A YEAR IN REVIEW NAATSIHWP Building a unique, culturally safe workforce “The National Association of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Practitioners (NAATSIHWP) is the peak body of a unique workforce established by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” says NAATSIHWP CEO Karl Briscoe, a proud Kuku Yalanji man from Mossman in the Daintree area of Far North Queensland. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Health Practitioners are the world’s only Indigenous health professions underpinned by national training and regulation. They also stand apart in the Australian health care system. They are primary health care professionals with a combination of clinical, cultural, social and linguistic skills that allow them to act as cultural brokers and health systems navigators, and to deliver culturally safe care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in remote, regional and urban communities who are often not served well by mainstream health services. “They bring the cultural intellect to care for our mob. They are trusted and they understand the importance of holistic care, and the social and cultural determinants of health, whether they are providing health checks or continuity of care in remote communities often served by other fly-in fly-out services, or driving our mob to appointments along the way checking on their emotional and social wellbeing, as well as how family and other community members are doing. However, much more needs to be done by governments and regulators to allow the professions to work to the full scope of their ability and for the broader health systems to understand and value the uniqueness of their roles,” Karl says. The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination program demonstrated this need for reform. Not only did it require a focus on logistics and infrastructure, but it also demanded a workforce capable of engaging community members, combating the falsehoods circulating about the vaccine and easing the 16 Transforming Power: Voices for Generational Change anxiety resulting from bad experiences with health research and care in the past. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioners are trained with the skills and capabilities required to support the delivery of vaccines. However, in some jurisdictions they did not have the legal authority to do so. Many states and territories needed to initiate emergency orders to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioners to participate and help fill workforce shortages. The pandemic also highlighted a broader need to establish a nationally consistent minimum scope of practice to guide the roles and increase the utilisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Health Practitioners in health services across all sectors of the health systems.   The workforce consistently proves its value and importance. NAATSIHWP is now calling for the permanent harmonisation of medicine authorities and legislation across Australia to allow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioners to supply and administer medications in their communities, and for the introduction of a nationally consistent minimum scope of practice. NAATSIHWP is also urging government to fund the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled sector to support the new National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan, the new National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workforce Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan, and the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. It is critical that NAATSIHWP are supported to design and deliver Indigenous-led programs to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to make informed decisions and have access to culturally safe care across the entire health systems, and to urgently address systemic racism in health care that causes such harm for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients, Health Workers, families and communities.