Course Catalogue: Cultural Awareness

The course offers the opportunity to:

• increase cultural awareness
• develop and maintain culturally safe work environments
• enhancement of worker capacity to work in culturally safe ways with Aboriginal clients.  

The learning approach is structured and customised allowing for experiential and transformative learning. The approach allows for reflection on attitudes and personal realities. A supportive and challenging environment is created in which to question existing beliefs and highlight and improve the understanding of the needs of Aboriginal clients.

The cultural safety considerations that need to be addressed and incorporated into practice are also highlighted and applied. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal facilitators work together to facilitate cross-cultural communication and enhance discussion. The course detail is tailored for your specific workplace and context which ensures relevance.

The delivery team includes local Aboriginal community members who give local information and context to the cultural safety training. All facilitators are highly experienced and trained in cultural competence facilitation. Facilitators are approved by the Aboriginal Health College.

The course will enable participants to:

• increase understanding of factors impacting on Aboriginal health and service delivery
• improve awareness and approaches to reflect on and implement culturally safe ways of working with Aboriginal clients and co-workers
• use more culturally inclusive practices when working with Aboriginal clients and co-workers

Benefits to the community

• Increased awareness of culturally inclusive practices and enhanced cultural safety in work practices
• Improved service delivery and greater cross-cultural understanding.
• Help to ensure services are more Aboriginal sensitive and focused
• Benefits to participants
• Enhanced capacity to meet needs of Aboriginal clients and work effectively with Aboriginal communities and clients.
• Improved capacity to provide services in culturally safe ways.

This course is designed for non-Aboriginal community and social services, health and allied health professionals and workers working with or likely to work with Aboriginal clients and communities. The course is tailored to suit the individual circumstance of each target audience within a workshop delivery. For example it is specifically delivered and customised for Alcohol and Other Drug, Harm Minimisation and Needle and Syringe Program Workers; General Practitioners and Nurses and other Allied Health professionals; Community Service Workers; Aged Care and Disability Workers.

The course is aligned to meet the following units of competency:

• HLTHIR404B Work effectively with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
• HLTAHW201A Work with Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander clients

Expected face to face hours: 18 hours

Course length: Two days