ATSI Health Readings

Week 1 - Tutorial Notes

• Assessment 1 - Cadmus Essay 600 words (20%) Due Friday Week 3 (7th March), needs at least 2 peer reviewed articles as references. Choose an Aboriginal Community controlled health service and how it works (give an intro with the name, services provided, history of the service, and include a response to the following questions within the essay):

  • Why is there a need for an aboriginal community controlled health service

  • Services include things along with primary care services. Why are these important?

  • What is a nurse’s role within these community controlled health services?

  • Consider a familiar mainstream service, what are some of the differences you can think of between mainstream health services and the aboriginal community controlled health service you have chosen?

• Assessment 2 - 1200 word Reflection (40%). Reflect on your experience of undertaking this course and how this experience and your learning will inform your nursing practice. Use the Gibbs reflective cycle as a framework to describe your experience, share your feelings/thoughts about the experience, analyse/make sense of the experience, form a conclusion about what you have learned and what you could have done differently, create an action plan for how you may implement what you have learned in your nursing practice

  • Describing how you feel about something in in particular, both the good and the bad things (eg. you can write about a particular aspect of the stolen generations that has stuck with you/made you think)

Week 2 Reading: The importance of local history for nurses: an Aboriginal Australian micro-history

• Listening to individuals recall their life experiences informs assessment, diagnosis, and the development of treatment plans

• Aboriginal Australians experiences the trauma of colonial frontier wars, stolen land and stolen children, along with systemic racism and discrimination that excluded them from Australia’s national constitution, and not having the right to vote until 1967

• Following the invasion of NSW in 1788 and subsequent colonisation, Aboriginal Australian warriors like Pemulwuy and Cannabayagal fought back by raiding British farms and engaging in battles known as the Frontier Wars. When Cannabayagal was killed, he was beheaded and his head sold to a young Scottish naval surgeon Dr. Patrick Hill for thirty shillings and a gallon of rum. The head was de-fleshed and preserved in alcohol during the voyage back to England

• Phrenology promoted the idea that the shape of a person’s skull could be used to make generalisations about the content of their personality and the characteristics of the race that they were a member of.

• Historical trauma - Refers to past events that leave a long-lasting impression on whole communities. It’s widespread in nature, its traumatic events lead to collective suffering and it is perpetrated with malicious intent, impacting group dynamics within families and communities

• Greater awareness of historical trauma, like that experiences by Aboriginal Australians, may position nurses to develop a trauma-informed approach that assists individuals and communities

Week 3 Readings

• Common triggers for Stolen Generations survivors include reminders of childhood trauma, like being touched without permission, clinical settings resembling a dormitory/institution, situations resembling a lack of control experienced on forced removal, authoritative tone of voice