Cultural Safety
Ensuring a safe and respectful environment for all
Cultural safety is about creating a safe environment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This means no assault on, challenge to, or denial of their identity and experience. Ultimately, cultural safety is about shared knowledge, shared meaning, and shared respect.
Culturally safe service delivery is crucial in enhancing personal empowerment for Aboriginal clients; and should promote more effective and meaningful pathways to self-determination for Indigenous people. For Ear Foundation Australia, this means self-determination for First Nations parents, carers and children when they engage with our service. This also means ensuring First Nations stakeholders, such as local Aboriginal Medical Services and representative bodies, can provide direction and input in our services on the ground.
The design of our programs began with direct input from First Nations founders to ensure that cultural safety was at the core of our operations. We know that short term and quick fix approaches to Indigenous issues do not address the multiple complex challenges of Indigenous health and education. Which is why the issue of cultural safety is paramount.
At every opportunity, Ear Foundation board and staff engage in critical reflection on their experiences and knowledge to define and frame what cultural safety means in the field. For example, Ear Foundation teams were able to fulfil all requirements to continue clinical visits during the COVID-19 closure of communities because these communities endorsed our service provision and determined where and when access would be safely permitted. Ear Foundation received biosecurity clearance by meeting all the stringent requirements to ensure community safety during pandemic lockdown. We continue to monitor and enact what is culturally appropriate and culturally safe within workspaces for children, families, and staff. This includes strong adherence to protection of privacy when engaging in consults with young adults and elders in the community.
In 2020, we worked to refine and adapt the Aboriginal cultural safety in health care: AIHW monitoring framework to ensure constant reflection on cultural safety wherever Ear Foundation works with First Nations peoples, and this detailed check list informs all our work going forward.
Ear Foundation believes Aboriginal governance and leadership underpins a strong focus on cultural safety, reinforced by the proactive recruitment and deployment of First Nations staff. Since 2015, the Ear Foundation Australia board has been chaired by Aboriginal women, and half its members are Aboriginal.
Cultural safety is at the core of Ear Foundation’s operations and all our staff actively work to ensure that it remains an ongoing priority in all aspects of our organisation.
Our Story
Reaching further.
Building trust.
Every day, we listen. We listen by showing up — alongside children, families, Elders, teachers and health workers across Western Australia. And what we hear is clear: communities deserve better health, better opportunities and better futures.