Submission to the National Anti-Racism Strategy 2012

Submission to the National Anti-Racism Strategy 2012

Australian Human Rights Commission

This submission was prepared for the Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association by Dr Pat Dudgeon, Mr Glenn Williams and Liz Orr.

May 2012

Brief Summary
`a strong and confident national identity is one that begins with its First Nations peoples, their knowledge, heritage, and spiritual connection to the land and seas’ Racism Roundtable 2009.
The Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association (AIPA) applauds the Human Rights Commission intentionto develop a National Anti-Racism Strategy. This submission focuses on the impact of racism evident through the lack of culturally appropriate and culturally safe mental health services. AIPA calls on the Human Rights Commission to include social and emotional wellbeing/mental health and institutional racism in the scope of the National Anti-Racism strategy. The delivery of Indigenous-specific safe, high quality social and emotional wellbeing services are needed to work at the many levels required to prevent the impact of racism and to support community and institutional change. A national Anti-Racism Strategy must address systemic racism and advocate for change at the institutional and cultural level as well as the individual and personal level. Social and emotional wellbeing services for Indigenous Australians are urgently required. Prevention programs and campaigns to raise awareness and encourage social activism against racism are also required

Table of Contents

1.Australian Indigenous Psychological Association (AIPA)

2.Recommendations

3. Focus

4. Addressing Social and Emotional Wellbeing issues

4.1Distinguishing Social and Emotional Well Being from Mental Health

4.2 Social and Emotional Well Being assessment tools

4.3 Action about health inequalities

5.Psychology and Racism

5.1The roundtable on racism and Durban Declaration

6. Indigenous mental health movement and culturally appropriate paradigms

6.1. Self-determination and meaningful ongoing consultation

6.2. Psychology: current & proposed AIPA actions to combat racism

6.3. Anti Racism, responsible media and using media as strategy

6.4Anti- racism education and resources

6.5 Research & evaluation

References

1.Australian Indigenous Psychological Association (AIPA)

AIPA is the national body that represents Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander psychologists in Australia. AIPA is an unincorporated Association and the Australian Psychological Society (APS) provides organisational and financial support to AIPA, including the auspicing of contracts from the Australian Government

AIPA is committed to improving the social and emotional well-being and mental health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by increasing the number of Indigenous psychologists and by leading the change required to deliver equitable, accessible, sustainable, timely and culturally safe primary mental health care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in urban, regional and remote Australia. Furthermore, AIPA is committed to supporting indigenous psychologists through undergraduate and post graduate courses; and providing professional development to Indigenous and non-Indigenous psychologists to increase the cultural safety of indigenous clients and expanding the skills of psychologists to work with indigenous clients. By maintaining a high standard of practice and engaging in Indigenous psychological research, AIPA is committed to being on the forefront of Indigenous psychology in Australia. AIPA is supported in its functioning by the Australian Psychological Society.

For more information about AIPA and its members, please refer to AIPA’s website:

The Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association (AIPA) applauds the Human Rights Commission steps to develop a National Anti-Racism Strategy. AIPA, together with the host, the Australian Psychological Society(APS), contributed to a roundtable about research concerning racism at the University of Western Australia in June 2009. Key organizations including the Human Rights Commission, the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association, the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, WA, the School of Indigenous Studies UWA, and the University of Notre Dame Australia attended. The Roundtable was initiated by AIPA Chair and APS Fellow Dr Pat Dudgeon, who saw it as one way to renew the momentum for combating racism that was generated a decade ago by the APS Position Paper Racism and prejudice: Psychological perspectives (1997).

2.Recommendations

Recommendation 1: That the National Anti-Racism Strategy encompasses a broad definition of racism, including individual, institutional and cultural racism. The strategy should also seek to broaden the communities understanding of racism, from individual incidents or attacks, to policies and procedures that unfairly disadvantage Indigenous people

Recommendation 2: That AIPA endorses close collaboration with Indigenous people that involves meaningful and ongoing input and appropriate resourcing for actions that emerge from the strategy.

Recommendation 3: That the National Anti-Racism Strategy find ways to address the needs of individuals and work to change systemic, institutional and cultural racism. This may include:

• Indigenous access to the Better access Program
• Resourcing Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations to provide Social and Emotional Well Being programs
• Changes to current Mental Health Systems and services and appropriate resourcing for actions that emerge from the SEWB strategy. This is a key action and may be a quantifiable measure against systemic racism.

Recommendation 4: That the Principles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples, in particular the right to free, prior and informed consent are incorporated into the strategy.

