Culturally Safe Care

Culturally Safe Care

The Purpose of this Program

The Australian Government and the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety recognise the need for older Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples to receive culturally respectful and safe care.

Culturally respectful and safe care reflects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' perspectives, priorities, and knowledge systems. It recognises the importance of connection to Country (Aboriginal land, sea and sky or Aboriginal homelands), the right to health equity and access, and the right to determine care and how it is best delivered. This entails collaboration and coordination across services and community partnerships to ensure care is strengths-based and free of racism and that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples feel welcome where they are receiving care, understood, and empowered.

Ensuring culturally safe care is particularly important when Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples live in mainstream care communities and receive care from non-Indigenous staff.

We welcome you to these innovative podcasts and vodcasts on culturally safe care - developed by Aboriginal Elders from Trouwerner/Lutruwita (Tasmania), the Koori and Murri Regions of the east of Australia, and the Nyoongar and Yamitji Country of Western Australia.

Photographs and brief biographies of the Elders accompany the podcasts and vodcasts, along with publications. 

 Podcasts

 Vodcasts

The five podcasts you have listened to focus on foundational concepts for culturally respectful and safe care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: ensuring connection to Country, facilitating cultural safety in aged and dementia care, understanding intergenerational trauma and the need for trauma-based care, how traditional medicine and bush foods can complement Western-oriented approaches to care, and ensuring culturally safe end-of-life care/entering the Dreaming. These short videos, or vodcasts, complement the podcasts - illustrating the importance of Country and how connection to Country and strong spirit can be established and maintained in mainstream residential care communities.