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

Moving Forward TogetherJanet Kellyto begin a young women’s group similar to the Women’s Friendship Group inCollaboration Area One. A peer education program was also considered butwithout the ability to make it sustainable it seemed unethical unless we couldwork in with an existing program or organisation that would provide ongoingsupport (National Health and Medical Research Council 2003) 55 .In the Gilles Plains area, the majority of young Aboriginal women who wereassociated with a supportive structure were those at the local high school.There were no local youth programs outside of school settings. This posed anethical dilemma for me. As a community health nurse I could go in and workwith young women in schools, but as a researcher I could not. I was advisedthat I would be unlikely to gain ethical permission to work with youngunderage women in schools in the timeframes available to me, but I couldapply to the South Australian Education Department Ethics Committee tointerview teachers, youth workers and Aboriginal Education Workers at thelocal high school, which I did.I did attempt some interviews with young Aboriginal women but discoveredbarriers that prevented personally and culturally safe one to one interviewsoccurring between them and myself. Firstly there was no relationship of trustbuilt between us over time as there had been with the adult women inCollaboration Area One. Some of the older Aboriginal mothers did offer to asktheir daughters, and some arrangements were made, but the timing did notwork out due to the young women’s school commitments, travel to see familyand personal priorities. There were also issues related to whether the youngwomen were able to ‘freely consent’ versus ‘being expected’ to be involved inthe research by their mothers. The concept of an interview for research wasalso quite foreign for the young women, and viewed similarly to a jobinterview which I did not realise until later in the research. This too may haveaccounted for the inability to engage with them and arrange interview times.Due to these complexities the voices of young women in this CollaborationArea comes from one interview with a young Aboriginal woman who was nolonger in school, as well as formal evaluations from health service activities55 The Aboriginal Women’s Reference Group members were very clear that they did not supportshort term projects that raised young people’s expectations and then suddenly finished.263