Supporting the Aboriginal alcohol and other drug workforce in New South Wales, Australia

Lee, K. S. Kylie; Freeburn, Bradley; Ella, Steve; Wilson, Scott; Harrison, Kristie; McEwan, Monique; Conigrave, Katherine M.

doi:10.1111/dar.12465

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Being always visible, and working seamlessly, does create an emotional burden for Marlene who finds it hard to stop worrying about her clients overnight. Not being able to turn off from work has been recognised as a contributing factor to burn out [62] and while Marlene identifies this as a challenge for her she also had established strategies that prevented her from being overwhelmed completely by the emotional burden of her work.…”

Section: The Feeling Of Always Being Visible To Community As a Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

“My work? Well, I live it and breathe it”: The seamless connect between the professional and personal/community self in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector

Dickson

2020

BMC Health Serv Res

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Background Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health professionals often juggle the challenges of working and living in the same community in ways that are positive for both themselves and their clients. This study specifically examines the strategies Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health professionals have developed to enable them to feel empowered by the sense of being always visible or perceived as being always available. Findings provide examples of how participants (Team Members) established a seamless working self, including how they often held different perspectives to many work colleagues, how Team Members were always visible to community and how Team Members were comfortable to be seen as working when not at work. Methods This qualitative study engages an Indigenous research methodology and uses an Indigenous method, PhotoYarning, to explore lived experiences of a group (n = 15) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers as they worked in the Australian health sector. Results The analysis presented here comes from data generated through PhotoYarning sessions. Team Members in this study all work in health care settings in the communities in which they also live, they manage an extremely complex network of interactions and relationships in their daily working lives. They occupy an ambivalent, and sometimes ambiguous, position as representing both their health profession and their community. This article explores examples of what working with seamlessness involved, with findings citing four main themes: (1) Being fellow members of their cultural community, (2) the feeling of always being visible to community as a health worker, (3) the feeling of always being available as a health worker to community even when not at work and (4) the need to set an example. Conclusions While creating the seamlessness of working and living in the same community was not easy, Team Members considered it an important feature of the work they did and vital if they were to be able to provide quality health service to their community. However, they reported that the seamless working self was at odds with the way many of their non-Indigenous Australian colleagues worked and it was not well understood.

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Section: The Feeling Of Always Being Visible To Community As a Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

“My work? Well, I live it and breathe it”: The seamless connect between the professional and personal/community self in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector

Dickson

2020

BMC Health Serv Res

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“…The trial will provide several hard copy and electronic resources for free to services (ie, the Handbook for Aboriginal Alcohol and Drug Work,45 Alcohol Awareness Kit46 and Quick Reference Guide to the Treatment of Alcohol Problems47).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supporting Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services to deliver alcohol care: protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial

et al. 2019

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IntroductionIndigenous peoples who have experienced colonisation or oppression can have a higher prevalence of alcohol-related harms. In Australia, Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs) offer culturally accessible care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) peoples. However there are many competing health, socioeconomic and cultural client needs.Methods and analysisA randomised cluster wait-control trial will test the effectiveness of a model of tailored and collaborative support for ACCHSs in increasing use of alcohol screening (with Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Consumption (AUDIT-C)) and of treatment provision (brief intervention, counselling or relapse prevention medicines).SettingTwenty-two ACCHSs across Australia.RandomisationServices will be stratified by remoteness, then randomised into two groups. Half receive support soon after the trial starts (intervention or ‘early support’); half receive support 2 years later (wait-control or ‘late support’).The supportCore support elements will be tailored to local needs and include: support to nominate two staff as champions for increasing alcohol care; a national training workshop and bimonthly teleconferences for service champions to share knowledge; onsite training, and bimonthly feedback on routinely collected data on screening and treatment provision.Outcomes and analysisPrimary outcome is use of screening using AUDIT-C as routinely recorded on practice software. Secondary outcomes are recording of brief intervention, counselling, relapse prevention medicines; and blood pressure, gamma glutamyltransferase and HbA1c. Multi-level logistic regression will be used to test the effectiveness of support.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval has been obtained from eight ethics committees: the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of New South Wales (1217/16); Central Australian Human Research Ethics Committee (CA-17-2842); Northern Territory Department of Health and Menzies School of Health Research (2017-2737); Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service (17/QCQ/9); Far North Queensland (17/QCH/45-1143); Aboriginal Health Research Ethics Committee, South Australia (04-16-694); St Vincent’s Hospital (Melbourne) Human Research Ethics Committee (LRR 036/17); and Western Australian Aboriginal Health Ethics Committee (779).Trial registration numberACTRN12618001892202; Pre-results.

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“…The App was designed to replicate a conversational interviewing style that is used by experienced Aboriginal health professionals, 8 and was recommended for interactions with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals in national alcohol treatment guidelines. 11 The App asks the respondents questions in plain English, 12 and male and female voiceover options are available in both English and a First Nations Australian language (Pitjantjatjara). 8 Images are used to help depict realistic pictures of people drinking.…”

Section: Re‐thinking How We Ask About Drinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deeper understandings of patterns of drinking among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians: Informing policy and practice

Lee

Conigrave

Wilson

et al. 2023

Health Prom J of Aust

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Supporting the Aboriginal alcohol and other drug workforce in New South Wales, Australia

Cited by 6 publications

References 5 publications

“My work? Well, I live it and breathe it”: The seamless connect between the professional and personal/community self in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector

“My work? Well, I live it and breathe it”: The seamless connect between the professional and personal/community self in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector

Supporting Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services to deliver alcohol care: protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial

Deeper understandings of patterns of drinking among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians: Informing policy and practice

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