Working it Out Together! Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander led co-design for a strong and deadly health workforce (Old ID 27074)
Role
Principal Investigator
Description
Building a stable, well-trained and culturally safe health workforce is a crucial part of delivering high quality primary health care (PHC) services. Previous attempts to strengthen rural/remote health workforce have failed, partly because they have not integrated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge and lived experience with necessary policy and systems support. There has been little research into culturally safe strategies to improve workforce stability in complex PHC context. This project will bridge these gaps through a community-led, place-based planning approach, engaging service providers, policy-makers and funders to co-design workforce strategies and models of care that are locally relevant, successful and sustainable. This community-based participatory project uses a mixed methods quasi-experimental pre-post design to implement co-designed actions to explore: How do we systematically embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives into place-based planning and action for a stable and effective workforce that engenders community trust in local PHC delivery? Working with key sector partners in four service-based rural/remote clusters across Qld, NT and NSW, we will co-design and trial strategies to strengthen workforce competency and stability (by strengthening local career pathways for Indigenous people and strengthening cultural competency of non-Indigenous staff), and use community-centred impact and economic evaluation. Our team is majority Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and builds on relationships and learnings developed through our ongoing PHC system improvement work. Each jurisdictional team comprises a local Indigenous PHC service, community-controlled peak body, primary health network, government health department and university partner. This optimal mix will ensure successful implementation of sustainable strategies and translation into policy and practice for improved community access to quality PHC and health outcomes.
Date
01 Sep 2021 - 31 Aug 2026
Project Type
GRANT
Keywords
Primary care;Rural Workforce;Community Participation;Indigenous Health;Rsual and Remote Health Services;Cultural Safety
Funding Body
National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), North Queensland Primary Health Network, Queensland Health
Amount
990772.2
Project Team
Catrina Felton-Busch;Karen Carlisle;Michelle Redman-MacLaren;Lynore Geia