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

Moving Forward TogetherJanet Kellyaspects in future collaborative programs, with the few resources available to us(think and discuss).The women originally envisioned a well run, well resourced comprehensiveprimary health care program with transport, catering, childcare and craftmaterials supplied. We compiled a list of what would be needed for this tooccur. We then identified the health professional support, funds and resourcesthat were immediately available to us. Comparing the two lists, we madepragmatic decisions together about the very basics we needed to run a group.These became; a room, a group of women, someone to help facilitate theprocess (me) and preferably a small amount of money to pay for catering, craftitems, and transport if needed. The women decided they could do withoutchildcare support by bringing any children into the group and caring for themtogether.This collaborative process enabled everyone’s knowledges to be included andswirl together in Ganma knowledge sharing processes, creating newknowledge (foam) about how to begin a women’s group with minimalresources. We focused on what was available and what we could create, ratherthan on what we didn’t have. Very democratic decision making processes wereembraced, with the butcher’s paper becoming an acknowledgement anddecision making tool. Our processes were similar to those described byBelenky and colleagues (1973) as Midwife and Connected teaching. Thewomen’s own thought were supported and nurtured to maturity withunderstanding that uncertainty was part of the process. I was able to hold botha subjective and objective position, encouraging the women to trust their ownthinking and embrace community as well as health system resources. Thisenabled us to address issues in new and creative ways. Even though we couldnot develop exactly the kind of program the women originally envisioned, thecollaborative process of working it out together meant that the resultingprogram could still meet their most pressing needs. The women felt this was animportant achievement within in the passing parade of health care.203