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JCPSLP
Volume 19, Number 1 2017
Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology
regardless of specific characteristics or need (Braveman
& Gruskin, 2003). Regardful care epitomises the need for
equity.
Decolonisation
I came to see that Australia has many worlds. But
working in this context, I could clearly see that there is
a mainstream, white, Eurocentric Australia and there
is another place. This other place, the families called
“Aboriginal world”.
To contextualise this quote from Robyn’s story, the work of
Mita (1989, as cited in Tuhiwai Smith, 1999) offers insight:
“We have a history of people putting Ma- ori under a
microscope in the same way a scientist looks at an insect.
The ones doing the looking are giving themselves the
power to define” (p. 58).
Australia’s First Peoples share this history. This
shared history cannot be considered a historical event,
in a distant period in time called “colonisation” which
has no reverberation in modern day Australia. Rather,
as for Indigenous peoples worldwide who have been
colonised by a western power, colonisation remains a
pervasive and persistent, if often unconscious, core driver
as service providers and policy-makers go about their
day-to-day work of “creating a better Australia” for its
First Peoples. We have only to think of the inadequate
cultural training provided to non-Indigenous professionals
within undergraduate tertiary programs and workplace
environments (Downing et al., 2011); the lack of interpreters
for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages spoken
within Australia (Commonwealth of Australia, 2012); the
lack of funding for bilingual language teaching within remote
Aboriginal community schools (Commonwealth of Australia,
2012); or the repeated failing of our health system to
adequately care for the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Australians (AIHW, 2016; AMA, 2007) to observe
colonisation as an active and unyielding process within
Australia.
The key to implementing effective decolonisation
practices is switching, as highlighted by Mita (1989, in
Tuhiwai Smith, 1999), is questioning who exactly has the
power to define First Peoples’ culture, language, identity
and futures. Who gets to define a First Peoples’ very sense
of self and the paths they wish their lives to take? Australia’s
First Peoples work tirelessly and strongly in order to achieve
this reversal of focus. Non-Indigenous SLPs can learn from
this strong guidance and transference of knowledge that
can be gained only through lived experience. In the same
way that colonisation constitutes a conscious and active
process, so too does decolonisation; a process that needs
to follow a very conscious and explicit path.
Decolonisation is about redressing the current harmful
imbalance of power that exists at both a systemic/
structural/political and individual professional level within
Australia. Decolonisation recognises the current living
landscapes that exist within Australia. Decolonisation
involves exposing and eradicating those detrimental
practices, beliefs and value systems which have existed
since these lands were invaded, claimed and subsequently
colonised by the British. Decolonisation is about reframing
choice, power and control. Decolonisation is about
eliminating practices and perspectives imposed by those
who have been conditioned by society to believe in the
myth of white elitism which is harmful to First Peoples’ lives
as they exist now and into the future.
Aboriginal peoples intuitively talk about and possess a deep
intrinsic understanding of what cultural safety means to
them in a practical and real sense. In order to make the
cultural safety concept known and accessible for non-
Indigenous health professionals also, Taylor and Guerin
(2010) have summarised the five core components of
culturally safe practice as follows:
•
reflective practice
•
regardful care
•
decolonisation
•
minimising power differentials
•
effective communication.
Using excerpts from Robyn’s story as examples, the
authors examine how SLPs can engage with these five core
principles in their work with Australia’s First Peoples.
Reflective practice
The mothers would tend to group to the back of the
room, stay silent and watchful. They would often leave
early for things they had “forgotten” to do. Outsiders
read this as non-compliance, of a lack of Indigenous
family interest in their children’s education.
When a breakdown in communication or a professional
relationship occurs, critical reflection provides the way to
achieve repair and to ensure future success. Reflective
practice, when done superficially, involves examining or
deconstructing a specific situation in terms of one’s own
culture, values and beliefs; such thinking constituting a
reflexive application of unacknowledged thoughts,
judgements and assumptions. Effective reflective practice
instead requires professionals to be mindful of their own self
(Durey, 2010). When working with Australia’s First Peoples,
this involves non-Indigenous SLPs identifying and
understanding what they bring to each professional
situation as members of the dominant colonial culture within
Australia. It involves remembering that privilege is typically
hidden to those who possess it; being able to critically
reflect on how the SLP interprets or sees a situation
requires an active analysis of and stepping back from our
own values, attitudes and beliefs. It involves understanding
that there is much non-Indigenous SLPs do not know or
cannot see impacting the lives and behaviour of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It involves embodying
the old adage “we do not know what we do not know”.
Regardful care
One mother initially told me how good school was,
and that her difficulties were to do with her being
a slow learner. A year or two later, she told me just
how difficult school was because of racism and
discrimination. These lived realities were most likely
invisible to the mainstream inhabitants of the school
space.
Every person has a story. Regardful care involves looking
beneath the surface. It involves looking for what makes
each individual person, their words, their actions, their
needs unique. Regardful care involves understanding that
“no one size fits all”. Each Australian First Peoples’
community is unique. Identifying as an Aboriginal and/or
Torres Strait Islander person and as a member of an
Australian First Peoples’ community is an extremely
important and deeply personal, yet individual construct.
Health professionals are typically aware of the need
to provide services and support which embrace equity,
providing what individuals need to achieve success, rather
than promoting equality, providing equal services to all