JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

There are 476 million Indigenous peoples worldwide, who are the world’s oldest continuing cultures and with rights to self-determine health services to meet needs. However, university health education contains little of Indigenous rights or knowledges. While immersion in cultural settings is recommended to stimulate transformation in knowledge and skills, current health curriculum in Australia offers little toward this. With few Indigenous staff at universities, responsibility is on non-Indigenous staff, who are often under-confident in selecting and conveying information about Indigenous peoples. Partnerships with Indigenous health organisations as experts in cultural models of care are essential, however, there are few examples in the literature to guide this.

Objective:

We aim to provide strategic information and principles used by a university education health faculty in New South Wales, Australia. The Bunya Project was designed to advance Indigenous community-led teaching and learning resource development, as well as evaluation of the embeddedness of strategies to achieve an Indigenous Graduate Attribute (IGA). The project sets out the centrality of relationships with Aboriginal community services to lead education design relating to Indigenous peoples. The project aims to articulate community recommendations for university education in allied health in a usable format of digital stories that create culturally informed andragogy, curriculum, and assessment measures for use among teaching staff and students. Further to this is understanding the impact of this work on student attitudes and knowledges about Indigenous people’s allied health needs and aspirations, and authenticity, relevance, and accessibility of curriculum for staff.

Methods:

Bunya explores both the learning and teaching context, and the Indigenous community relationship to allied health. To support the health faculty and particular post-graduate allied health professional education, a multi-layered project governance was established. A Working Group affirmed participatory action research methods that supported co-design of teaching resources, with data collection via interviews, focus group discussions and student survey methods, guided by an andragogy framework. Bunya continues to evolve according to the changing needs of stakeholders and contexts. Fundamental to the process is co-design which influences participatory action cycles of the project, and the changes and learnings of all involved.

Results:

The Bunya andragogy framework developed over time, as did four partnerships with Indigenous organisations. The organisations were directly involved in curriculum development. This resulted in the emergence of strong common themes, which centred Indigenous people’s leadership, health expertise and voices, overcoming previous exclusions, and undermined by dominant and individualising western bio-medical models of health. These details are vital for health curriculum and training next generations of health professionals, and if not sought or included, will perpetuate human rights breaches and disadvantage.

Conclusions:

The readiness of non-Indigenous staff to engage with Indigenous communities has not been ascertained by Universities Australia, nor can be assured; staff need more support. This article outlines a process for Indigenous community participation, showing how it is possible and important in developing culturally respectful engaging resources for student learning at the University, across Disciplines. Models, processes, and protocols for working with Indigenous people and community organisations honouring diverse Indigenous peoples’ knowledges with authenticity, humility, and reciprocity as per cultural and ethical protocols. This paper contributes to the narrative why universities should partner with Indigenous communities and organisations; the value of the Bunya project is not only in sharing important knowledge held by Indigenous community organisations and members but in demonstrating how to bring community into university life. The Bunya design may be useful for Indigenous peoples around the world, in partnership with community organisations and local teaching institutions.