A YEAR IN REVIEW Transforming Indigenous Mental Health and Wellbeing Transforming mental health systems through empowering Traditional Healers Transforming Indigenous Mental Health and Wellbeing (TIMHWB) is a groundbreaking research program, led by Aboriginal experts and leaders in mental health and wellbeing, including Professor Pat Dudgeon and Professor Helen Milroy. Over the past year, a key focus for the TIMHWB project has been determining how mainstream mental health services can be more culturally safe. One way to improve cultural safety is through providing access to Ngangkari (Traditional Healers). In a project that is being led by Professor Helen Milroy, the TIMHWB research team are working in partnership with the Ngangkari from NPY Women’s Council (NPYWC) to evaluate the impact of mainstream mental health services collaborating with Ngangkari at the Alice Springs Hospital.   Throughout this project TIMHWB will adopt a transformative Aboriginal Participatory Action Research (APAR) methodology. APAR is designed to centre and prioritise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices and selfdetermination in research. Through an APAR approach, the questions asked will be co-designed with Ngangkari, and analyses will be done in partnership with Ngangkari, ensuring that responses are interpreted in a meaningful and culturally appropriate way. This research will build the evidence base needed to advocate for mainstream mental health services to work with Traditional Healers in Australia, and will forge the path for future systems-level change and transformation. This research project builds on the existing relationship between the TIMHWB team and the NPYWC Ngangkari. They had already engaged in focus groups aimed at understanding cultural safety, and at the national Social and Emotional Wellbeing (SEWB) gathering in October 2021, where Ngangkari shared ideas about collaboration with mainstream services. This gathering was attended by mental health and SEWB representatives from community controlled health organisations and peak bodies, and by policy makers, academics and mainstream mental health experts, including the chief psychiatrist of Western Australia. PHOTO: Pat Dudgeon (Chief Investigator, TIMHWB), Helen Milroy (Chief Investigator, TIMHWB), Aunty Liz Hayden, NPY Women’s Council Healers, and Yiriman Project Healers at the SEWB gathering Transforming Power: Voices for Generational Change 17