Objective: To describe and evaluate Hearing EAr health and Language Services (HEALS), a New South Wales (NSW) health initiative implemented in 2013 and 2014 as a model for enhanced clinical services arising from Aboriginal health research.
Methods: A case‐study involving a mixed‐methods evaluation of the origins and outcomes of HEALS, a collaboration among five NSW Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS), the Sydney Children's Hospitals Network, NSW Health, the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council, and local service providers. Service delivery data was collected fortnightly; semi‐structured interviews were conducted with healthcare providers and caregivers of children who participated in HEALS.
Results: To circumvent health service barriers, HEALS used relationships established through the Study of Environment on Aboriginal Resilience and Child Health (SEARCH) to form a specialist healthcare network. HEALS employed dedicated staff and provided a Memorandum of Understanding (detailing mutual goals and responsibilities) for each ACCHS. Despite very tight timeframes, HEALS provided services for 653 Aboriginal children, including 5,822 speech‐language pathology sessions and 219 Ear, Nose and Throat procedures. Four themes reflecting the perceived impact of HEALS were identified: valued clinical outcomes, raising community awareness, developing relationships/networks and augmented service delivery.
Conclusions: HEALS delivered rapid and effective specialist healthcare services through an existing research collaboration with five ACCHS, cooperation from local health service providers, and effective community engagement.
Implications for Public Health: HEALS serves as a framework for targeted, enhanced healthcare that benefits Aboriginal communities by encapsulating the ‘no research without service’ philosophy.
This article uses an Indigenous Research Methodology known as Storywork. Following Indigenous protocols and pedagogy through the telling of stories, the reader and listener is introduced to an Indigenist paradigm and research standpoint. Through describing my standpoint, the stories demonstrate the centrality of my Indigeneity in my methodology while also confirming an Indigenizing framework of inquiry. The stories highlight decisions and actions of government that have dismantled cultures and knowledge systems but can also be applied to public policy to enable and embed culture. Critical reflections within the stories depict Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing in research.
Indigenous knowledges relating to cultural ways of being, knowing and doing must be front and centre to any public health response • A deep-seated resistance to addressing institutional and systemic racism and racist attitudes prevent the implementation and sharing of Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous cultures • Public health policy makers and practitioners must start identifying and talking about racism, to help actively address racism
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.