Moving Forward Together in Aboriginal Women's Health: - Theses ...

Moving Forward TogetherJanet Kellyprograms were planned for the following year at the Aboriginal OutreachHealth Service including Tai Chi, computer programs, women’s counsellingand support and Nunga Lunches. A six week sexual health course was beingrun and two of the women were attending. The Campus Gardening Group wasanother option.Option 2 Seeking additional services off campusAn ongoing issue for the women related to parenting teenage and pre-teenchildren and grandchildren. We began to search for options off campus, as thecampus now had a focus on preschool (under 5 year old) children and theirparents. A parenting pre-teenage children course was available at a nearbycommunity centre and the women decided to attend as a group. They found thecourse useful to varying degrees, and invited a facilitator to come to GillesPlains the following year. An unexpected benefit was that the women learnedof programs that they could attend at this and other sites, and attended anAboriginal specific mothers group in another nearby suburb with transportprovided by group facilitators.Option 3 Continuing or discontinue the women’s friendship groupToward the end of 2007, the women decided to close the Women’s FriendshipGroup and see if they could find suitable meeting places in other activities andgroups held on and off campus. The general feeling was that the Women’sFriendship Group had filled and healed a very large hole, and now the womenwere ready to move on to other activities. The Aboriginal Outreach HealthService had continued developing, and with the programs on offer, the womenfelt they would have a space where they belonged.Co-presenting our findings at conferencesAn important aspect of ethical community based Aboriginal health research isensuring that the findings are jointly owned and shared and distributed by andwith community co-researchers (National Health and Medical ResearchCouncil 2003; Stringer 2007) When I first suggested to the women coresearchersthat we could co-present our individual and collective knowledgesat upcoming conferences and workshops they were unsure, saying none of us189