EEP400 Indigenous Education Studies Assignment Sample

Subject Code : EEP400
University : Charles Sturt University (CSU) My Assignment Services is not sponsored or endorsed by this college or university.
Subject Name : Education studies

Indigenous Cultural Safety And Community Involvement

Part A

Critical reflection

Cultural safety important for indigenous children and their families

Part B

Strategies

Aboriginal’s Education

Aboriginal Education Aspect – Aboriginal Students

Aboriginal Education Aspect – Aboriginal Content for All Peoples

Aboriginal Education Aspect - Aboriginal Communities

Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF)

References

Part A

Critical reflection

In the article by Bin-Sallik (2003), an overview of the Australian higher education with respect to indigenous education sector has been presented. This article outlines the process of how the first indigenous higher education program was prosed and developed. It also reflects the reasons for the development and the ways of replicating across the higher education sector of Australia. In this article, the cultural safety issue has been resolved by reviewing several trials and tribulations. The finding of the article reflects that the universities need to provide alliances to the indigenous personnel and develop a good structure for dealing with the problems faced by the indigenous students such as racism in institutions, not getting an appropriate education and many other issues. The possible methods shown in the article are having a unit of Aboriginal and islander so that students are able to understand the historical background which helps in reducing racism and provide cultural safety to the indigenous students.

In this article, it has been shown that discrimination and racism faced by the Aboriginal and islander from their teachers is the issue that relates it with cultural safety. In this article, several processes and methods are given for dealing with such issues. The other point which is derived from the article is cultural safety helps in spreading awareness of the culture and allows the other members to understand the culture. With the help of cultural safety programs, an individual contributes to achieving positive outcomes. By introducing the education program for the indigenous students for higher education, the classrooms were decorated with the posters and artefacts of the indigenous people. The several academic programs were incorporated such as indigenous knowledge system, their culture and their histories as well as the teaching staff. Thus, safety cultural program is beneficial for the indigenous students in achieving higher education.

Cultural safety important for indigenous children and their families

Cultural safety refers to the environment which is safe and secure for the people which helps in sharing respect, knowledge and experience of learning. It is very important for Aboriginal people to have cultural safety and security because these people face lots of discrimination and racism at several institutions and universities. The concept of cultural safety is becoming increasingly acceptable in several areas which in turn helps in improving the standards of living and education for the children of Aboriginal and Torres Islanders people. It has been observed that unsafe cultural activities can disempower the well-being of an individual. The Aboriginal people had very little education as colonial authorities divided on whether they had to study or not. Many authorities saw Aboriginal as people who lived in nature with perfect harmony and free from the limitations of urban living (Bin-Sallik, 2003). Whereas other authorities viewed the Aboriginal and Islanders people as savages who were not cable of accepting the influences by the urban civilians.

Cultural safety programs help the children in giving effective and safe environment in which they are freely express their culture and belief. The children and young people are provided with better higher education. The value of the cultural safety programs has been identified and recognised by several organisations that represent services to the indigenous people. It has been observed that the communities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander work together with the government agencies of Australia in order to promote the cultural safety programs. The cultural safety programs have been successfully applied to the education sector and the health sector in a large context. The Macquarie’s institution was the first institution that put their efforts in introducing the effective education program for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It was with the help of cultural safety programs that the institutions were able to start the effective programs for the children. The cultural safety programs were introduced after consulting with the organisations which provide services to the Aboriginal peoples. These organisations must aware of the several issues and problems that have been faced by the Aboriginal people. According to the article by Bin-Sallik (2003), there are positive outcomes of implementing the cultural safety program in the institutions, as the classrooms were decorated by the Aboriginal people’s posters and artefacts. Several units were introduced in the academic programs which helped in creating an understanding of the Aboriginal culture. The teachers were selected on the basis of their experience with the Indigenous people as they delivered the information and concepts to the people in an effective way. It has been observed that the evaluation of the proposed program to the universities and institution was successful as the evaluation was done only on the basis of the longitudinal study. The proposed program continued and the report of the evaluation program states that the training programs which were introduced had a positive impact on the Indigenous people and had also increased their confidence, their self-awareness, their feeling of competence, improved their communication skills and their vision get wider. This created an optimistic feeling in the Indigenous people about their upcoming future.

