Affirming practice for Aboriginal people

Providing affirming care for young people who identify as both LGBTIQ+ and Aboriginal (LGBTIQSB+) requires culturally responsive care and allyship for both intersecting identities.

This includes:

• striving to be an affirming practitioner, regardless of your own cultural background
• demonstrating knowledge and understanding
• being familiar with local services and contacts, and connecting your client with them if that is their preference.

Culturally responsive care and allyship for LGBTIQSB+ clients requires facilitating options for care from people in community they feel safe with. This can include advocacy and support for LGBTIQ+ affirming practice from Aboriginal Medical Services (AMS), as well as familial supports from different parts of community, such as:

• LGBTIQ+ Uncles and Aunties
• extended community supports
• trusted people who are not biological family.

Cultural safety in CAMHS

Integrating culturally appropriate care into CAMHS clinical practice requires cultural safety within your team. This involves genuine engagement with local Aboriginal knowledge holders as well as Aboriginal mental health professionals. This might include:

• regular training from, and consultation with, Aboriginal people
• cultural supervision
• respect for cultural load and labour provided by Aboriginal people, and appropriate compensation for Aboriginal identified roles and consumer representatives
• respectful and compensated engagement with Aboriginal mental health professionals and supervisors in mental health organisations, education or other spaces where a young person might be involved.

Affirming Aboriginal identity

Much like identifying your own pronouns when working with LGBTIQ+ young people, identifying your own experience of race, culture and country shows allyship with Aboriginal clients. You can do this when you first make contact with a client by naming the land you are on and your own racial location, e.g: “Hi, I’m AJ, I’m a white person. I’m on Widjabul/Wyabal country and I grew up on Arakwal country – all Bundjalung Nation. Because we’re expecting you to share personal information about your culture, I think it's only fair that you know a bit about me, too”.

Exploring appropriate support options

Here are some examples of questions you can ask your LGBTIQSB+ client to guide you in providing affirming care:

• “What do I need to be mindful of when working with you?”
• “Are there any Aboriginal services or supports that you might like me to follow up for your care?”
• “There are Aboriginal supports and services that we could connect you to as part of your care. Have you ever heard of [service name]? It’s a local service and we could link you up. There are also statewide and national services like [examples]. Would you like me to find more information about them for you?”

If we’re asked “Do you identify as Aboriginal or/and Torres Strait Islander?”, that should follow with the clinician actually wanting to know more about that… It’s not just a tick box.

*  Name changed for confidentiality.

A client may take time to trust you, and their needs may change over time with your service. Check in again about their preference for care options using the questions above. Do this at key points, such as:

• changes in their family or community life
• if they invite a close person into their LGBTIQSB+ identity
• as part of their mental healthcare plan, wellness plan or safety plan
• during mental health review
• in preparation for care team meetings
• in preparation for discharge or referral.