Our Journey

Background to our projects

Where it all began

In 2008 Associate Professor Michael Wright was working as the Manager for the Derbal Yerrigan Mental Health Service. He was very impressed by the consumer and carer engagement movement that was gaining traction in mainstream mental health. However, he was disappointed that there was not the same level of involvement or interest with Aboriginal consumers and carers.

Michael wanted to explore the reason for this; Was it just apathy on the part of services, or did Community members have a deep distrust of the mental health system?
He set out to investigate the low representation of Aboriginal consumers and carers within the mental health system.

This led to a decade-long program of research to improve the responsiveness of the health system for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across Western Australia.

“My research question really was about how care giving in this instance is different for Aboriginal people as from non-Aboriginal people. The study explored Aboriginal people’s experiences of living with mental illness as well as the experience of family members. We wanted to understand what caring looks like for Aboriginal people. While there were many findings, the one that led me to develop the Looking Forward Project was how the system is so difficult for Aboriginal people in its lack of understanding about Aboriginal culture. That lack of understanding creates a lack of empathy and this results in services and staff responding inappropriately. Aboriginal people are then left feeling that they’ve been discriminated against and that the system has abandoned them. I was often told they felt like they’d been re-traumatised by the experience of being in the system itself.”
– Michael Wright, 2019

Michael wanted to work towards addressing these issues. So began a program of research to change the way health systems and services respond to the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

“…health is the right of everyone. It shouldn’t just be a privilege for a few. Everyone should have good health and everyone should have the means and access to enjoy good health.” – Michael Wright, 2019

As a cross-cultural team, we have helped to build relationships between Aboriginal community and Mental Health and Drug and Alcohol Support Services. We have used co-design framed by Aboriginal-led participatory action research to rebalance the power held by mainstream services. Our co-design work privileges an Aboriginal worldview in order to decolonise decision making and reorient priorities such that Communities are in a position to hold services to account.

“We see a future where Aboriginal people feel confident they can access any mental health or drug and alcohol service in Western Australia knowing they will receive culturally secure and responsive care.”

The team, led by Associate Professor Michael Wright, a Yuat Nyoongar researcher, and over 20 Aboriginal Elders, conducted research with mainstream mental health and alcohol and other drug services across five main projects:

  • Looking Forward Aboriginal Mental Health Project (2011-2015)
  • Looking Forward, Moving Forward Project (2017-2023)
  • Building Bridges Youth Mental Health Project (2017-2019)
  • Our Journey, Our Story Project (2019-2024)
  • Ethical Decision Making Project (2021-2024) 
  • Kaatadjiny Walbraaniny Danjoo Project (2022-2024)

In addition, an Elders Conference in 2022 brought community members and service leaders together to develop a Call to Action which has seen services and government take the journey of working together with the Aboriginal Community and learning more about relational ways of working.