Recommendation 5: That the National Anti-Racism Strategy supports the call toacknowledge Indigenous Australians as the first custodians of the land and recognise the role Indigenous Australians continue to play in contemporary multicultural society within the Australian Constitution. Working with the National Congress of Australia’s first peoples, along with other Indigenous specific organisations, the strategy should promote this recognition among all government departments, educational institutions and community organisations, as well as the general public.

Recommendation 6: That the strategy promotes positive stories of survival and strength about Indigenous Australians and highlights our ongoing contribution to the broader community and country.

Recommendation 7: Thatthe National Anti-Racism Strategy investigate accountability mechanisms for media representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that the strategy:

• prioritise media campaigns to reduce racism.
• get the media to develop strategies to take responsibility for representations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait people in ways which highlight the diversity within groups and similarities across groups, thereby discouraging negative stereotyping.
• Investigate how to ensure media compliance with accountability mechanisms for media representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. For example perhaps there could be a media watch officer with statutory powers.
• support cultural awareness training to be made available for all people involved in the media

Recommendation 8: AIPA recommends that anti-racism training be developed based on multiple mechanisms, be adjusted to the local context, and be age appropriate.

Recommendation 9: AIPArecommendsthat the Australian Government support accurate qualitative and quantitative data on racism against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and that this data collection be done within an Indigenous framework with Indigenous people involved in all stages of the design, collection and knowledge transfer stages. This suggestion is in accordance with Recommendation 103 of the Durban Review Conference outcomes document.

Recommendation 10: AIPA urge the HRC to ensure that the national Anti-Racism Strategy works to change the health system. A key element in the prevention of serious psychological distress from yielding a high burden of mental illness among Indigenous peoples, particularly high-prevalence disorders such as anxiety disorders, depression and substance abuse disorders, is universal access to culturally appropriate SEWB and primary mental health care.

3. Focus

In light of the urgent need to address the impact of racism on the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, AIPA calls on the Human Rights Commission to put forward the recommendations outlined in this paper to the government of the day, and to all future governments. These recommendationswill assist governments address the individual, institutional, and cultural racism evident in the mental health systems in Australia. This submission focuses on ensuring that ‘Close the Gap’ initiatives develop Social and Emotional Wellbeingframeworks to assist Indigenous Australians deal with the forms of racism they experience and to assist those charged with making systemic and cultural change to eradicate racism.

4. Addressing Social and Emotional Wellbeing issues

The direct and indirect racism and inequality experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities is one of the most pressing issues facing Australia today (APS 2012). The human rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are not sufficiently protected or promoted and the insidious effects of racism continue to impact their lives and scar our nation. Indigenous people are confronted with racism on a daily basis -to the point where they sometimes think this is normal and they may accommodate the situation in what is described as internalized racism (Dudgeon 2012, Paradies et al 2008). The effects of racism on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are being named and documented in an increasingly thorough and meaningful manner (Paradies 2012).

Paradies, Harris and Anderson (2008) note the challenges in measuring the impact of racism on health. However, they identify that this is due to the complexity and subtlety of racism:

…racism can be subtle, unintentional, unwitting and even unconscious, it is rarely possible to definitively attribute a particular event to racism. A subjective experience of racism may, in fact, be caused by other forms of oppression (e.g. sexism), while an individual may erroneously attribute an objectively racist experience to another form of oppression or to his/her own limitations. Moreover, internalised racism and systemic racism can be invisible …

Racism creates physical ill health, a greater propensity to disease and a range of social and emotion and psychological distress such as low self-esteem, mistrust of the dominant culture, anxiety, substance misuse, depression, internalised racism, confusion, and disengagement. Atkinson 2002; and Atkinson, Nelson and Atkinson, (2010) point to the trauma of racism, its intergenerational impact and the ongoing difficult task of healing from colonisation. With regard to the impact of colonisation:

`There is little doubt that in real and symbolic terms, Australian Aboriginal culture has been traumatized by the European invasion’ Halloran (2004):

The impact of colonisation and ongoing racism inflicted upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is starkly demonstrated by poor outcomes in relation to health, education, incarceration, child protection, morbidity and mortality with the average life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians of around 11 years (ABS, 2009). Furthermore, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples do not have access to justice. Extensive data indicates that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples experience race discrimination at every stage of the justice system. For example, in Western Australia 43% of prisoners are Indigenous from 3.5% of the population (Kelly, Gee, Dudgeon, & Glaskin, 2009). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children lack access to safe, culturally appropriate, resourced, and accessible quality education. Along with significant improvements to the quality of education, the right to language needs to be realized through the education system. Teaching in language is an important protective factor and this is widely evidenced (Kelly et al., 2009).

