Discussion paper: Cultural Safety in Australia
Lowitja Institute recently published a new discussion paper that highlights the critical need to improve access to quality healthcare, addressing the social determinants of health, and elevating the importance of the cultural determinants of health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Authored by Adjunct Professor Janine Mohamed, Kathleen Stacey, Professor Catherine Chamberlain, and Professor Naomi Priest, the discussion paper is the culmination of three phases or work that begun in 2010 when the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) initiated a project to create national cultural safety training standards, known as the NACCHO Cultural Safety Training (CST) Standards initiative.
The purpose of embedding cultural safety at individual and institutional levels in practice and policy is to achieve justice and equity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across health and human services; preferably, in all life contexts. A critical step to achieving this outcome is developing a shared understanding of cultural safety through high-quality training for all people leading and/or working in health and human services.
The purpose of our paper is to propose recommended and nationally consistent standards, set a platform for the accreditation of workplace-based cultural safety training, and propose further action that can lead to cultural safety being embedded and measured at individual and institutional levels in practice and policy across health and human services.
