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Indigenous peoples live across all continents, representing approximately 90 nations and cultures and 476 million people. There have long been clear statements about the rights of Indigenous peoples to self-determine services, policies, and resource allocations that affect our lives, particularly via the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. An area for urgent improvement is curricula that train the predominantly non-Indigenous health workforce about their responsibilities and that offer practical strategies to use when engaging with Indigenous peoples and issues.
The Bunya Project is designed to advance Indigenous community-led teaching and evaluation of the embeddedness of strategies to achieve an Indigenous Graduate Attribute in Australia. The project centers the relationships with Aboriginal community services to lead education design relating to Indigenous peoples. The project aims to articulate community recommendations for university education in allied health in the usable format of digital stories to create culturally informed andragogy, curriculum, and assessment measures for use in teaching. It also aims to understand the impact of this work on student attitudes and knowledge about Indigenous peoples’ allied health needs.
Multilayered project governance was established, along with a 2-stage process using mixed methods participatory action research and critical reflection, using the reflective cycle by Gibbs. The first stage,
The protocol for the first stage,
The readiness of non-Indigenous staff to engage with Indigenous communities has not been ascertained by Universities Australia, nor can it be assured. Staff preparation and skills to support the curriculum, create a safe learning environment, and develop teaching and learning strategies to guide academics to recognize that how students learn is as important as the content students learn. This learning has broad implications and benefits for staff and students within their professional practice and for lifelong learning.
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There are 476 million Indigenous peoples worldwide, who belong to the world’s oldest continuing cultures and who have the right to self-determine health services to meet needs [
The Bunya Project is part of a participatory action research (PAR) project that aims to develop the skills and capabilities of academic staff to understand the principles and processes required to develop and embed Indigenous perspectives into the health care curriculum, ultimately influencing systemic change within the health care workforce.
This paper outlines a process for Indigenous community participation, showing how it is possible and important in developing culturally respectful engaging resources for students learning at university, across disciplines. The Bunya Project models processes and protocols for working with Indigenous peoples and community organizations that honor diverse Indigenous peoples’ knowledge with authenticity, humility, and reciprocity, as per cultural and ethical protocols. This paper contributes to the narrative as to how and why universities should partner with Indigenous communities and organizations; the value of the Bunya Project lies not only in sharing important knowledge held by Indigenous community organizations and members but also in demonstrating how to bring community into university life. This Bunya Project protocol may be useful for Indigenous peoples around the world, to adapt to local circumstances in partnership with community organizations and local teaching institutions.
The Bunya Project protocol outlined in this paper provides the principles and strategic knowledge used by a university education health faculty in Australia, driven by the Indigenous health team. The early stages of the protocol describe what could be called the “pre-research” stage—much of this preliminary work is taken for granted by the authors as “proper ways” or a respectful process, knowledge of which is gained through lived experiences and social expectations in a community context. However, what is obvious to us may not be obvious to non-Indigenous academics. Therefore, this paper outlines the principles and processes required to implement this protocol, based on the authors’ insider knowledge and lived experience as Indigenous peoples.
The Bunya Project is inspired by the tall Bunya tree of eastern Australia—
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the Indigenous populations of the continent referred to as Australia. Aboriginal peoples are heterogenous, with >250 different language groups [
In Australia, all national and state-based policies indicate that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have the right to cultures being at the center of decisions made, with full participation in decision-making [
Current university education curricula produce graduates who often enter positions of power relevant to Indigenous peoples’ realization of rights. However, their education is severely lacking and does not produce graduates who are sufficiently well developed to bring about the types of urgent health system or health workforce changes needed to influence the drastic improvements required [
The embedding of Indigenous peoples’ perspectives into mainstream university curriculum has been named for at least 2 decades in Australia [
Nonetheless, most Australian universities have committed to embedding Indigenous perspectives into their curriculum [
Unfortunately, there are few examples for universities about how to achieve the IGA. Universities have rarely met Indigenous staff targets [
As an example of uninformed curriculum content, information about Indigenous peoples’ health and well-being often begins with a focus on the most easily available information in the public domain—the Australian Government’s Closing the Gap framework [
The holistic collectivist notion of Indigenous Australian peoples’ health has much to offer to Western biomedicine in recognizing the whole person and their context: “Not just the physical wellbeing of an individual but refers to the social, emotional and cultural wellbeing of the whole community in which each individual is able to achieve their full potential as a human being, thereby bringing about the total wellbeing of their community. It is a whole-of-life view and includes the cyclical concept of life-death-life” [
To health educators who are versed in Western biomedicine, this holistic health concept seems complex and “too hard” [
Allied health care professions are recognizably underdeveloped, particularly in relation to Indigenous peoples’ ways of knowing, being, and doing in the curriculum and clinical practice [
Statements implicating universities in perpetuating the disadvantage of Indigenous peoples’ experience have recently been met with mixed responses in Australia, including denial and confusion [
In contrast, mounting evidence exists for the success of Aboriginal community–controlled health organizations. The networked organizations (>140) across Australia have demonstrated leadership since the 1970s in effective and efficient holistic health care [
Bunya has been designed as a central strategy for a university faculty (the University of Technology Sydney [UTS] Faculty of Health) and a graduate health school (the UTS Graduate School of Health) to support students to achieve IGA and to deliver curriculum for students embarking on a career in allied health care, specifically pharmacy, physiotherapy, clinical psychology, orthoptics, genetic counseling, and speech pathology. Bunya explores both how curriculum development processes can include Indigenous communities and Indigenous community members’ experiences of allied health care.