The proposal of the cultural safety program came from the Department of Community Welfare (DCW), Adelaide after the request had been made by the Adelaide Aboriginal Community. The Aboriginal community wanted to have their own people to work with the clients who were Aboriginal peoples as case managers. According to the article, Aboriginal Advisory Body was established with the recommendation of DCW and SAIT which involves the majority of members from the Aboriginal community whose main responsibility was to advise the SAIT (School of Social Studies) on the matters that were related to the Indigenous people of Australia (Bin-Sallik, 2003). The role and responsibility of AAB were to ensure that the cultural safety programs deliver the histories and culture of the Indigenous people from their perspectives. It also ensures that the selected students must be committed to their respective communities and were likely to succeed in the future.

Cultural safety is very important for both the children and families of Aboriginal peoples in terms of education and living standards. It helps in providing them with an effective environment where the Indigenous people are able to express their cultural background with others in an effective manner. The early childhood setting involves providing better programs to the children that helps in developing relevant skills and gain knowledge similar to the other children. The cultural safety program eliminates the discriminatory attitudes and practices that have been faced by the people of Indigenous people (Board of Studies, 2008). It involves racism and the children of Indigenous people take benefits of appropriate services such as health, education, sports and social services. It is beneficial for the children and their families as it provides them with all the basic requirements they needed for living a healthy life. It has been observed from the final report of Royal Commission while providing a response to the child sexual abuse in 2017, that it is very important for the Aboriginal people to have a cultural safety program for their children. The several recommendations that had been involved in the report for the importance of cultural safety are funding should be provided to the Aboriginal people who are the victims and survivors of child sexual abuse (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, 2017). Moreover, developing and implementing plans can be provided to the Child Placement Principle for the Aboriginal people.

Cultural safety helps in removing the discrimination and racism among the Aboriginal people. The children belong to Indigenous culture are able to get higher education and the teachers in the institution provide effective training programs. It helps in gathering appropriate education and they also get effective treatment from the health care professionals by adapting the cultural safety programs (Harrison & Sellwood, 2016). The Aboriginal and Torres Islanders people are beneficiated with the cultural safety program as it provides them with all the required resources and services which are not provided them earlier.

Part B

Strategies

The three different childhood centres that demonstrates creating a culturally safe learning environment for the Indigenous people of Australia are from the Yenu Allowah Aboriginal Child and Family Centre which offers effective range health programs which includes providing dental and hearing screening for all the Aboriginal children, therapies and also maternal health to the Aboriginal families (SNIACC 2015). The other strategy followed by the Cullunghutti Aboriginal Child and Family Centre. It helps more than 400 children and adults that participated every year in the health and family support program. It provides paediatric services to the children by providing hearing assessments and antenatal mental health assessment (SNIACC, 2015). Bubup Wiliam: A place to grow video helps in early learning to the Aboriginal peoples. This video helps in highlighting the values that have been provided by the centres to the Aboriginal peoples such as health, well-being and education (SNIACC, 2014). It allows the Aboriginal people to take participate in the events, sports and provide them with a chance to understand the culture. The centres act as a mentor to the students. It allows Aboriginal people to learn many things from experienced and successful persons.

Aboriginal’s Education

It is important for the Aboriginal people to have required education so that they can also live with other people without facing discrimination and racism. There are several programs introduced by the centres that provide effective learning to these people. The barriers that affect the learning of the Aboriginals students are a language issue, limited material for teaching, living conditions and many others (Lyons & Janca, 2012). It has been observed that childhood centres take the education and wellbeing of Aboriginal children as a priority.

Aboriginal Education Aspect – Aboriginal Students

There is a need for creating an effective environment for the Aboriginal students that provide them effective leaning which can be done in several ways. Appropriate training should be provided to the teachers so that they can express their thought in a way that Aboriginal students are able to understand. Teachers can also use the native language of the Aboriginal people if they are not able to understand English. These strategies are very effective and build confidence in the Aboriginal students and help them in expressing their thought openly (Education Council, 2015).. The students can join the local organisations such as the AECG Community which provide support to the students. They can also contact the experienced Aboriginal members who are working in the schools. There are several local functions and sports events which help them in exploring unique experience.

