Indigenous Cultural Safety Training for Applied Health, Social Work, and Education Professionals: A PRISMA Scoping Review

Anti-Indigenous racism is a widespread social problem in health and education systems in English-speaking colonized countries. Cultural safety training (CST) is often promoted as a key strategy to address this problem, yet little evidence exists on how CST is operationalized and evaluated in health and education systems. This scoping review sought to broadly synthesize the academic literature on how CST programs are developed, implemented, and evaluated in the applied health, social work and education fields in Canada, United States, Australia, and New Zealand. MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, ERIC, and ASSIA were searched for articles published between 1996 and 2020. The Joanna Briggs Institute's three-step search strategy and PRISMA extension for scoping reviews were adopted, with 134 articles included. CST programs have grown significantly in the health, social work, and education fields in the last three decades, and they vary significantly in their objectives, modalities, timelines, and how they are evaluated. The involvement of Indigenous peoples in CST programs is common, but their roles are rarely specified. Indigenous groups must be intentionally and meaningfully engaged throughout the entire duration of research and practice. Cultural safety and various related concepts should be careful considered and applied for the relevant context.

Cultural Competence Is Everyone's Business: Embedding Cultural Competence in Curriculum Frameworks to Advance Veterinary Education

Cultural competence in professional and research practice is important to effectively deliver animal and One Health services and programs. Veterinarians work with culturally and linguistically diverse teams, clients, and communities. Cultural perspectives on the significance and perceptions of animals and differences in consultation and engagement protocols and strategies can influence client-practitioner and researcher-community relationships, impacting animal health, welfare, and/or research outcomes. Curricula have been proposed to build cultural capacity in graduates, but these have not been reported in veterinary programs, and early attempts to integrate cultural competency into the University of Sydney veterinary curriculum lacked a formal structure and were ad hoc with respect to implementation. To address this, the authors introduced a broad curriculum framework into the University of Sydney veterinary program, which defines cultural competence, perceptions of animals, effective communication, and community engagement in a range of contexts. Cultural competency learning outcomes were described for units of study. These were contextually relevant and aligned to course learning outcomes and University of Sydney graduate qualities. Constructive alignment was achieved by linking learning outcomes to teaching and learning activities and assessment. The continuum of cultural competency underpinned mapping of cultural competency across the curriculum with staged, vertical integration of key principles. Additionally, action to engage staff, students, and stakeholders in a cultural competence agenda assisted in sustaining curriculum change. The result was integration of cultural competency across the curriculum aligning with recommendations from accrediting bodies and with best practice models in medicine, nursing, and allied health programs.

Treading carefully on sovereign ground: reflections of a settler teaching an Indigenous health and wellbeing subject in Australia

This paper was written on the lands of the Gadigal people. I pay my respect to Elders past and present and the Traditional Custodians of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nations across the continent now known as Australia. I acknowledge the continuing connection to culture, lands, waters and sky and that sovereignty was never ceded.

Collaborating across sectors to provide early intervention for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children with disability and their families: a qualitative study of provider perspectives

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children experience a higher prevalence of disability than other Australian children. Early intervention from across the health, education, and social service sectors is vital for improving outcomes, but families face lack of coordination between services. This study aimed to inform improvements in service access for families of urban-dwelling Aboriginal children with disability through exploring providers' perceptions of factors that influenced working together across sectors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted. Data analysis was informed by the general inductive approach and the Collaborative Practice to Enhance Patient Care Outcomes framework. Twenty-four providers participated. Interprofessional collaborative practice was influenced by interdependent interactional and organizational factors. Interactional factors fit within one of two dimensions: the ability of providers to share common goals and vision within a complex cross-sector service landscape, and influence of interpersonal relationships on their sense of belonging working in a cross-cultural space. Organizational factors also fit within one of two dimensions: the influence of governance in relation to its role in coordination and unlocking the strength of schools as service settings, and the need to formalize processes for effective interprofessional communication. Interprofessional collaborative practice was managed within the context of systemic factors relating to policy and funding. These findings demonstrate the complex interplay of factors related to the cross-sector involvement of providers in early intervention service provision. Consideration of these factors is required to facilitate collaborative cross-sector responses to improve service access for Aboriginal families.Abbreviations: WHO: world health organization; ACCHS: aboriginal community controlled health service; GP: general practitioner; NDIS: national disability insurance scheme.