Background of the NSW Aboriginal Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy
For this essay, the selected policy is the “NSW Aboriginal Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2020 to 2025” (Health.nsw.gov.au, 2020). NSW government stated that it is a priority for them to improve the mental health and wellbeing of Aboriginal communities across the different states. Plan for the year 2020 to 2025 will help the NSW Health services to effectively embed the strategies directions and actions for accomplishing the goal of ensuring proper mental wellbeing to aboriginal people. As per the data issued by the “Aihw.gov.au”, in the time period between 2018 to 2019 indigenous Australian estimated that 67% reported 1 long-term health condition and 24% indigenous Australians reported a mental health or behavioural issue (Aihw.gov.au, 2020). Indigenous and aboriginal people suffer from the official mental health issues such as: grief, trauma, family problem, depression, etc. Moreover, this essay will discuss about the history of the selected policy, impact of the chosen policy on Australian society, etc.
The NSW Aboriginal Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2020-2025 provide supports and give assistance to the NSW health services for delivering respectful and adequate mental health services by being in the partnership with the Aboriginal people, community members and services. The strategy was implemented by the “NSW Aboriginal Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy committee” (NSW Government, 2020). The strategy is mainly developed for bringing the change and by working under the agreement of Closing the Gap in accomplishing Aboriginal health outcomes. As strategy is the approach for bringing social and emotional wellbeing by focusing on the social, political, historical and cultural factors. The focus of the strategy is to promote the strong connection and maximize the benefits of the protective factors at the same time reducing the risk factor exposure in relation with the mental health conditions. This initiative is taken because in NSW the life of the Aboriginal people is worse than Non-Aboriginal people because of social disadvantage and face from several stress which is the pre-determinants of the mental health issues and substance use (Health.NSW, 2020). The strategy is aligned with the existing policies in relation with the support and direction for the public mental health in NSW. The existing policies includes “NSW State Heath Plan-Towards 2021”, “Strategic framework for prevention of suicide in NSW in 2018-2023” and “NSW Mental Health Framework of Lived Commission Experience”. The strategy focuses on some health and wellbeing goals which includes holistic approach, family-centered care, safety of the culture, quality care and providing connected care.
The strategy results in providing support and direction in relation to the health services in NSW such as co-designing the plans in relation with the mental health services, building the sustainable aboriginal mental healthcare workforce and building the safe working environment. While applying the strategy, the some are the guiding principles which are followed which includes trust, valuable, uniqueness, focuses on social determinants which results in bringing heath disparities and building the better partnership with the service providers (Health.NSW, 2020). The strategy is build based on the belief that Aboriginal people face high level of complexity in accessing the health mental and health services. Therefore, the children, young people, elders, LGBTQ, people face from the mental health issues and also include the people lives in the rural and remote areas. This strategy results in strengthen the care system and results in creating the coordination between the culture, safety, trauma and healing. The culture safety is the determined for increasing the service accessibility and at the same time providing quality health care services to the people (Oxfam, 2020). The strategy collects the detailed information and complete data regarding the aboriginal people and implement the new performance indicators for monitoring and following the Aboriginal people in relation to the mental health services (Ketheesan, et. al., 2020).
Impact of the NSW Aboriginal Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy
Without any doubt, it is clear that the idea for supporting mental health of the indigenous people is effectively raised from the need for serving social needs. From decades and ages, aboriginal people effectively reported higher levels of psychological distress that non-aboriginal people. In realty, aboriginal people also reported higher levels of psychological distress than non-Aboriginal people. Although, these people also experience racism are a greater risk of developing depression and anxiety to continues to have a significant impact on Aboriginal people’s decisions and health services. Now, here an argument can arise that supporting Aboriginal and indigenous people can be a political move of Liberal party of Australia. Now, there are two supporting answers such as: 1. Aboriginal and indigenous have been a key issue of the Liberal party in Australia. 2. The government have launched various other programs and plan for supporting Aboriginal and indigenous community rather then launching only 1 program. For example: currently there are the following programs for this social group such as: NSW Aboriginal Health Plan, NSW Mental Health Commission and Lived Experience Framework, etc (Health.nsw.gov.au, 2020). Thus, from the above argument it is clear that the Australian government is taking considerable initiatives for effectively supporting the mental health and overall well-being of the Aboriginal and indigenous community. Apart from this, the selected program of the NSW aims towards the following clear direction such as: co-designing mental health service planning, strengthening performance monitoring, sustaining the Aboriginal mental health, etc (Health.nsw.gov.au, 2020).
