My Rural Story

shelf life in Indigenous communities. Like a celebrity sports star, you need to know when it’s time togo, when it’s time to retire. The other thing that came with that was, I knew that leaving a particular community wasn’t the end of my relationships. We’ve had a long many decades, three decades of family connections with many communities, and we still have those connections. One of my favourite brothers is a Yolngu man from one of the communities. My kids grew up out in these places. They’ve had experiences no one else would have. In fact I think the youngest at 21 is convinced, well he’s not convinced that he’s not Aboriginal, just because that was the way he was brought up. How can someone ensure that they are working towards being culturally safe? Being a culturally safe practitioner is about first and foremost, knowing who you are and the impact of that on the people that you are engaging with. Whether it’s working or they’re your clients or it’s just on a day to day interaction. So, knowing who you are and the impact of that. For example, I’m a third generation do- gooder, I’m also a Collingwood tragic for those of you who know or care about AFL, that absolutely has an impact on who I am and the way I can engage with people. I remember going out to an Indigenous

community many years ago and the entire community were Collingwood fans and I thought, ‘Yes! Give me a job, I’m coming to work here.’ So, knowing who you are and the impact that has. I think also, in order to be a culturally safe practitioner you have to be respectful. That can be really hard because not everybody is nice and not every person you’re meeting with and engaging with is going to give you the same courtesy, particularly if you’re in a stressful or an acute clinical situation. It can be really hard to be nice to someone, and be respectful and acknowledge what they bring to the table. Can I just give you a classic example? When I was teaching the Aboriginal Project Officers course, it was mostly urban Aboriginal people and I’m an interactive teacher so I’d say to them ‘what do you think?’ And, this young man who had come in from one of the mining

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