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

Moving Forward TogetherJanet Kellyand they were doing the best that they could with the skills, resources,direction and support available to them.Upper level (off site) management who were aware of the complex issues,adopted a strategy of providing services within (top down) funding and policyguidelines, while protecting incoming Gilles Plains staff members fromcommunity backlash. During the community consultations they said we don’tkid ourselves that we have solved the problem, only smothered the conflict.Their stipulation in supporting this research was that the research should notfurther inflame the conflict.This Collaboration Area highlights the complexities, difficulties andopportunities that exist in health care due to the very diverse expectations,priorities and agendas that community people, staff members, managers andpolicy makers hold. This situation is not unique to Aboriginal health, but someof the complexities are perhaps more pronounced in Aboriginal health due tothe influences and added layers of colonisation, cultural expectations,government scrutiny and multiple funding and accountability streams.Co-researchers’ visions of Aboriginal women’s healthLook and Listen – semi structured interviews with trigger questionsI began this research process by inviting health professionals and managersfrom Aboriginal health and community health at Gilles Plains CommunityCampus, as well as regional health managers, to be involved in semi structuredinterviews with trigger questions developed initially through the communityconsultations and then revised as new themes emerged within PAR cycles. Atthe beginning of each interview I asked co-researchers to broadly describe theirvision for Aboriginal women’s health, encouraging them to focus on their ownbeliefs and ideals before discussing what was happening around them 47 . Adiverse range of responses reflected differing perspectives and priorities (andinterpretation of the question). Some focused their answers on Aboriginalwomen themselves, some on the health services and some on wider systems.47 This allowed the discussion to be focused on co-researcher and stakeholders’ own knowledgeand experiences, following the concepts of midwife and connected teaching of Belenky andcolleagues . It encouraged interviewees to tap into their own knowledge and beliefs, rather thanimmediately discussing the policies of the health system they worked within.213