About Connect Social & Emotional Wellbeing
Connect Social & Emotional Wellbeing (“Connect SEWB”) is a multi-disciplinary organisation providing psychological treatment, trauma-informed counselling and support, psychological assessment and culturally informed Social & Emotional Well-being services.
Connect SEWB values providing culturally appropriate and culturally sensitive care to Yolŋu people living in very remote regions of Northeast Arnhem Land (NEAL). We employ several Yolŋu cultural advisors and translators to offer as effective service delivery as possible and improve outcomes for Yolŋu people.
Connect SEWB also offers group therapy services and consults with local service providers on topics such as trauma-informed care, vicarious trauma in workplaces and managing psychological complexity and risk in cross-cultural settings.
Collaborations
In addition to this, Connect SEWB has helped develop and deliver, in collaboration with Charles Darwin University and a group of Yolngu community members, and funded by the Public Health Network, cultural competency resources for non-indigenous professionals who work with Yolngu clients in NEAL. The aim of this project, Guṉdirr, was to increase allied health service quality, increase medication adherence, and improve treatment outcomes for Aboriginal people accessing health services in very remote regions (see https://www.gundirr.com/). This unique and technology-driven cultural competency and health and wellbeing resource will be presented at International 2024 Indigenous Wellbeing Conference being held in Auckland.
Connect SEWB is also currently collaborating with CDU again, and the Literature Production Centre (LPC) at Yirrkala Bilingual School in North East Arnhem Land, to develop a language program aimed at increasing Yolngu language skills of non-indigenous health professionals in the NEAL region to improve service quality and improve service providers outcomes when working cross-culturally with Yolngu people.
The program will also be delivered to young aboriginal children living in very remote regions in NEAL to increase literacy in their native language, increase their cultural identity and improve their academic skills and emotional well-being.
Gundirr is a resource to assist non-indigenous health care professionals to work effectively with Yolŋu people. Gundirr is Yolŋu for the termite mound, which illustrates the multi-layered colours of the earth and which is reflective of the many layers that exist within Yolŋu culture.
The Gundirr resource exists in two parts: 1) the website that enables and supports your skills in working with Yolŋu; and 2) a smartphone app that can be used on country, with and without internet connection. You are encouraged to explore both as you strive to enhance the wellbeing of your Yolŋu clients.
Gundirr Overview
The Northern Territory Mental Health Coalition (2022) found a range of complex, interrelated factors that impact the accessibility and quality of mental health services in rural and remote communities in the Northern Territory (NT). The mental health burden in the NT is higher than the national average and almost one-third (30%) of First Nations Territorians experience high or very high psychological distress compared with 11.8% for non-First Nations people. In the NT, Young Territorians are over-represented within mental health services compared to other age groups. Social determinants of health, such as poverty, unemployment, drug and alcohol use, family violence, chronic disease, ongoing grief and loss (due to higher rates of mortality and incarceration), contribute to high rates of suicide in the NT. These issues point to an urgent need for improved accessibility to, and understanding of, quality mental health services.
To move towards this, the scope of the Guṉdirr project allowed for the formation of a development team, which partnered with First Nations mental health providers to translate existing resources and strategies into more culturally safe practices. The remote region of North East Arnhem Land (646 km East of Darwin) was chosen due to its relatively high presence of mental health services and the continued renowned cultural strength of the local First Nations people, the Yolŋu people. The development group comprised emerging Yolŋu leaders, local mental health and wellbeing practitioners and advocates, educators, and specialised psychology researchers and employed a co-design and co-production process, which included extensive community consultation with Yolŋu Elders and community members.
Specifically, the goal of Guṉdirr was to empower Yolŋu people to have increased agency and choice in their mental health treatment. To this end, and as a result of the extensive consultative and collaborative process with the local Yolŋu community, the development team identified two key elements: i) affording balanda (non-First Nations people) workers a tool that could facilitate their deeper understanding of Yolŋu society (e.g., customs, nuances) and culture, and thereby increasing non-First Nation’s clinician’s ability to understand the experience of First Nation’s patients/clients, and ii) enhance Yolŋu people’s understanding of “Western medicine”, therefore reducing a barrier to their access to mental health services in remote community contexts.
The Guṉdirr project, driven by, co-designed and co-produced with Yolŋu emerging leaders of North East Arnhem Land, developed an easily accessible and fundamental tool, Guṉdirr. Guṉdirr aims to address both of these immediate issues and to bring two worlds closer together and improve the effectiveness of mental health treatment in the region.
As a result, an online training/support program has been developed for rural and remote health service providers and workers. The program details key strategies for cultural relevance and sensitivity to increase connection between, mental health clinicians and First Nations people. The Guṉdirr website (https://www.gundirr.com/) and a downloadable mobile App were initially created using Yolŋu culture, specific to North East Arnhem Land, as the foundation but which have the potential to be used across a number of regions with First Nations language groups and applications.
Guṉdirr is designed to advance the knowledge and appreciation of fundamental nuances within a Yolŋu worldview for non-Yolŋu health providers of all levels and training, increasing their preparedness and ability to establish culturally safe and effective relationships with First Nations clients/patients and make meaningful connections to their First Nations patients/clients in a remote First Nations health context.
The Gundirr consultation and co-design process resulted in an emphatic recommendation that a fundamental understanding of Yolŋu worldview and culture was essential for balanda health workers to support First Nations people who have mental health concerns connect more successfully with their treatment provider and understand their treatment options. The Gundirr product presents several fundamental culturally safe approaches for balanda clinicians to engage Yolŋu people in mental health treatment, all of which were identified, co-designed and co-produced by Yolŋu people. Local health workers can use this tool to help First Nations clients enjoy the benefits of choice, provide culturally appropriate and sensitive treatment, and improve mental health outcomes.
The sites and strategies have been reviewed by non-First Nations and First Nations people (predominately Yolŋu) across a variety of clinical and non-clinical health settings. Feedback was classified into three groups: i) I need the app (non-Yolŋu people requiring knowledge), ii) I am the app (Yolŋu people who operate as language and cultural interpreters), and iii) I am the beneficiary (Yolŋu people experiencing mental health issues). A summary of the feedback is below.
The resource is available for use by health workers and Yolŋu people throughout the Nhulunbuy and Homeland regions of North East Arnhem Land, Northern Territory.