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

Moving Forward TogetherJanet Kellyexpo health promotion activity involving primary and secondary Aboriginalstudents.Another success was that some staff had stayed with the health service throughits changes and chaos, and became the backbone of the organisation. Manystaff members were also taking courses and training as part of workforcedevelopment and celebrated completion of each component with specialmorning teas.Focusing on successes enabled a strengths based approach that reaffirmed coresearcher’s skills and abilities, and what had already been achieved. For someit helped to ‘give us the strength to keep going when the going gets tough’ (AHD5).Working with unpredictability and chaos without blameIn thinking about collaborative action, co-researchers identified that theywould like to work together in ways that were non-blaming. They identifiedthat health sector programs and policies assume there is predictability in thework that we do, when their experience was that there is not. They too oftenfelt that blame was directed onto workers, managers and clients if predictedoutcomes are not achieved, leading to a feeling that if we only worked harderor smarter, top down goals could be met (AH D6). Together, the coresearchersand I discussed that predictable outcomes in Primary Care werelinked to Western scientific beliefs of logic and science, rather than thesocio/economic/cultural realities of people’s lives as in understood incomprehensive primary health care. Co-researchers stipulated thatcollaborative action needed to be flexible and responsive, and if proposedactions did not end up the way they were first intended, then energy would bespent on understanding what did happen and what best to do now, rather thancasting blame. They identified the need for back up plans, flexibility andresponsiveness. They also needed the collaborative research to complementrather than complicate their current work load.Co-researchers were drawn to the PAR approach being developed inCollaboration Area One with community women, in particular the focus onnon- hierarchical decision making, and continuing cycles of Look and Listen,235