capacity, and Working Well Together . A range of enabling factors at the macro, community, organisational and individual levels were also identified.Conclusion Indigenous PHC services are already implementing many important workforce-development strategies that are having a positive impact on the sector. There are also several persistent challenges which need to be addressed through action at organisational and structural levels. Approaches to workforce strengthening in Indigenous PHC should be tailored to local needs to ensure they address the unique workforce challenges experienced in different contexts.

Background: The capacity of the Indigenous primary healthcare (PHC) sector to continue playing a crucial role in meeting the health needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is in large part reliant on the skills, motivation and experience of its workforce. While exhibiting many workforce strengths, the sector faces significant challenges in building and maintaining a strong and stable workforce. Drawing on data from one Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service (ACCHS), this study reports what is working well and what could be improved to strengthen the Indigenous PHC sector workforce. Methods: Using grounded theory methods, interviews with 17 ACCHS staff from a range of organisational positions were transcribed, coded and analysed. This paper focuses on the strategies identified that contribute towards strengthening the Indigenous PHC workforce. Results: Four overarching strategies for Indigenous PHC workforce strengthening were identified. These were Strengthening Workforce Stability, Having Strong Leadership, Growing Capacity, and Working Well Together. A range of enabling factors at the macro, community, organisational and individual levels were also identified. Conclusion: Indigenous PHC services are already implementing many important workforce-development strategies that are having a positive impact on the sector. There are also several persistent challenges which need to be addressed through action at organisational and structural levels. Approaches to workforce strengthening in Indigenous PHC should be tailored to local needs to ensure they address the unique workforce challenges experienced in different contexts.

Background Primary healthcare services have principal responsibility for providing child and youth wellbeing and mental health services, but they have lacked appropriate measurement instruments to assess the wellbeing of Indigenous children and youth or to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and health service initiatives designed to address their needs. This literature review was conceived and conducted to respond to this identified need by assessing the availability and characteristics of measurement instruments that have been applied in primary healthcare services in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and the United States (CANNZUS countries) to assess the wellbeing of Indigenous children and youth. Wellbeing was defined as a relational phenomenon encompassing individual, collective, cultural and spiritual domains. Method 15 databases and 12 websites were searched in December 2017 and again in October 2021. Pre-defined search terms pertained to Indigenous children and youth, CANNZUS country names, wellbeing measurement, and primary healthcare services. PRISMA guidelines were followed, with eligibility criteria guiding screening of titles and abstracts, and selected full-text papers. Documented measurement instruments were then categorised according to four criteria that were deemed most likely to represent Indigenous child and youth experiences of wellbeing: adherence to relational strength-based constructs of Indigenous wellbeing, development for Indigenous populations, administration by child/youth self-report, and reliability and validity. Results 17 publications (nine studies) were found, that described the development and/or use by primary healthcare services of 14 measurement instruments, employed across 27 applications. Four/14 measurement instruments focused solely on strength-based wellbeing concepts but none included all Indigenous wellbeing domains, four were developed specifically for Indigenous populations, six were administered through child/youth self-report, and 11 were reliable and valid. Discussion The measurement instrument that most closely adhered to our desirability criteria was the Canadian Aboriginal Children’s Health and Well-Being Measure (ACHWM). Other measurement instruments rated with 2–3 desirability criteria were the Children’s Global Assessment Scale (C-GAS), Outcome Rating Scale (ORS), Session Rating Scale (SRS), Strong Souls, Westerman Aboriginal Symptoms Checklist Youth (WASC-Y) and the YouthCHAT. This review supports several Australian research studies that are currently underway to develop measures/ screening tools to assess the wellbeing of Indigenous adolescents.