The Power of Authenticity and Cultural Safety at the Intersection of Healthcare and Child Protection

We consider here the potentialities of drawing on the cultural strengths and resilience of Australian’s First Nations families for their engagement with child protection (CP) and healthcare services. We disentangle the underlying historical and systemic failures driving the crisis of Australia’s First Nations children coming into CP in disproportionate numbers. This is a difficult, complex, and evolving area of reform with scant empirical evidence—questions abound more than solutions. Our core message is this: a public health approach to CP requires better logical frameworks informed by more research and evaluation, driven by the cultural strengths of First Nations Australians. We outline key reforms through an intersectional approach between the healthcare and CP systems, and between cultural competence and cultural safety, using an inter-professional communication tool. We argue that deficit thinking toward First Nations peoples is embedded within culturally dangerous dominant discourses. Contemporary reforms have failed to redress this. Monocultural institutions including healthcare and CP services must address racism—“cultural safety” needs to underpin policy and practice. Crucially, we assert that power rests in the hands of First Nations peoples to determine if the care provided to their communities is culturally safe. Governance, policy, and practice must authentically embrace culturally safe practices, confronting deeply held social norms, biases, and assumptions. Organizational processes, culture, and relationships are core components in culturally safe environments and we outline a number of research and workforce development strategies. Fundamental are strength-based approaches to empower First Nations people’s self-determination, control, and collaboration in systemic changes.