An Opinion Piece by Rebecca Phillips, a young Indigenous Victorian

The Importance of Services being Culturally Appropriate and Sensitive to Young Indigenous People.

As Australia grows more multicultural everyday, the need for cultural appropriateness has become of great importance and necessesity. The need to provide a welcoming environement, cultural awareness and good services free from racial prejudices – is knocking on the door. When aiming for cultural appropriateness towards Indigenous Australians there needs to be some big picture changes to avoid repeating the same mistakes made in the past. The major changes need to occur in people’s attitudes, Health services, Educational services and ongoing support and mentoring for Indigenous Employment in mainstream organisations.

The first factors to be addressed are the attitudes towards the real issues, which are one of many barriers between cultures. To move forward together we must acknowledge the past injustices and learn from previous misunderstandings to show our effort in reconciliation is genuine, unlike some past attempts that have given mainstream organisations a reputation for cultural exploitation, hollow promises and rigid policies and agenda’s. Aboriginal Australians need to be recognised equally by mainstream Australians with no surprise double standards or tokenistic gestures, such as Indigenous consultation at the end of a project. Cultural values flow into everything – just as morals do, so why weren’t these values integrated into society with the Aborigines? Equality must be addressed with a different kind of thinking.

Currently, the funding for Indigenous managed health services falls under the multicultural theme, which could be interpreted as people who don’t fit the mainstream “Anglo Aussie” bill. On one hand it’s good to know that Aboriginal people are now recognised as being multicultural. However, the underlying issue is that Aboriginal people are from this country and nowhere else, unlike other cultures and religions that fit into the Multicultural theme. This blindly suggests that mainstream Australia does not recognise Indigenous Australians as Traditional Owners of this country but as another multicultural group that makes their home here.
One active solution could be ‘combining the funding’ for mainstream and Indigenous managed health services so that there are not two different standards or levels of services for one or the other. If this had been part of the plan from the start, it would be hard to imagine that ‘an Aboriginal child born today in Australia is statistically, likely to be outlived by a newborn in rural Bangladesh’ (www.getup.org.au/campaign/CloseTheGap)


As far as education goes, as long as Aboriginal culture and values are segregated from everything and put in it’s own topic – 98% of the Australia’s population may see it as an option to disregard because they themselves are not Aboriginal and see it as irrelevant, rather than a necessary means for a united understanding of Australia. It would also give mainstream Australia more credibility when enforcing Australian citizenship values on fresh immigrants, when they have lead by example by showing the same respect to the people here before them. There are many good things we can all benefit from incorporating Aboriginal culture and values to mainstream Australia.

In the past and sometimes today, education has been used as a value system of what is important for young Australians to learn. Without appropriate inclusions of Indigenous history it could be seen as a colonising tool, unbeknowing to some. Instead it must be used as a tool for breaking down barriers. Many disadvantages that Aboriginal people face today are generational affects from past government policies. Indigenous youth need to learn about the plight of their people and how it came about, so they may be politically aware and rise above it. Australians need to learn how Aboriginal people have contributed to this country so that Indigenous youth feel as though they have a valueable place in mainstream Australia.

Once we have set the scene for equality in the workplace and acted on our aligned values moving forward together, we can adrress cultural appropriateness. First we must define it to see who is accountable for the services provided and who they are provided for. In my opinion it is the Australian Government’s responsibility to seperately fund and provide cultural awareness training for all staff employed. It is the management’s responsibility to ensure that staff are approachable, flexible and delivering good services at a consistant standard for all cultures, religions, genders and age groups. This would be culturally appropriateness in a general sense. For Indigenous youth, cross-cultural awareness will assist in understanding the pressures that young Indigenous people may be vulnerable to in mainstream workplaces. The best way to welcome Indigenous youth is to show equality, by “acknowledgement to Country” at meetings, flying the Aboriginal flag where and when the Australian flag is flown and valuing/including Indigenous perspectives during the planning stages of a project. Most importantly is the provision of (ongoing) support networks such as both Indigenous and non-Indigenous mentors, which are essential to creating a safe and balanced environment for Indigneous youth to flourish.

Although we have established that cultural appropriateness is a vital component to providing excellent services – it is not always likely to feature on a resume or in the informal workplace staff intereaction. There needs to be some active and evolving guidelines in place for individuals to feel confident in the workplace when encountering people of other cultures. In the end it all comes down to individuals wanting to create a place of mutual respect and each of us doing our part.

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