4.1Distinguishing Social and Emotional Well Beingfrom Mental Health

Social and emotional wellbeing includes a plethora of issues such as; issues relating to suicide, family violence, removal of children and young people, incarceration of family members, drug and alcohol issues, witnessing or being subject to violence, grief and loss, anger management, low self-esteem and high prevalence disorders such as anxiety and depression. The Social Health Reference Group describes social and emotional wellbeing as recognising:

the important connection to land, culture, spirituality, ancestry, family and community and how these affect the individual. Social and emotional wellbeing problems cover a broad range of problems that can result from unresolved grief and loss, trauma and abuse, domestic violence, removal form family, substance misuse, family breakdown, cultural dislocation, racism and discrimination an social disadvantage (Social Health Reference Group 2004).

AIPA purports that the racism strategy identifies‘social and emotional wellbeing’ in terms of an Indigenous cultural concept that differs in important ways to mainstream concepts of mental health and illness. Rather than simply adapting and delivering models designed for mainstream Australians, social and emotional wellbeing and mental health services need to strongly engage with the diversity of cultures and Indigenous language groups/nations and each group’s understanding of social and emotional wellbeing and support their ways of achieving it. As well as addressing factors that influence the ‘mental health’ of all Australians, services need to specifically address the aftermath of colonisation: unresolved grief, loss and trauma, removal from family, family breakdown, cultural dislocation, racism and discrimination and ongoing disadvantage (SHRG, 2004).

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are exposed to a disproportionate number of stressful life events compared to other Australians, contributing to high levels of serious psychological distress and suicide (Kelly, Dudgeon et al, 2010). Any program that works on one issue in isolation from the others may alleviate some problems in the short term but will not achieve the ultimate goal of restoring social and emotional wellbeing across each language group/nation.

The definitions and determinants for mainstream mental heath and Indigenous SEWB suggest clear overlaps and important differences between the two concepts, and as many Indigenous scholars have noted, the relationship between the two continues to be discussed, debated and negotiated (Garvey 2008). Consistent with the Social Health Reference Group, AIPA acknowledges and recognises the importance of mental health, but positions it within the larger framework of SEWB—a framework that includes the domains of wellbeing that are unique and essential components of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health (Kelly et al. 2009).

There are big challenges to service delivery posed by small, dispersed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in remote Australia, where 92,960 Aboriginal people live on traditional lands. The lack of infrastructure to support service delivery and the extreme poverty and disadvantage found in these communities often make survival the main task. Rather than simply adapting and delivering models designed for mainstream Australians, social and emotional wellbeing and mental health services need to be able to engage with each group’s understanding of social and emotional wellbeing and how best to achieve it.

There is little capacity to offer choice for the majority (76%) of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population who live as dispersed minorities within mainstream populations in urban and regional Australia. A two way strategy to increase both the Indigenous mental health workforce and improve the cultural competence of mainstream service providers to meet the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in their client base, is urgently required.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continue to experience high levels of racism in Australia, across multiple settings. For example, the Challenging Racism data released in March 2011 found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents experienced four times the racism of non-Aboriginal Australians in relation to contact with police and in seeking housing (AIHW 2011) .

Similarly, 2008 research found that 27% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples over the age of 15 reported experiencing discrimination in the preceding 12 months (AIHWP 2008). Other research has found that three out of four Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples regularly experienced race discrimination when accessing primary health care, contributing to some people not being diagnosed and treated for disease in its early stages(Paradies 2008).

The destructive impact of racism on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' social and emotional health and wellbeing reaches beyond its immediate impact. See for example Reconciliation Australia, Australian Reconciliation Barometer 2010, Question and Answer Fact Sheet, At: (viewed 1 February 2012) which notes respondents’ belief that previous race-based policies continue to affect some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people today.

Evidence suggests the need for ongoing research to fully understand the different impact of racism across the lifespan and in different geographical and social settings (Purdie et al2010). However, there is compelling evidence of a link between race-based discrimination and poor mental health and wellbeing (Paradies, 2006).

It is also noted by Parker (2010) that `prior to European colonization of Australia (mental illness) was, most likely a fairly rare occurrence. The much greater prevalence of mental illness in the Aboriginal And Torre Strait islander population currently is a reflection of the significant disruption to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander society and has a strong context of social and emotional deprivation’. He goes on to note that management of the issues therefore …`requires a strong emphasis on cultural safety along with the recognition of family, culture and community in any healing processes’.

As a measure of `walking the talk’, AIPA strongly endorses close and ongoing collaboration with Indigenous people in the development and monitoring of a National Anti-Racism Strategy. This will require meaningful and ongoing input and appropriate resourcing for actions that emerge from the strategy along with supporting research that will assist to continue build the evidence base about culturally effective services and approaches.