This week is Harmony Week, with National Close the Gap Day on Thursday, 19 March. I write this as a non-Indigenous psychologist who has worked alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues and communities in remote settings across the ‘top end’. What I write is offered with respect and humility and is grounded in listening and relationships. It does not speak for First Nations people but reflects a theme frequently shared by First Nations health workers: the experience of holding multiple stories at once, and the strength this brings to healthcare when it is recognised and valued.
Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people working in healthcare are navigating multiple worlds simultaneously. There may be family, cultural or community commitments, along with competing professional and systemic stories; all of which have their own responsibilities and truths attached. Holding these multiple stories is about honouring each of these relationships in their context and complexity.
In practice, this may involve carrying community histories of colonisation, dispossession and survival into clinical spaces that are shaped by Western biomedical models of healthcare. Trying to join cultural obligations to family, community and country whilst also meeting professional responsibilities, translating between cultural ways, and engaging with policy, clinical procedures and documentation is by no means a small achievement! The capacity to do this is often invisible in ‘mainstream’ healthcare settings, yet central to a person’s ability to provide culturally safe and effective care, particularly in rural and remote settings.
Many First Nations health workers carry a significant cultural load, and may be asked to explain culture, respond to racism, mediate misunderstandings, or support colleagues and systems to work more safely with the community. This emotional and relational labour is frequently unrecognised and under-resourced. There may also be tensions around accountability to the institution and the community. For example, Western frameworks around risk, time, and confidentiality are often at odds with cultural expectations of shared responsibility, collective care and relational decision-making. For some people, working within healthcare systems evokes intergenerational memories of harm, alongside pride in contributing to care. Naming these challenges matters, not to reinforce the burden, but to better understand the skill and strength required to navigate them.
Holding multiple stories is a capability that reflects adaptability, cultural continuity and relational intelligence. First Peoples concepts of healthcare are intrinsically holistic in their nature, and encompass the physical, social, spiritual, emotional and cultural contexts as contributing to wellbeing. Rather than reducing symptoms in isolation, First Peoples perspectives on wellbeing often consider the contributions of history, context, and relationships to someone’s presentation. This knowledge has sustained First Peoples culture and communities for tens of thousands of years, and it is this knowledge that First Nations health professionals draw on, bringing a strengths-based perspective, rather than focusing on deficit. These qualities are crucial to effective healthcare in complex environments with limited resources.
Entire teams benefit when First Nations colleagues are genuinely valued, rather than being tokenised. First Peoples perspectives encourage deeper listening, broadening the clinical understanding. These perspectives also challenge transactional models of care, reminding systems that health is about dignity, belonging, and continuity, not just throughput, outcomes and meeting KPIs. This perspective has the potential to humanise healthcare environments for both patients and practitioners.
To support First Nations staff, it is imperative to create space for pause, allowing reflection that acknowledges when multiple stories are being held. This space also provides time that allows for responding with intention, rather than depletion. Mindfulness practices such as brief grounding techniques, reflective yarning or time on country can help to regulate stress and sustain wellbeing, particularly after difficult encounters.
For non-Indigenous workers, mindfulness practices that are informed by the Social and Emotional Wellbeing framework¹ can help inform cultural humility and personal accountability. Take time to slow down, notice the experience of discomfort, and reflect on how power, privilege, and dominant cultural models have shaped (and are still shaping) clinical interactions. Listen without defensiveness, with curiosity, tolerating any feelings of uncertainty, and being open to the possibility that First Peoples knowledge systems may challenge Western norms of control and efficiency. Don’t judge the differences, but just notice and become aware of them and what each brings.
Non-Indigenous practitioners also have a responsibility to engage in ongoing cultural humility and personal accountability. They need to advocate for systems that are flexible enough to be shaped by First Peoples knowledge, rather than expecting First Nations workers to continually adapt. Recognising the strengths of holding multiple stories requires not only appreciation but also action, including appropriately resourcing cultural roles, providing reflective supervision that acknowledges the complexity, and ensuring Cultural Safety at an organisational level rather than leaving it to each individual’s responsibility.
Holding multiple stories is an incredible strength shaped by culture, history, and relationships. First Peoples working in healthcare bring ways of knowing and being that enhance care for individuals, communities and systems alike. It should not be up to First Nations workers to fit into existing models, but rather to question how healthcare itself can be transformed by recognising, respecting, and learning from the multiple stories already held within it. We can all benefit from this perspective on healthcare.
Be kind,
Dr Nicole Jeffery-Dawes,
Senior Psychologist, Mental Health & Wellbeing Service
- Gee, G., Dudgeon, P., Schultz, C., Hart, A., & Kelly, K. (2014). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional wellbeing. In P. Dudgeon, H. Milroy, & R. Walker (Eds.), Working Together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Wellbeing Principles and Practice (pp. 55-68). Australian Government Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
