Closing the gap between rhetoric and practice in strengths‐based approaches to Indigenous public health: a qualitative study

Abstract

Objective: To understand strengths‐based practice as articulated by urban Indigenous community workers and to consider its application for public health approaches to Australian Indigenous health advancement. Methods: Semi‐structured interviews with community workers from an urban Indigenous community. Interviews were video and audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using thematic analysis, using an Indigenist research framework. Results: For our participants (11 Indigenous and one non‐Indigenous), a strengths‐based approach was fundamental to their practice. This approach reconfigured the usual relationship of client and service provider to fellow community member. They understood the strength of Indigeneity that empowers individuals and communities. They were not blinkered to the challenges in the community but resisted defining themselves, their community or their community practice by these deficits. Conclusions: Our participants had a sophisticated experiential understanding that a strengths‐based practice is not simply a ‘culturally acceptable’ way for non‐Indigenous peoples to work for Indigenous peoples, but rather it is the only way of working with Indigenous people. Implications for public health: Strengths‐based practice requires a reconfiguring of relationships of power, of attending to structure over stereotypes, and privileging Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. This reconfiguration is an ethical prerequisite for an approach that is genuinely strengths‐based.

Allied health service–learning student placements in remote northern Australia during COVID‐19

“…NARN has been active in networking, championing and researching service‐learning student placements. Based on the principles of community co‐design to ensure community needs are central and Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing are privileged, 13 NARN‐championed services have focused on four strength‐based themes: children developing well, young people growing up well, adults staying strong, and older people ageing well in place. Underlying these themes are the IAHA and community partnerships to ensure that culturally safe and responsive practice is prioritised 14,15 .…”

First Nations Peoples’ Participation in the Development of Population-Wide Food and Nutrition Policy in Australia: A Political Economy and Cultural Safety Analysis

“…73 It has been suggested that governments resist giving greater power to Aboriginal people as this could destabilise entrenched colonial ideas and practices. 74 Furthermore, Aboriginal peoples' "ideas" may not fit with "needs" as defined by Western policy-makers. 75 Aboriginal organisations frequently recommended structural and environmental strategies in their consultation submissions, but policy documents were more likely to recommend behavioural approaches.…”

“They Were Willing to Work with Me and Not Pressure Me”: A Qualitative Investigation into the Features of Value of a Smoking Cessation in Pregnancy Program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women

“…A strengths-based approach provides an alternate paradigm for considering and addressing smoking cessation during pregnancy for Indigenous women [20][21][22]. Here, deficit views of Indigenous people's health and wellbeing that are all too common in mainstream health promotion [23] are replaced with recognition and place for the inherent strength of Indigeneity in providing a solid foundation from which smoking cessation programs can be built.…”