The idea of seeking to connect a university health faculty with Indigenous communities to develop curriculum and to research the process and outcomes is very well supported by Australia’s peak body for health and medical research, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). The NHMRC guidelines,
We have divided the Bunya Project into 2 stages—preparing the soil and planting the seed. Owing to the nature of PAR, it is impossible to separate protocols and learnings as clearly as in papers describing other forms of research, such as a clinical trial. The learnings from the
We have taken a PAR approach [
PAR also reflects the authors’ lived experiences of working with the community and as educators in the university context.
PAR prioritizes researchers and participants forming partnerships to identify issues of local importance and determine ways to understand the issues and strategies for action [
In developing and articulating the preliminary process and protocol, the reflective cycle principles by Gibbs [
The Bunya Project has been designed in accordance with NHMRC ethics guidelines regarding studies being conducted with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples [
The Bunya Project has been approved by both the University of Technology Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee (ETH18-2618) and the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of New South Wales Human Research Ethics Committee (1451/18).
To develop the Bunya Project and method, the authors took into account cultural ways of working, along with community protocols and expectations. Overall, 5 steps were necessary to “prepare the soil” for the Bunya Project process. The five steps are as follows:
Community engagement—developing relationships to ensure that the project is of benefit to the community and responsive to the community objectives
Lived experience—humility in recognizing the influence of our own lived experience on our worldviews and interactions
Critical self-reflection—about our own perspectives and the influence these perspectives and experiences have on the formulation of ideas, conduct, and expectations
Reciprocity—which ensures that the benefit is mutual and the communities are meeting their objectives, not what the researcher thinks is of benefit to them
Working collectively—which creates the space for all participants to belong and feel empowered as an important part of the team, process, and outcomes achieved
Preparing the soil in the Bunya Project.
We identified four priority groups to engage with:
Indigenous community organizations
Indigenous community members and health care service users
University staff
University students
Invitations for group 1, Indigenous community organizations, to participate in the Bunya Project were circulated through networks and social media to encourage self-nomination. The research team visited community organizations and attended community events, circulating information and responding to queries. In total, 6 organizations signed up as Bunya Project collaborators. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this was reduced to 5 owing to travel distance restrictions and then to 4 because 1 organization ceased operating. A formal agreement was negotiated with each organization about their participation, including supporting curriculum development, assisting with the recruitment of Indigenous individuals who are willing to participate in data collection, and providing mentoring and peer support during the Bunya Project.
The Indigenous community organizations invited community members and health care service users (group-2 participants) to participate either directly or through social media. Information about the Bunya Project was circulated within each organization. Participants then self-nominated to participate. Participation includes interviews to collect data pertaining to insight into their own health care needs and strengths within their community influencing educational opportunities for allied health education. A total of 24 Indigenous community members and health care users were recruited to be interviewed.
Group-3 participants, university staff, were recruited through self-nomination.
University students (group-4 participants) will be invited to participate in the Bunya Project via the unit coordinator or class tutors. Participation is voluntary. Students who self-nominate will be required to complete premethod and postmethod surveys; we are aiming to survey most participants (n=169, 75.1%), with the total being 225 students.
The Bunya Project encourages connectedness wherever possible among project participant groups.
