“Nurs­es come out to us from the hos­pi­tals and, more often than not, they don’t know what an AHP is, or what their role is in the clin­ics,” Nao­mi says, hav­ing worked at Sun­rise Health Ser­vice Abo­rig­i­nal Cor­po­ra­tion through­out the Kather­ine region as an AHP Clin­i­cal Edu­ca­tor for five years now, and many years before that with­in Abo­rig­i­nal Com­mu­ni­ty Con­trolled Health Services. 

“When you do get new staff come, they’ll sit down and have a yarn with me and I’ll just explain what AHPs are and how we will work along­side each oth­er out in communities.”

The role of the AHP came about in the ear­ly 1950s, and Nao­mi explains how far it has come since then.

“It was more seen as a bro­ker­age type role between the Indige­nous clients and patients and the Non-Indige­nous nurs­ing staff and doc­tors,” she says.

“Then, as with every­thing, it becomes some­thing a lit­tle bit more. Clin­i­cal skills were taught in about the 1970s, and that includes the devel­op­ment of the Abo­rig­i­nal Health Work­er train­ing. So the role changed from being sort of like the trans­la­tor or inter­preter to being a lit­tle bit more hands-on.

“And then it became more again, with clin­i­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty, doing patient obser­va­tions, and work­ing with the nurs­es and doc­tors when they went out to communities.

“The role now looks more holis­ti­cal­ly. Look­ing at the social and emo­tion­al well­be­ing of clients, health pro­mo­tion and the men­tal health and well­be­ing side of things. So the role has diver­si­fied again from being just clin­i­cal, broad­en­ing our scope of practice.”

Nao­mi says it is an ongo­ing task to edu­cate about the evo­lu­tion of this role, and to get oth­ers in the work­place to see AHPs as equals.

“Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of RANs that have worked with lots of AHPs and it’s like a dream machine, things just work. But then you do get some that just have no idea, and you sort of feel fad­ed into the back­ground a lit­tle bit,” she says.

“I think one of the biggest things is acknowl­edg­ing that we’re all out there for the same rea­sons. We’re all on the same level.”

One take­away Nao­mi has for RANs as a start­ing point to broad­en­ing com­mu­ni­ty aware­ness is the impor­tance of respect­ing men’s busi­ness and women’s business.

“When I was work­ing back in Kal­go­or­lie, there was a bloke on the list who need­ed to be seen and at the time we didn’t have any male health work­ers or nurs­ing staff on,” she recalls.

“So I called the gen­tle­man through, and when he came through, three of his wives came through as well. I spent the con­sul­ta­tion speak­ing to them, and they were speak­ing for their hus­band. I found that inter­est­ing because it was the first time I’d ever expe­ri­enced it.

“Even though not every­where is the same, a lot of things are very much sim­i­lar between com­mu­ni­ties. So the biggest thing that [female] RANs need to know is men won’t talk to you. Some will engage with you, depend­ing on how com­fort­able they are with you, but it’s more so just the cul­tur­al prac­tice. There’s stuff you just do not speak about, at all. In a hos­pi­tal set­ting you’re like, ​‘Okay, we need to change your bed­pan, we need to change your catheter,’ where­as in com­mu­ni­ty, you just wouldn’t do that.

“It’s just these lit­tle things that can help RANs to improve their prac­tice, and improve the com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment as well.”

Nao­mi sug­gests that the best place for RANs to start build­ing on knowl­edge is con­nect­ing with the peo­ple around them.

“If they’ve got AHPs in their com­mu­ni­ties, def­i­nite­ly speak to them. Also a lot of Indige­nous staff are from the com­mu­ni­ty, so speak to com­mu­ni­ty staff, that would be their best bet to help lay that foun­da­tion, that com­mu­ni­ty awareness.”

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t mat­ter what your job title is out there, as long as the clients are get­ting what they need, and we all just work together.”