A first for Ferdy’s: our tertiary level research experience on Palm Island
A first for Ferdy’s: our tertiary level research experience on Palm Island Conference Paper
14th National Rural Health Conference: A World of Rural Health
- Author(s): Nallajar, Carcia, Cannon, Christine
- Secondary Author(s): Coleman, Leanne
- Published: 2017
- Publisher: National Rural Health Alliance
Abstract: Working in a remote Indigenous community has many challenges in delivering an effective drug and alcohol harm minimisation and treatment program. We live and work in the community and have firsthand experience of the cost of drug and alcohol misuse, this behaviour now normalised is not consistent with Aboriginal culture. Ferdy’s Haven is an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation which provides a residential recovery program for people who self-identify as having a substance misuse problem and self-refer on Palm Island. Services were initially established in early 1980 on the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) program. However, the AA program does not meet everybody’s needs and is not consistent with the harm minimisation strategies within the current Australian National Drug Strategy. Now, times have changed since the early 1980s, and community social issues have evolved and escalated with the introduction of other forms of drugs and substances resulting in high levels of drug and alcohol consumption that is now affecting young people and their families in the community. Tackling the issues has meant that we need to evaluate how we provide our service and we recognise that our programs need to change to meet the needs of the community today. The Australian National Drug Strategy is developed on evidence based research and we realised that this was needed at Ferdy’s Haven and became research partners with James Cook University though the Townsville Aboriginal and Islander Health Service in 2015. This is the first time that Ferdy’s Haven has been involved with a formal research process in the last decade. This is an important process which included Ferdy’s from the beginning, the youth workers were trained as research assistants and were involved in developing the survey tool through to data analysis in the project. Young people doing research with young people and finding out the issues is really important for our service delivery and building Ferdy’s to meet the community’s need. Our experience has been positive, the interim findings of the research has provided more insight into the lives of the young people and their needs for us. The research process has been a steep learning curb for Ferdy’s but we see this as having potential to building a better service for our remote community. We would like to share our story with you.
- Urls: http://www.ruralhealth.org.au/14nrhc/sites/default/files/Nallajar%2C%20Carcia_E6_0.pdf Available from, http://www.ruralhealth.org.au/14nrhc/program/concurrent-speakers Download site
- Publisher Location: Cairns