Australia, a nation known as “The Lucky Country”, has an excellent award winning democratic society with a booming economy. It is a land with unique fauna, climate, great golden beaches and natural resources. Despite increasing economic prosperity and technological advancement, many Australian children are not benefiting from the progress. In fact, for some the reality is an actual decline in the vital areas of health, education and opportunity. Although, the trends in infections, survival at birth and in infancy, accidents and deaths in the primary school years, death rates from severe diseases such as cancers, and overall life expectancy have all improved. However, the levels of many problems affecting children and young people are worryingly high and appear to be increasing. Therefore, while death rates have fallen, proportions of children and youth with complex diseases such as asthma, diabetes, overweight and obesity, intellectual disabilities and particularly psychological problems such as depression, suicide and eating disorders have increased. Similar is the trend in premature births and physical disabilities such as cerebral palsy. Such concerns about children and young people in the lucky country were raised by the Australian of the Year 2003, Fiona Stanley and inspired her to write the book, Children of the Lucky Country? Fiona Juliet Stanley is Founding Director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth, Western Australia, Inaugural Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Research Alliance for children and youth, and Professor of Paediatrics, University of Western Australia. She is one of Australia’s best-regarded paediatricians and epidemiologists and a major force behind improving health conditions in Australia’s Aboriginal populations. Fiona Stanley was born in 1946 in New South Wales and moved to Perth, Western Australia with her family in 1956. Her interest in Science and Medicine developed throughout her childhood and her father, who was one of the world’s first virologists and worked on the polio vaccine in the 1950s, heavily influenced her. Dr. Stanley completed her medical degree at the University of Western Australia in 1970. During her studies, she
CYPOP 17: understanding the needs of children and young people who are vulnerable and experiencing poverty and disadvantage;
With the world renown hallmark as the ‘lucky country’, it can be difficult to comprehend how the very people we have to thank for the prosperous land on which we live, are amongst the most disadvantaged in the world, rivalling many from developing countries. The dispossession of land, displacement of Australia’s first people and unremitting discrimination since European settlement, has given rise to intergenerational disadvantage in areas such as education, employment and health (***). Whilst the three areas are intertwined, education is unmistakably a quintessential vehicle for building resilience and improving socioeconomic outcomes for Indigenous Australians(***). Teachers and schools alike play a key role in acknowledging and addressing past and present injustices through:
The Indigenous health workforce (doctors, nurses etc.) remains disproportionately low when compared to the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders that make up the Australian population.
This subject is very broad and includes the understanding of past, present and future of the Aboriginal people and their families. In particular, it is essential to lay stress upon how the history has been affecting peoples ' lives from past to present and will also affect our future. This essay will demonstrates that how the health professionals have work together and been involved with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as well as how our communities will respond to these connections.
3. Growing social inequality the distance between the rich and the poor have grown faster over the last 20 years children are experiencing the greatest gap in material and material deprivation. Only 2 percent of New Zealand’s elderly live in poverty. 15% of New Zealand’s children are living in poverty. Youth suicide in New Zealand is one of the highest rates right below the Russian Federation. A way to find a path towards less suicide may lay with what Spain and Italy have with social and economic for their children.
As health professionals, we must look beyond individual attributes of Indigenous Australians to gain a greater understanding and a possible explanation of why there are such high rates of ill health issues such as alcoholism, depression, abuse, shorter life expectancy and higher prevalence of diseases including diabetes, heart disease and obesity in our indigenous population. Looking at just the individual aspects and the biomedical health model, we don’t get the context of Aboriginal health. This is why we need to explore in further detail what events could have created such inequities in Aboriginal health. Other details that we should consider are the historical and cultural factors such as, ‘terra nullius’, dispossession and social
The colonial occupation and subsequent oppression has a greatly impact to the health of indigenous population across Australia. There is still lapses in regards to biomedical and ethnomedical models of health that still needed to work on in order to provide the quality care that is culturally appropriate and acceptable by the indigenous
“The status of Indigenous health in contemporary Australia is a result of historic factors as well as contemporary socio-economic issues” (Hampton & Toombs, 2013, p. 1).
As health professionals, we must look beyond individual attributes of Indigenous Australians to gain a greater understanding and a possible explanation of why there are such high rates of ill health issues such as alcoholism, depression, abuse, shorter life expectancy and higher prevalence of diseases including diabetes, heart disease and obesity in our indigenous population. Looking at just the individual aspects and the biomedical health model, we don’t get the context of Aboriginal health. This is why we need to explore in further detail what events could have created such inequities in Aboriginal health. Other details that we should consider are the historical and cultural factors such as, ‘terra nullius’, dispossession and social
In the 1990's, Chris Sarra was the principal of Cherbourg School in Queensland. His “Strong and Smart” philosophy (Education Queensland, 2003) of indigenous education significantly made a difference (Community member, Warry John Stanley states in interview of the film) by improving their educational abilities, increased school attendance, increased community involvement, developed a sense of their own identity and improved the life outcomes of the indigenous students. Children who are in low income households are most likely to experience health problems, although some researchers have highlighted the links between poverty and poor health, it is very important for the education staff to recognise the directionality of this relationship, as Wagstaff (2002) argues, ‘poverty breed ill-health, ill-health maintains poverty’
Health care providers can engage, collaborate and partner with Aboriginal communities in childhood obesity programs and interventions in order to develop holistic programs that are culturally acceptable, relevant to the community and with the input of the community (Macaulay, 2009). Population health professionals should support early childhood development and parenting skills programs and facilitate sustainable culturally supportive change in communities by using community resources to build on values and
The following report will focus on the health plan Koolin Balit: Victorian Government strategic directions for Aboriginal health 2012-2022 (Koolin Balit). This report will firstly provide an overview of Koolin Balit and will discuss the selected health plan Key Priority Area Two: Healthy Childhood. The at-risks groups pre-school and primary school aged Aboriginal children affected by the priority area will then be discussed. There are three Determinants of Health (DOH) that will be focused on throughout the report, these being education, food (access to and distribution) and access to care and health services (Keleher & MacDougall, 2016). Evidence will be used throughout the report to support the DOH and discuss the relevance of the DOH to Key Priority Area Two: Healthy Childhood.
The social determinants of health are described as the condition of daily living in which determines the individual’s chances of maintaining optimum health (Department of Health and Human Services 2015). In Australia, the health inequality between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians is noted by the World Health Organization (WHO) to have the largest disparity in the world (Markwick et al. 2014). Statistically, the life expectancy for indigenous Australians who are born in 2010-2012 is estimated to be 10.6 years lower when compared to non-indigenous Australians (Markwick et al. 2014). Social determinants such as employment and social exclusion may contribute to the major difference in the health status between the indigenous and non-indigenous Australians (Markwick et al. 2014). This essay will focus on discussing how having employment and social exclusion has led to the health inequalities between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, and how indigenous healthcare nurses can address these determinants in the care they provide in the indigenous community setting.
All children deserve the opportunity to achieve their full potential. In 2003, the Government published the Every Child Matters Green Paper alongside the formal response to the report into the death of Victoria Climbié. The Green Paper set out five outcomes that are key to children and young people’s wellbeing:
OUTCOME 3: CHILDREN HAVE A STRONG SENSE OF WELLBEING (Australian Government Department of Education, 2009)