The allied health workforce has grown steadily over the years. To maintain a culturally responsive and skilled allied health workforce to meet the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, innovative educative approaches for the current and future workforces are essential.   As an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisation, one of IAHA’s key priorities is for the allied health and broader sectors and services to develop the capacity, knowledge and skills required to work effectively and safely with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

IAHA aims to provide cultural education through different mediums, including face to face training, webinars, online learning and yarning sessions. We work with our experienced members, stakeholders, communities and trainers to ensure that programs are culturally safe, effective, relevant and appropriate to the diverse sectors and communities.

IAHA promotes opportunities as they arise and works directly with clients or services to ensure that our cultural education meets specific needs within their context of working with and in respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities.

Course Curricula Development

IAHA values and takes pride in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander allied health workforce and provides opportunities to support and build the strength of this membership. IAHA has a clear position on the essential need for a culturally safe and responsive workforce and culturally safe health services and organisations, critical to improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and wellbeing outcomes. Therefore, health professionals cannot practice effectively with just clinical skills as they also need to be culturally capable to meet the needs and aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. To achieve this, there is a requirement to increase culturally responsive health content with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives embedded in curricula across all allied health and related disciplines.

IAHA’s position on the education of health professionals is to significantly influence and support the quality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander allied health students’ learning and development.

This can be achieved through the following:

• Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander standpoints across all allied health curricula as compulsory content;
• Applying the diverse Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural lens to all accreditation and professional standards and protocols;
• Assisting and leading education institutions and programs such as universities to provide culturally safe and responsive learning environments for students;
• Ensuring culturally safe and responsive clinical placements incorporated in health sciences curricula.