The cultural security of aboriginal women birthing on noongar boodjar

Abstract

Aim: The aim of the research project was to: 1) Investigate what Aboriginal women say are their contemporary and traditional cultural birthing rights, values and expectations: and compare this to midwives meanings, the literature on cultural competence and cultural security, and midwifery curricula and 2) Develop a theoretical model to evaluate Core Cultural competence models and educational frameworks for maternity services. Approach: Key to undertaking this research was a partnership made up of health service providers and associated organisations, mainstream maternal services and Aboriginal maternity group practices and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal investigators and importantly Aboriginal women, elders and community members. The governance of the project evolved over time in line with development and stages of the project. This included the cultural governance and the understanding of what this meant to the Aboriginal investigators and their non-indigenous counterparts. The presentation will highlight this evolution and the challenges, strengths, solutions and practices that informed the project. A key challenge was how to work collaboratively across different world views to ensure cultural integrity was maintained. Respecting the cultural space of Aboriginal women, elders and Aboriginal researchers and investigators when the voices of women were heard and interpreted was central to achieving robust findings. The mutual acknowledgement of the knowledge, skills and experiences of all investigators underpinned the project outcomes. Implications: While this was not the first time Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal investigators collaborated on a research project in the health arena, to our knowledge it is the first which has actively sought solutions which put cultural leadership, and the knowledge and skills of practitioners, academics and researchers on the same footing, and put into practice strong cultural and mainstream leadership.