Strength Tree - Artist Annette Miller Read about the Strength Tree

Indigenous perspectives | Northern Territory

Kanat Wano is the National Coordinator, Community Partnerships for MindMatters.

Kanat works closely with the MindMatters Aboriginal and Torres Strait Advisory Committee who provides important advice in the development of all materials and the overall focus of MindMatters.

MindMatters operates from these Culturally Inclusive Guiding Principles .

Communities do Matter

The Communities do Matter process positions a framework using community development and capacity building principles to encourage the respective local community responses that will support and reinforce MindMatters initiatives and activities with Indigenous young people in secondary schools.

The Communities Do Matter resources and activities are closely linked with the MindMatters resources and activities as applied in the school environment. They have been developed to target the following Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander audiences:

• Young people who are secondary school students.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Leaders.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Parents, Families and Care-givers.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education, Health and Youth Workers.

Feeling Deadly Not Shame (FDNS), is an approach used with the young people to foster engagement with the process. The other workshops and activities assist the use of a community development approach, which includes schools to reinforce and sustain mental health and wellbeing promotion within a community context.

Community Development perspectives are used and MindMatters focuses on the following principles.

• Community Organising (connecting people with common links)
• Community Capacity Building (implement & sustain)
• Community Strengths Based Approach (existing talents, skill & assets, build on what you already do well)
Community Engagement (authentic communication & participation)

These principles of Community Development are useful in the use of the Communities do Matter and the Whole School Approach to create sustainable mental health and wellbeing practices in secondary schools.

Past events

Tasmania 2008

A 2-day residential professional development workshop was held at Larapuna. An introduction to MindMatters was presented by Kanat Wano and Le-ella Doyle (Tasmanian MindMatters Project Officer). Larapuna is a Special Place to Tasmanian Aborigines, the choice of this site for the workshop was conducive in strengthening of relationships between MindMatters and Aboriginal Education. The sharing of knowledge and learning was reciprocal, a greater understanding of Tasmanian Aboriginal culture and MindMatters was the result.

Aboriginal Education sent a core team to Student Empowerment workshop in April. It was decided that a pilot project of Communities do Matter on Cape Barren Island would be established.

Queensland 2007

Reports about MindMatters involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups can be found on the past activities page.

Forthcoming MindMatters professional development events around Australia can be found on the Training Calendar.

Resources

Resources links are available on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples pages on the Auseinet website - a key Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing information clearinghouse and the Dare to Lead website - a cross-sectoral, cross-system, national educational initiative. It is a practical response to the widespread desire for improvements in Indigenous education.

Read the NSW Director of Aboriginal Health, Ken Wyatt's speech entitled Diversity and Health and Wellbeing that was presented at the MindMatters 2005 conference.

Background

MindMatters created two positions in 2005 to strengthen the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander focus of MindMatters. Linnell Barelli, the Community Matters Project Officer, and Annette Miller, the MindMatters Indigenous Project Support Officer, were working at the national level to:

• Develop and maintain partnerships between MindMatters and Mental Health
• Develop resources for MindMatters that reflect the principle of cultural inclusiveness
• Maintain and develop the profile of MindMatters across Australian school communities
• Maintain and develop the cultural inclusiveness of MindMatters professional development

Linnell and Annette worked with the MindMatters team to develop a new MindMatters DVD entitled, CommunityMatters. The CommunityMatters DVD focuses on diversity for health and wellbeing in schools. It was launched at the MindMatters National Conference on 18 March 2005. It was awarded the Best Indigenous Resource by The Australian Teachers of Media Victoria, (ATOM) in 2005.

View the CommunityMatters DVD handbook
CommunityMatters DVD order form
Troubleshooting tips for the CommunityMatters DVD