![](/-/media/feature/micrositesnewsandevents/staffnews/suzanne-chambers-460px.jpg)
Innovation in practice
News 24 JulyA message from Executive Dean of Health Sciences Professor Suzanne Chambers: Winter has so far been a season of future-thinking and action for the Faculty of Health Sciences.
11 November 2020
Share
A cross-disciplinary, co-designed project supporting culturally responsive practice in student placements has been awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Award for Spirit of Reconciliation.
The Spirit of Reconciliation Award has been introduced in 2020 as part of the Vice-Chancellor’s commitment to ACU’s Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Employment Strategy (RAP). This award recognises the contributions of staff at ACU who strive to achieve culturally appropriate programs and activities for the betterment of our students and staff, and their commitment towards meeting the university’s Indigenous targets.
This year’s winning group comprises the Allied School of Health’s Associate Professors Loretta Sheppard from occupational therapy, Joanna Zubrzycki from social work, and Wendy Pearce from speech pathology, with assistance from Richard Jameson, the former coordinator of Dhara Daramoolen: the Indigenous Higher Education Unit on our Canberra campus.
The team combined their expertise in content and curriculum across their three disciplines to produce a series of video resource and workshop materials.
“We have a responsibility to produce culturally aware graduates and that responsibility extends to clinical practice contexts,” Joanna says.
“We know from a range of evidence that these placement environments don’t always reflect the skills and knowledges that we teach. It is important to provide a range of resources to the professionals who provide supervision to our students.”
A small learning and teaching grant enabled Richard to engage an Indigenous film and production crew, Wirrim Media. In collaboration with ACU Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous students, staff and graduates, a range of video resources were produced.
The video scenarios reflect the lived experiences of Indigenous students who have confronted a lack of cultural safety in clinical placement settings. The aim was to produce resources and other workshop material that could engage fieldwork supervisors in order to build the cultural capabilities of non-Indigenous fieldwork supervisors and assist with the creation of culturally safe learning environments for Indigenous students, Indigenous communities and agencies when hosting student placements.
“Some of the [racist] experiences are quite subtle in clinical placement settings and reflect unconscious biases of staff supervisors and colleagues, but the impact can be profound on the students’ learning,” explains Loretta.
According to Wendy, “Richard, as an Aboriginal filmmaker and former coordinator with a social work background, had dealt with a lot of students who had these experiences. He was pivotal in pulling together the resources which were developed and in scripting possible scenarios which the students could find themselves in.”
Joanna says that the significance of supporting culturally responsive practice during placements is that it strengthens the connection between what students learn at university and what they experience and can put into in practice.
“If students are being supervised by a supervisor who is aware of the potential biases, they are more likely to be able to support students and in turn integrate this awareness more broadly into their professional roles,” she says.
The workshops also provide the opportunity for supervisors to explore, discuss and respect the cultural knowledges held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health professionals and to recognise the role that these knowledge systems have in their agency contexts.
“Cultural knowledge should not be seen as subversive to the professional knowledge system, [but] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health professionals experience this regularly,” says Wendy.
On the importance of respect for cultural knowledge, Joanna explains that the workshops have been designed to be co-facilitated by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous professionals. Both she and Loretta acknowledge the critical work of their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues Jessica Russ-Smith, David Wragge and Kerrie Thomsen who co-facilitated the workshops.
The team is in the process of disseminating workshops and planning train-the-trainer sessions to share their materials, make the workshops sustainable, and embed Indigenous knowledge more broadly. They are looking at ways to continue to deliver this each year, across all campuses and disciplines.
The team has chosen to donate their prize money to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and the Cherbourg Boys and Girls Dormitory Ltd in line with Spirit of Reconciliation Award.
A message from Executive Dean of Health Sciences Professor Suzanne Chambers: Winter has so far been a season of future-thinking and action for the Faculty of Health Sciences.
From Monday 22 July to Friday 9 August, Service Central will be available for extended hours to support staff.
A message from Vice President Father Anthony Casamento csma: From 5 – 9 August we will celebrate Mission Week across our campuses. This is an opportunity for us to come together as a community to cele...
Are you going to be a grandparent soon? Did you know ACU offers personal leave for staff to care for their child or grandchild after birth or adoption?
Discover the learning and career development opportunities that are available online, including the brand-new leadership development program, 'The Edge Series'.
Join ASCILITE and become a member of one of Australasia’s most vibrant professional technology enhanced learning communities, with more than 2200 members from tertiary institutions across Australia an...
Phones will be removed from all classrooms over the mid-semester break, from 23 September to 27 September.
Include an additional survey item in the Student Evaluation of Learning and Teaching (SELT) survey for units that are offered in Professional Term 5 (202455).
Australia’s first five-time diving Olympian, a Kiwi gymnast and the woman who taught actor Chris Hemsworth to row will be among 15 ACU students and alumni to compete at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Para...
A message from acting Executive Dean of Theology and Philosophy Associate Professor Richard Colledge: Recently, the faculty has hosted opportunities for reflection on the possibilities for reconcilia...
Are you on your parenthood journey? A practical guide is now available to support staff, and their supervisors, through the stages of becoming a parent and transitioning back to work.
Embark on an exhilarating journey into the mysterious world of enrolments. Register to attend an enrolment information session for Semester 2, 2024.
Join upcoming online workshops in preparation for Semester 2. Secure your spot today to learn how you can utilise Canvas and its features to enhance your teaching practices.
A limitless professional horizon awaits ACU students after its three IT programs were awarded certification by the nation’s most trustworthy player in the tech sector, the Australian Computer Society.
Following evaluation and voting by a panel of ACU judges, Co-Lab is delighted to announce Thomas Clark and Xavier Chalkley as the winners of the $1000 prize for the ACU Co-Lab Social Enterprise Pitch ...
ACU Library staff will participate in professional development activities on Thursday 18 July. While away from their usual posts, they'll be working together across three locations to plan our future ...
Applications for 2024 Teaching Development Grants, Citations and Awards are open. Explore guidelines and resources to enhance your teaching project’s impact or gain recognition for your contributions.
As we sit in this small window of the winter break gearing up for Semester 2, it's important to recognise that not everyone experiences this period as downtime. For many, workloads and busy lifestyles...
This week is NAIDOC Week, an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the history, culture, and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
ACU staff who are also members with UniSuper can now access free expert medical advice and services to support their health and wellbeing through MetLife 360Health.
Visit Service Central to access Corporate Services.