Strength-Based approaches to providing an Aboriginal Community Child Health Service

Abstract

Adopting strength-based approaches reinstate power and control to Aboriginal communities, while nurturing empowerment and decision making in the design and delivery of culturally contextualised approaches to addressing Aboriginal health and wellbeing. Aboriginal health policy and practice continues to address Aboriginal child health and wellbeing from a whole-of-population deficit discourse, further exacerbating Aboriginal disadvantage for Aboriginal children and young people. Furthermore, population health level data provides an opportunity to understand the complexities of health and wellbeing for urban Aboriginal children and young people yet such information is rarely documented. This paper seeks to discuss the development of multi-disciplinary community-based Aboriginal child health services in an urban community using strengths-based principles. We highlight the opportunities and challenges in addressing Aboriginal child health over a ten-year period, and demonstrate that access to culturally safe, resilience-building services can produce measurable improvements in health seeking behaviour, maternal health and early intervention. Within, we draw on holistic frameworks to demonstrate that optimal outcomes can be achieved through integrated interdisciplinary models of care that are responsive to the needs of the local community, understand the social determinants of health and build resilience – all critically important to addressing Aboriginal child health and wellbeing