“The Australian Indigenous Health Info net” states that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prefer the term SEWB – social and emotional wellbeing because it fits within a holistic view of health (Healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au, 2020). Although, the 2004 and 2017 national SEWB framework focuses on 9 key guiding principles for the targeted community such as: health as holistic, recognition of Aboriginal strengths, recognition of the centrality of kinship, the impact of history in trauma, the need for cultural understanding, etc. Apart from this, it is important to understand that there is a social need for taking care to mental health of indigenous and Aboriginal people. As per the United Nations, indigenous people effectively reported many diseases and illness such as: mental illness, cardiovascular illness, malnutrition, etc (Un.org, 2022). So, it can be analysed that not only in Australia but at the global level there is an urgent need for forming an effective action plan which can help in supporting the social needs for indigenous people. These groups face various challenges in getting treatments and other services due to discrimination and reduced awareness. They face these challenges due to the following factors such as: poorer health, low levels of education, high rate of unemployment, higher rate of suicide, etc (Bedi, 2018).
The selected policy is “NSW Aboriginal Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2020 to 2025”. This policy will effectively help the selected community to overcome the issue of mental illness and to accomplish overall well-being. The government is planning to bring a significant change in the society by making detailed plan for supporting the mental health of this community. NSW government stated that improving the mental health and well-being of Aboriginal communities across the state is a key priority of the NSW government (Health.nsw.gov.au, 2020). Moreover, it is important to understand that the chosen policy will deliver a positive impact on the society because it is connected with social and emotional well-being of Aboriginal and indigenous group. It will reduce the family violence, it will reduce the issue of isolation, it will help in reducing chronic diseases, reducing mental illness will also increase the chances of reducing anti-social activities by the selected group, etc. So, there are significant benefits which will help in creating a better society (Dudgeon & Brayn 2018).
As per the government, the selected plan can deliver various benefits in the time period of 2020 to 2025 such as: it can improve their support networks, community-controlled services, self-governance, contemporary expressions of culture, it will improve the cultural education n the society, more opportunities will be emerged in the society, etc. This plan for 2020 to 2025 is a strength based and it incorporate self-determination which will support in building strong community. In reality, for building a strong and cultured society it is important that people should understand the common people which are being facing by a specific group. Moreover, the major benefit is that it will bring the cultural safety in the society which will help in making Aboriginal people feeling secure and equally valued (Dudgeon & Brayn 2018).
Conclusion
From the above, it is concluded that NSW Aboriginal Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2020-2025 helps in providing mental health wellbeing services to the aboriginal community people because of facing barrier in relation to disparities. The strategy comes from the government decision maker’s values due to launching the program which is based on the health plan and lived experience framework. The group suffer from the problem of awareness and other related factors such as lack of education facilities, higher unemployment rate and suicide rate. The policy influence the group in positive manner because of reducing the problem of mental illness and decrease the problems in relation with the family violence, isolation and chronic disease. The government revealed that the selected plan provide several benefits such as improving the supportive networks, cultural contemporary expressions and acquiring more opportunities emerging in the society.
References
Aihw.gov.au. (2020). Indigenous health and wellbeing. www.aihw.gov.au
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-health/indigenous-health-and-wellbeing
Bedi, R. P. (2018). Racial, ethnic, cultural, and national disparities in counseling and psychotherapy outcome are inevitable but eliminating global mental health disparities with indigenous healing is not. Archives of Scientific Psychology, 6(1), 96.
Dudgeon, P., & Bray, A. (2018). Indigenous healing practices in Australia. Women & Therapy, 41(1-2), 97-113.
Health.nsw.gov.au (2020). NSW Aboriginal Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2020-2025.
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/mentalhealth/resources/Pages/aborig-mh-wellbeing-2020-2025.aspx#:~:text=The%20NSW%20Aboriginal%20Mental%20Health,Aboriginal%20services%2C%20people%20and%20communities.
Health.nsw.gov.au. (2020). NSW Aboriginal Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2020-2025. www.health.nsw.gov.au
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/mentalhealth/resources/Publications/aborig-mh-wellbeing-2020-2025.pdf
Healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au. (2020). Social and Emotional Wellbeing. www.
https://healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/ https://healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/learn/health-topics/social-and-emotional-wellbeing/
Ketheesan, S., Rinaudo, M., Berger, M., Wenitong, M., Juster, R. P., McEwen, B. S., & Sarnyai, Z. (2020). Stress, allostatic load and mental health in Indigenous Australians. Stress, 23(5), 509-518.
Lee, R. S., Brown, H. K., Salih, S., & Benoit, A. C. (2022). Systematic review of Indigenous involvement and content in mental health interventions and their effectiveness for Indigenous populations.
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 00048674221089837.
NSW.gov.au (2020) NSW Aboriginal Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2020-2025.
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/mentalhealth/resources/Publications/aborig-mh-wellbeing-2020-2025.pdf.
Oxfam Australia (2020) Why does the health gap exist? https://www.oxfam.org.au/what-we-do/indigenous-australia/close-the-gap/australias-indigenous-health-crisis-in-depth/?gclid=CjwKCAjwo8-SBhAlEiwAopc9W9yQKGi7QVTgd3ocdwTcstU9xCWQ82MXe57l64u5sKTaamxtvL4wFBoCfdQQAvD_BwE.
Un.org. (2022). Health. www.un.org https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/mandated-areas1/health.html
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