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

Moving Forward TogetherJanet Kellyimplement and evaluate the conference. I devised an electronic questionnairethat people emailed back to me, and we had open discussions about ourexperiences over dinner. Kim and I planned to present our (collective)experiences of planning, implementing, evaluating and experiencing theconference at an international Critical and Feminist Nursing Conference inCanada, and we invited comments to help us write our paper.Generally Team SA members all indicated that the conference met andexceeded their expectations and vision. They all spoke of unexpected outcomesthat they had heard about; the reconnection of Aboriginal people to family, the‘light bulb’ moment for a non-Aboriginal person when they suddenlyunderstood the depth of colonisation in our country; the re-invigoration of tiredworkers who were struggling to meet complex needs in their workplaces; thequiet pride of an Aboriginal community member whose knowledge had beenrespectfully heard.At a joint meeting Team SA members reflected that the collaborative planningprocess offered capacity building opportunities to increase knowledge andskills in a variety of areas that they wouldn’t usually undertake. It was a largerthan usual planning group but one that was also well organised, shared thewell-being of the conference and its intentions as an equally held responsibilityas well as passionately regarded .priority. Having two people (Kim and I) coordinatingthe team and process was important for communication and keepingthe process on track. However, Team SA members also valued the sharedleadership with different people taking the lead at appropriate times.When asked to comment on whether anything made this conference andplanning process different to other processes they have been involved in, oneacademic reflected that;Other conferences are very narrowly defined, usually in one particularspecialist discipline. I have never participated in an integratedconference, bringing together disparate disciplines, for bridgingharmony. The joint papers and partnerships between University andAboriginal speakers are quite unique. I like the idea of helping out peoplethat have never given a paper before, or people who would normally betoo shy to put themselves forward (Team SA E1).314