Indigenous Offender Health Research Capacity Building Group(IOHR-CBG) bridges gap in ATSI Health

June 12, 2013 - PRLog -- With great line up of more than 30 speakers and the end of financial year coming upon us, this is now the ideal time to register to attend the conference so that your staff’s professional development expenditure fits into this year’s spending budget as we are extending our June registration rates for invoices issued until 15th of July to allow for end of financial year’s last minute bookings, an attempt to give a chance for grassroots Indigenous Health workers to participate.

One of the highlights of this year’s conference is that on the 27th November 2013, Ms. Julie Nankervis, Director of Australian Bureau of Statistics from the National Centre for ATSI Statistics, Northern Territory will announce the first release of the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey 2013 report, giving delegates the most up to date information on Indigenous health survey nationwide.

Furthermore representatives from the northern hemisphere will also be sharing different First Nations’ health pathways implemented in various Indigenous communities in Canada. Bella Ribbonleg of Canada will be co-presenting with Ms. Lydia Mainey of Queensland on a keynote session entitled Dream Catchers and Diabetes: How the Kehiw Women's Group reduced isolation and imparted positive health messages to women in a remote First Nation's community in Northern Canada. Ms. Nathalie Lachance will also be presenting her paper entitled Shared Past, Different Meanings: Looking for a Path Forward in Working Together which outlines the relationship between First Nations and the federal government in terms of the delivery of health services to First Nations communities - an area of Canadian public policy that has experienced a fairly high level of change over the last century. Nathalie works in Policy and Strategic Planning Team at First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB), Health Canada, Alberta and has participated on a number of initiatives seeking greater collaboration between First Nations communities and First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB) and has worked for national Aboriginal organizations.

Moreover, a further development in the conference agenda is the recent collaborative sponsorship established with the Indigenous Offender Health Research Capacity Building Group (IOHR-CBG). Australia has one of the highest Indigenous incarceration rates which impacts profoundly on Indigenous communities. Hence, a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers and academics from New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and the ACT whose been working collaboratively on key health areas of mental health, substance use, blood-borne viruses, impact of incarceration on Indigenous communities, and models of care for Indigenous offenders will also be joining us at the conference with the whole afternoon sessions on the 3rd day allocated to sharing their findings as well as discussing issues, challenges and successes of their research project. Outcomes with which will include better health services for Indigenous offenders, and more generally improved health and wellbeing for those in the community from which they come, and to which they return.