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

Moving Forward TogetherJanet Kellyamount of time involved listening and colouring in mandalas, and that theanticipated video was not produced when the Aboriginal film maker had tosuddenly go interstate for sorry business (HS D4). The high schoolmanagement remained supportive of the program throughout.The Aboriginal Education Worker, who arguably was in closest contact withthe young women, felt that the course was very positive and significant inincreasing the young women’s self confidence. Looking back at the end of theyear she said she could definitely see a difference in the young women whoattended. She also said there was a great advantage in the young Aboriginalwomen being able to meet various health professionals and that it wouldincrease their comfort in going to see such workers in clinics. Some of theyoung women did attend various services following the program. Also in herrole as AEW, she found it useful to have updated information about women’shealth and the services available.Two education co-researchers noted that the hearing impaired studentsparticularly enjoyed the visual art and camera usage. As one of them said andwho knows where that could lead. It has opened up another whole avenue ofoptions for them (HS D 7). The health staff involved in the program viewed itvery positively and held it up as a model of practice that was later used forolder women in the Aboriginal Outreach Health Service (AHS D9).Term 3, 2006 - Young Aboriginal women’s get togetherToward the end of term two, health and education co-researchers and I weretalking through how best to evaluate our collaborative programs and build onthe strengths. While attending a primary health care conference I spoke atlength to a youth worker from a rural regional centre about the programs wewere involved in and the difficulty we were experiencing in evaluating them inways that enabled young women’s voices to be heard, and that were interestingand meaningful for them. The youth worker said that she also needed toevaluate programs she was working with, and that the young women she wasworking with were very interested in meeting other young Aboriginal women.By the end of the conference we had begun to consider the idea of bringing the282