Page 3505 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 12 September 2017
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Providing skills education and pathways to employment is a core concept of the model of care. Through education and the promotion of job readiness and other foundational skills, we aim to restore confidence and provide pathways to employment and further education. To deliver this, CIT will deliver a unique foundational skills program to the clients of the Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm. This program has been specially developed by CIT to incorporate the eight Aboriginal ways of learning and will be co-taught by CIT’s Yurauna Centre and Access Education. The program includes a cultural arts component which aims to reconnect participants to their cultural identities as well as to build self-confidence to participate in the other elements of the Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm. The proposal from CIT will link into the other parts of the program, notably the healthy country program.
It is a sad reality that many people in our community have not been given the opportunity in their lives to learn basic life skills such as cooking, weekly budgeting or how to access essential information that so many of us take for granted. We cannot assume that everyone has these skills, and this is something the Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm advisory board was very aware of. As a result, ACT Health has commissioned Nutrition Australia to provide cooking skills and nutrition workshops. Three days a week clients will cook for themselves and their peers, building their skills in looking after themselves, their families and their community but also rebuilding their confidence in themselves.
It is also very important that we have in place programs which support recovery and prevent relapse. To this end the alcohol and drug service of ACT Health will conduct workshops and group sessions which will teach practical skills to help people deal with issues in their lives and empower them to abstain and achieve a healthy lifestyle balance.
To support the implementation of the programs at the bush healing farm ACT Health has recruited a number of staff to work with clients and service providers. The staff will guide clients through the assessment and intake processes and work with each client to develop individual support plans and ensure that a tailored approach is made to achieve the client’s goals and aspirations beyond their time at the Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm program. I am pleased to advise the Assembly that the majority of staff of the Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm identify as Aboriginal.
The government does not present this suite of programs as being complete just yet. This represents an initial offering to what we know is an evolving journey ahead of us. What I present today represents a beginning, a place to start and to learn and to come to grips with the concepts which Indigenous Australians have used for generations but, nonetheless, are new to Western medical tradition and to the setting in the ACT. We will evaluate this initial program, we will learn from it and, together with local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, we will continue to evolve it.
To this end ACT Health is in the process of drafting a cultural healing framework which will establish the ongoing principals which underpin the Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm and the concepts of cultural healing. ACT Health will work with the Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm advisory board, Ngunnawal elders and the Aboriginal
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