Capacity building as a community development approach
Disparities in health and wellbeing of the Australian indigenous population are constantly widening in recent era. Therefore, addressing inequality has been a challenge in Australia. The common instances are limited access to basic resources, shorter Life expectancy and high prevalence of chronic diseases (DeCorby-Watson et al., 2018). The life expectancy is approximately 17 years lower amongst aboriginal individuals from Torres Strait Island compared to non-indigenous population (AIHW, 2020). In community level, experience of disparities in terms of health and basic resources amongst aboriginal population are originated from the intergenerational trauma and racial discrimination. Hence, experience of social economic disadvantage and disparities are evident in all areas of slide such as education, health and employment (Ewen, Ryan, and Platania-Phung, 2019). In this context, capacity building has been one of the widely used approach in Australia to support indigenous population. The paper aims to discuss capacity building, importance in aboriginal community, current experience of colonization and community development plan to support the population in the following paragraphs.
Community development as a process by which community members take collective action to address the solution against common problems that arise within the community (DeCorby-Watson et al., 2018). Therefore, it is a all-inclusive approach that is grounded in significant five principles. Capacity building have been chosen as the principles that will be discussed to address disadvantages experienced by aboriginal Australian or first nation individuals (Hilbers et al., 2018). Capacity building is a community development approach that focuses on strengthening skills, ability and process of the community in order to live a purposeful life collectively. In other words, community building approaches purposefully reduce the over Reliance on the outside sources of knowledge, skills and strategies in order to resolve the community issue (Crawford et al.,2016). Hence, capacity building is the fundamental foundation of community development that encourages local individuals to focus on their personal skills. The major outcome of the capacity building is to improve the ability and self-efficacy of the community members to take control over their local community issues (Crawford et al.,2016). Hence, it is recognized as a beneficial system to support aboriginal Australian community.
Building capacity amongst first Nation individuals is a potential strategy to minimize global burden of chronic disease and higher prevalence of premature death. Compared to other principles of community development, Capacity Building” was a more targeted scheme that supported the aboriginal population because capacity building supported community members and families to gain skills to have greater control over issues (Ewen, Ryan, and Platania-Phung, 2019). Pearson et al. (2020), reported that Aboriginal populations tend to exhibit Limited awareness regarding their health and wellbeing, low help seeking behaviour in mainstream clinical services. The barrier of gaining awareness and limited participation are routed in intergenerational trauma experienced during colonization and current racial discrimination (McNamara et al.,2018). Since concept of health and wellbeing in the first national population are shaped by their kinship, connection with the community and land, limited resources and trauma associated with colonization reduce research participation and community development (Chenhall & Senior, 2018). In this case, capacity building is specifically important for first nation individual because capacity building take whole system approach such as accommodating diversity within the community, reducing barriers to participation ( lack of cultural values and racial discrimination), enabling collaboration, networking and collaborating with external stakeholders to address issues in social determinants of health ((Ewen, Ryan & Platania-Phung, 2019).
Importance of capacity building for first nation individual
Inequalities experienced by first Nation individuals primarily resulted from interconnected historical cultural and political environments. The inequalities stem from the disempowering history experienced by the indigenous population in the 19th century (Snijder,2013). Bradford (2020), highlighted that due to assimilation policy and white colonization, Indigenous populations were forced to abide by the white people’s laws and a significant number of children were removed from the families to learn non indigenous cultural values (Snijder,2013). The adults and other first Nation populations were forcibly removed from their own land to which they have a strong spiritual connection and they were excluded from basic resources (voting, health care, pension, housing and water sanitation). Such elimination subjected the population to significant distress, violence and grief. Intergenerational trauma is present in aboriginal community as a part of ongoing impacts of colonization (Fisher et al., 2019). Such impact of Intergenerational trauma and daily experience of discrimination in terms of social determinants of health are reflected in health, education or Employment ((McNamara et al.,2018). Indigenous Australians continue to face interpersonal and institutional racism which is reflected in exclusion from economic and land ownership opportunities. The current social policies are developed without considering the cultural values of indigenous population and hence, educational curriculum and health care have limited indigenous specific opportunities (Fisher et al.,2019). For example, Markwick et al.(2019), suggested that 97% of Indigenous experienced racism and many of them are living in households with income less than $40,000. On the other hand, Indigenous adults employment rate is currently dropped from 54% to 49% in 2019 with 27% gap in employment between non indigenous and indigenous population (AIHW, 2021).. Similarly, health inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous is approximately 39% and it is reflected in other social determinants of health (AIHW, 2020). On the other hand, 48% of the children drop out from the school due to lack of recognition Indigenous culture by the school curriculum, ongoing socioeconomic disadvantage, frequent health problems and lack of engagement of parents in the school. All of these statistical data indicated on going racial discrimination in terms of health, education or Employment which further create disparities between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous population in Australia.
As discussed above, First nation individuals primarily experience low educational attainment which are rooted in lack of recognition Indigenous culture by the school curriculum, ongoing socioeconomic disadvantage, frequent health problems and lack of engagement of parents (Hancock et al., 2018). In this case, in order to address gap in educational attainment between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous population, connected beginning is one such program that can be considered. Connected beginning is the community development holistic approach to child development that aims to support Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children in Australia. Hence, it is highly relevant to support educational attainment of aboriginal children to include indigenous culture and history within the curriculum (through integrated engagement with key educators and indigenous workers) (Hancock et al., 2018). The common ramifications of high educational dropout level in Australia are higher rate of drug and alcohol abuse, greater level of depression and greater likelihood of pregnancy (Boyle & Anderson, 2020). In this context, the program uses a collective impact approach which bring the community in a structured way because program worked closely with the aboriginal population to identify early childhood priority for the change (Thrive by Five, 2022). This program specifically focused on health and education because the services primarily include early childhood support, family support, maternal and child health, preschool support. The government agencies and councils work with the children and family to ensure timely access of the education, cultural safety and families with support. Apart from education, midwives are also involved in the program to support pregnant Indigenous women as well as Indigenous children from birth to school age (Hancock et al., 2018). Every year, approximately $12 million are invested by the federal government for supporting early childhood, child health and mental health (Australian Government, 2022). . Connected Beginning is one such program that facilitates greater integration of services. On the other hand, for the program expansion, $81.8 million is contributed by the Australian Government in August 2021 in order to support expansion of the Connected Beginnings to 50 sites nationally (Australian Government, 2022). The program is currently successful for addressing the educational needs of an extra 8,550 children in communities across Australia (Thrive by Five, 2022). The additional benefits of the program are safety, readiness for the schooling and additional resources. Hence, it adopted capacity building and investment by including local people of the first national population of Australia in order to improve educational attainment followed by employment in Australia.
Inequalities experienced by first Nation individuals
Conclusion:
Addressing inequality is a standing challenge in Australia. Inequalities experienced by first Nation individuals primarily resulted from interconnected historical cultural and political environments .The inequalities stem from the disempowering history experienced by the indigenous population in the 19th century. Indigenous Australians continue to face interpersonal and institutional racism which is reflected in exclusion from economic and land ownership opportunities. The educational attainment is one such response of racial discrimination. In this case, connected beginning is one such program that can be considered to address low educational attainment. The program is currently successful for addressing the educational needs of an extra 8,550 children in communities across Australia. Nationally, this program are expanded in 50 sites of Australia to support education and health. It will reduce health disparities and provide them with the quality of life.
References:
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