Aboriginal Education Aspect – Aboriginal Content for All Peoples

The early childhood centres also collaborate with the Indigenous parents in order to fulfil the needs of the children. The Early Childhood Education and Care Centres are the best centres in the Indigenous community which provides accommodation as well as effective learning and education to them. The content that has been used for the Aboriginal people should be designed in a way that is easy to understand and in their local language (MCEECDYA, 2008). The early childhood centres delivered knowledge and useful information in an authentic and meaningful way. The content can be reviewed by the Aboriginal Educational Branch as well as by the Aboriginal teachers. The early childhood centres develop the content accordingly and shared it with the children’s after getting approval from the high board members.

Aboriginal Education Aspect - Aboriginal Communities

The childhood centres follow the guidelines of the Aboriginal communities and provide learning to the Aboriginal children’s accordingly. These communities know the needs and requirements of the Indigenous people and prepared the policies and guidelines for childhood centres effectively (Martin, 2007). The Aboriginal communities monitor and take care of the issues that have been faced by the Aboriginal people and provide effective solutions by working together with the government agencies. It is important for the Indigenous to understand and learn about their culture so that they can explain it to others. They can also join professional Associations to learn new things. The several skills that can be developed with the help of community are teaching skills in order to provide effective learning to the students, tolerance, and flexibility, broader sense of community and sense of humour.

Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF)

Providing learning’s to the Aboriginal students according to their needs is one the most effective way which helps in building effective learning outcome. This also meets the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) outcomes by fulfilling all the learning outcomes. The above mentioned Aboriginal childhood centres provide an effective environment which ensures their safety and develop confidence in them. The childhood centres adopted strategies by providing effective learning to the Aboriginal students which helps them in connecting the rest of the world. It develops several skills in the Aboriginal children which enable them to give a contribution to the world. Childhood centres enable Aboriginal children to become more confident. It will take time to build a genuine relationship with others and achieving a positive change. There is a need of closing the gap between the Indigenous people and Non-Indigenous people that takes time and the Indigenous people have to learn several things in order to remove the gap which can be effectively done by these childhood centres.

References

Bin-Sallik, M. (2003). Cultural Safety: Let’s name it!. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 32, 21-28.

Board of Studies (2008). Working with Aboriginal Communities: A Guide to Community Consultation and Protocols Revised Edition. Retrieved from http://ab-ed.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/files/working-with-Aboriginal-communities.pdf 2

Education Council (2015). National and Torres Strait Islander Education Strategy 2015 Education Council. Retrieved from http://www.scseec.edu.au/site/DefaultSite/filesystem/documents/ATSI%20documents/NATSI_EducationStrategy_v3.pdf

Harrison, N. E., & Sellwood, J. (2016). Learning and teaching in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education. South Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press.

Lyons, Z., & Janca, A. (2012). Indigenous children in Australia: Health, education and optimism for the future. Australian Journal of Education, 56(1), 5-21.

Martin, K. (2007). Ma (r) king tracks and reconceptualising Aboriginal early childhood education: An Aboriginal Australian perspective. Children Issues: Journal of the Children's Issues Centre, 11(1), 15.

MCEECDYA (2008). Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians. MCEECDYA:South Carlton,Victoria. Retrieved from http://www.curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/National_Declaration_on_the_Educational_Goals_for_Young_Australians.pdf

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. (2017). Final Report Recommendations Retrieved from https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_recommendations.pdf

Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care [SNIACC]. (2014). Bubup Wilam: A Place to Go Grow. Retrieved from https://www.snaicc.org.au/bubup-wilam-a-place-to-grow-video-made-with-bubup-wilam-early-learning-Aboriginal-child-and-family-centre/

Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care [SNIACC ]. (2015). Cullunghutti Aboriginal Child and Family Centre. Retrieved from https://www.snaicc.org.au/wp_content/uploads/2015/12/Cullunghutti-service-case-study-2015.pdf

Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care [SNIACC]. (2015). Yenu Allowah Aboriginal Child and Family Centre and Luke’s Story. Retrieved from https://www.snaicc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Yenu-Allowah-case-study-2015.pdf