- Author Emma Carlin, Lorraine Anderson, Kristen Orazi, Pat Dudgeon
- Publish date 8 December 2025
- Type Report
- Documents
- Health service delivery
Summary
First Nations Health and Wellbeing – The Lowitja Journal (2025)
This commentary examines the role of trauma-informed care (TIC) in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander healthcare, with particular focus on Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS).
It outlines how colonisation, intergenerational trauma and systemic inequities continue to shape health and wellbeing outcomes, and argues that healthcare responses must address these structural and collective dimensions of trauma.
The paper highlights the strong alignment between TIC principles and the ACCHS model of care, especially in relation to cultural safety, community governance, holistic healing and self-determination. Rather than positioning TIC as an external framework, the authors argue that it can deepen and strengthen culturally grounded, community-led models already embedded within ACCHS.
Drawing on sector examples and the Wellbeing Informed Care – Kimberley project, the publication calls for a coordinated national policy and practice framework to support consistent, culturally centred implementation of trauma-informed approaches across ACCHS, strengthening health equity and sustaining community-led care.
Projects
Towards well-being informed primary health care across the Kimberley Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services
Across the Kimberley region, rates of psychological distress, self-harm, and suicide among Aboriginal people remain disproportionately high. A recent audit of mental health presentations across remote Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS) in the Kimberley, conducted by The University of Western Australia (UWA) research team, found that staff and clinicians spend significant time responding to patients in acute distress. This has led to inefficiencies in clinics operations and ineffective treatment outcomes for patients. This project will test a new, on-the-ground approach to health service delivery that is informed by an understanding of how trauma affects people’s lives, their service needs, and their patterns of service use. Importantly, this model can be delivered using existing resources. The model of care “wraps around” patients, providing support at every touchpoint – from the driver who first engages with them on the way to the clinic, to the clinic and community staff who welcome them, through to the treating clinicians. It re-frames how health staff engage with distressed patients, shifting from a lens of “non-compliance” to one of empathy and understanding – recognising the life circumstances that have led the patient to seek care. Project objectives: Develop and deliver a pilot program to test the implementation of a “wrap around”, trauma-informed model of care across five ACCHS in the East Kimberley, aiming to improve outcomes for both patients and staff. Measure the impact of the new approach on health-seeking behaviours, reductions in violent presentations, incidents of self-harm, suicide ideation, and psychological distress, as well as improvements in clinical staff retention and job satisfaction. Deliver a translation and implementation plan that demonstrates the success of the pilot and can be replicated across other ACCHOs in northern Australia. Build an evidence base to inform further government investment in trauma-informed models of healthcare delivery.