Cultural issues
Much has already been written about the inadequacy of the NT Emergency Response teams’ cultural awareness and ignorance of cultural protocols. Menzies has had anecdotal feedback that:
- The NT Emergency teams often did not consult with Indigenous community health clinics whose staff know the situation and the people on the ground; and hence ignored the valuable experience that could have been of assistance;
- Some staff were poached from the Indigenous community health clinics for the NT Emergency Response resulting in lowered capacity of the very organisations that will inevitably play an important role in future treatment and prevention;
- Anecdotal information has been received of many incidents of cultural protocols not being observed.
“The teams (conducting health checks) received two days of orientation when they arrived in the Northern Territory, including cultural awareness training…..” (Progress report p2 emphasis added). This is clearly inadequate.
In Menzies’ growing experience designing research and training programs in partnership with Indigenous communities, culturally appropriate communication is essential not only as a mark of respect but as an instrumental means for vastly improving the implementation and outputs of research and practice. Menzies has prepared a publication Cultural Protocols for Working in Aboriginal Communities (in press) which outlines steps to enhance cooperation with sensitive communication between visitors, workers, Aboriginal communities and family groups.
This information helps build positive, long term relationships, assist with project development and bring benefits to both project managers and Aboriginal people. In addition, Menzies runs Doing It Right workshops which cover the above Protocols in the morning and Cultural Protocols for Healing Aboriginal People in a White Man’s Health System in the afternoon. As the title suggests, the afternoon session trains white people to work with Indigenous people coming into town from the communities for health-related reasons.
In summary, cultural awareness and preparation and use of cultural protocols were inadequate in the early stages of the NT Emergency Response and should be a priority in future plans.