Dal­las: With all due respect, I would say that nurs­ing is quite a mil­i­tant, you know, very struc­tured indus­try to be in. 

We are car­ers but I think some­times we miss the care bit, we actu­al­ly become so entrenched in ​‘this is what has to be done’, ​‘when it has to be done’, that we miss a bit of that care and look­ing through a dif­fer­ent lens. 

So, when you meet some­body, and they say ​“this is the way it’s done” you can say ​”but have you thought about it in a dif­fer­ent lens?” 

I think that here at CRANAplus, that’s the lens you’re look­ing through, but [I aim to bring anoth­er lens], which is my world views, which differ.

Sure, there are sim­i­lar­i­ties, but there are dif­fer­ences as well. You know, being Abo­rig­i­nal, hav­ing a real com­mu­ni­ty and fam­i­ly focus; it’s a col­lec­tive of peo­ple, not individuals.

I think that’s the dif­fer­ence, the work that we do here, when we look at a pro­gram it’s not black and white, there has to be [some adapt­abil­i­ty] to make sure that it fits everybody.

The impor­tance of cul­tur­al safety 

Dal­las: [One strat­e­gy includes] pro­vid­ing webi­na­rs and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment to the staff here because not every­body has had a lot to do with Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple. If you were brought up in white-main­stream Aus­tralia, and that’s where you’ve nursed, et cetera, you might not have come across Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple or if you have, it’s one or two.

Where­as, in the areas that we work, which is rur­al and remote Aus­tralia, the major­i­ty of our clients are Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple, so under­stand­ing that is real­ly important. 

Some of the work that we do here is around that. We are cur­rent­ly devel­op­ing in-house a cul­tur­al safe­ty induc­tion, so any­one who starts with us under­stands. I’m not talk­ing about cul­tur­al aware­ness where it’s like ​‘do this’, ​‘don’t go there’, ​‘wear this’.

I’m talk­ing about Cul­tur­al Safe­ty: ensur­ing that you self-reflect on [your self] and your atti­tude, which is real­ly con­fronting for peo­ple. And, I don’t think there is any­thing wrong with con­fronting and hav­ing to think about the way you treat people.

On the horizon 

Dal­las: We [are devel­op­ing one course] that will be focused on Abo­rig­i­nal Health Work­ers and Prac­ti­tion­ers and that is, look­ing at what is best practice.

We [are intro­duc­ing] a new pro­gram called Mirii, and Mirii in my lan­guage the Yuwaalaraay peo­ple means star. So, Mirii is a guid­ing star for Health Work­ers and Health Prac­ti­tion­ers to come and learn dif­fer­ent path­ways around care. That’s the sort of work that I real­ly enjoy, devel­op­ing new resources.