Search results

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Aboriginal) people are overrepresented in Australian prisons, where they experience complex health needs. A model of care was designed to respond to the broad needs of the Aboriginal prisoner population within the nine adult prisons across South Australia. The purpose of this paper is to describe the methods and findings of the Model of Care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Prisoner Health and Wellbeing for South Australia.

The project used a qualitative mixed-method approach, including a rapid review of relevant literature, stakeholder consultations and key stakeholder workshop. The project was overseen by a Stakeholder Reference Group, which met monthly to ensure that the specific needs of project partners, stakeholders and Aboriginal communities were appropriately incorporated into the planning and management of the project and to facilitate access to relevant information and key informants.

The model of care for Aboriginal prisoner health and wellbeing is designed to be holistic, person-centred and underpinned by the provision of culturally appropriate care. It recognises that Aboriginal prisoners are members of communities both inside and outside of prison. It notes the unique needs of remanded and sentenced prisoners and differing needs by gender.

Supporting the health and wellbeing of Indigenous prison populations can improve health outcomes, community health and reduce recidivism.

Only one other model of care for Aboriginal prisoner health exists in Australia, an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation-initiated in-reach model of care in one prison in one jurisdiction. The South Australian model of care presents principles that are applicable across all jurisdictions and provides a framework that could be adapted to support Indigenous peoples in diverse prison settings.

This research investigated ideas regarding the concept of culture in contemporary New Zealand by critically evaluating the formal consultation processes surrounding the issue of genetic modification. Such analysis provides a basis for advising those who work within public relations on subtle forms of marginalisation and exclusion, which could be reduced with increased awareness of the dynamics of privilege.

The research design involved a multi‐sited ethnographic approach drawing on three bodies of empirical data: participant observation within the Royal Commission of inquiry into genetic modification, textual analysis of the written submissions by Interested Persons to the inquiry, and interview material from people who were involved in the inquiry to varying degrees.

The main findings indicate that “culture” is often used in bureaucratic structures to describe the knowledges and practices of minority groups, where “minority” refers to those with less power, rather than those of smaller number. Lack of acknowledgement of the implicit privileging of dominant rhetorics allows for the further marginalisation of less‐dominant viewpoints. Insofar as policymakers have a responsibility to incorporate moral legitimacy and social justice within legislation, the findings encourage alertness to the dynamics and implications of unintentional exclusion.

I aim to assist in providing a language with which to better articulate subtle dynamics of power and privilege, exclusion and marginalisation, both generally and within discussions of best practice in public relations.

By providing a critique of a particular consultative process, this research highlights some of the limitations of bureaucratic consultation and discusses these theoretically as well as descriptively. It is hoped that these critical observations (from within a consultation setting that was remarkably inclusive and egalitarian by most standards) will assist consultative and advisory bodies, as well as policymakers, to design more inclusive processes for democratic participation and deliberation, particularly in relation to controversial technologies.