Cultural competence in Aboriginal education service delivery in Australia: Some lessons from the Aboriginal health service sector

The increasingly multicultural profile of the Australian population positions the development of cultural competence within education institutions and in the professional practice of educators as an important consideration. If positive change is to be achieved in the education field then some hard questions need to be answered. It is important to know how organisations identify and support sustainable changes to staff behaviours in multilingual and multicultural service delivery contexts. It is also necessary to know what is needed to prepare human service professionals for working with diverse communities. This paper explores these questions and sets out to establish a case for government, universities, Aboriginal and other minority group communities to work together to develop sustainable strategies, systems and curricula in a joint endeavour to dramatically improve the cultural competence levels of education and other human service professionals. Recent research and innovations involving the development of codes of practice and guidelines for the development of cultural competence, cultural security and cultural safety within the Aboriginal health field in Australia provide potentially useful guidance for those concerned with implementing similar interventions in the field of Aboriginal education. In particular, we will draw on findings from a recent large scale study in the Northern Territory which looked at aspects of a cultural security framework being operationalised within the health service sector. This qualitative study involved a broad cross-section of Aboriginal community members and service providers in the Northern Territory. The findings indicate that the litmus test as to whether a place is considered culturally safe is born out by the people who use the service, who are in the less powerful position, who are from a different cultural background, and who define health and wellbeing in different ways. We will also describe an intervention in place at the University of South Australia that aims to engender cultural competency with respect to working effectively with Aboriginal peoples. Key elements of this intervention include attention to individual cultural competency through the development of appropriate awareness, attitudes, knowledge, and skills across all undergraduate and post graduate programs. In terms of developing a program for action within the education field we suggest that local level community input is essential to the development of collaborative models of education and training that will effectively prepare education service providers to work with Aboriginal and other minority group members in culturally competent ways. Key Words: Aboriginal education; Aboriginal health; cultural competence