Lived experience recognizes the cultural, spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental experiences; circumstances; beliefs; and worldviews of a person, including the well-being of the individual, family, or community. A lived experience recognizes the ongoing impact of colonization experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals, families, and communities. Lived experience also recognizes specific events that have an impact on the social, emotional, and cultural well-being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples [
Critical self-reflection resulted in the identification of clear guiding principles for the conduct of the project. These guiding principles also reflect general cultural expectations when working with community and Indigenous knowledge. These principles are a guide for consideration in best practices for community engagement and leadership in teaching and learning and Indigenous research cultural protocols. As an Indigenous peoples–led research team, we cannot differentiate cultural protocols from research protocols; Indigenous culture informs knowledge production and the use of knowledge in research and practice.
The research team actively participates in the Indigenous community organizations’ business, supporting initiatives and events; contributing to committees; contributing skills, knowledge, and expertise; and providing access to university resources and networks.
The project continues to progress with mutual understanding of and agreement on key activities.
Although the leadership of the Bunya Project rests with the Indigenous health academic unit within the faculty, the leadership has a clear desire to work collectively. The heads of each of the 6 postgraduate health disciplines were invited to nominate a staff member to join an academic working group fondly termed “the Bunya Nuts.” These representatives provide discipline-specific expertise and guide curriculum development to ensure academic rigor and alignment with the curriculum that is already established.
The Bunya Nuts developed the terms of reference collectively; members are responsible for liaising within their discipline, inviting feedback, distributing community-developed video teaching resources, and facilitating student survey participation.
The Bunya Nuts also selected the following objectives for its mixed methods PAR project:
Develop relationships with Aboriginal community services to support the project and understand community recommendations for university education in allied health
Conduct interviews and collect digital stories from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, to understand “what are their experiences, perspectives, knowledges and aspirations for their own health and wellbeing and in relation to allied healthcare?”
Create culturally informed andragogy, curriculum, and assessment measures for use among teaching staff and students
Implement an evaluation framework to understand the effects on student attitudes and knowledge about Indigenous peoples’ allied health needs and aspirations and the authenticity, relevance, and accessibility of the curriculum for staff
Continue to develop culturally informed teaching and learning strategies
This section discusses the results of the “preparing the soil” process of the Bunya Project. The “preparing the soil” process resulted in key insights for the “planting the seed” stage including how future data are to be collected and the process and methodology for replication within the reader’s own context.
As outlined in this paper, the Bunya Project uses PAR cycles to gather information, develop curriculum, use it, and evaluate it from multiple perspectives. As a PAR project, the “planting the seed” stage of Bunya itself has 6 stages, each stage influencing the next in a continuous cycle, as illustrated in
Planting the seed—Bunya Project protocol phases.
The “planting the seed” process begins with critical self-reflection positioning by those guiding the project, their bias and influence, and ensuring that they have undertaken deliberate preparation to uphold the authenticity of the project. Phase 1 also incorporates the process in “preparing the soil” illustrated in
As
Critical self-reflection is again consciously used in the “planting the seed” stage of the Bunya Project, using the reflective cycle by Gibbs [
In the future, focus group discussions will be conducted with Indigenous organization representatives. Focus group discussions encourage knowledge-producing dialogue in a group context. They allow the researcher to be part of the discussion [
Focus group discussions will be semistructured, with guiding questions developed by the Bunya Nuts, and will be 30 to 60 minutes in duration.
The groups will have approximately 6 participants. Topics will range from health care knowledge and experiences to identifying needs and strengths within their community to influence the educational opportunities for tertiary education.
The focus group discussions will be audio recorded with written consent from all participants. Focus group participants will receive light refreshments in reciprocity of their time. All data collected during the focus groups will be deidentified.
Interviews are designed to occur as a social interaction while sharing a cup of tea, known as kapati time, and create a safe space that facilitates yarning and storytelling [
The interviews will be video recorded, with individual consent obtained from each participant before participation. Videos—digital stories—are a way of clearly displaying that the individual holds ownership over their knowledge, culture, and experiences and tells their story themselves, rather than having someone interpret their experience. Videos will then be edited for use, and written final approval will be obtained from the participant before the videos are implemented as internal teaching resources. Videos remain as the property of the participant and are not permitted to be changed or altered in any way unless additional consent is sought from the participant. The 24 interview participants will receive a gift card worth Aus $20 (US $13.23) as compensation for their participation.
Overall, 6 interviews will be conducted at each of the 4 locations.
The survey chosen to be used for the Bunya Project was designed as a university-wide instrument by the Centre for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges [
The survey assessment framework is based on 5 overarching themes that are aimed to critically engage with teaching and learning content related to the university’s IGA. The overarching themes are as follows:
Knowledge
Critical reflectivity
Indigenous voice
Indigenous community engagement
Applied Indigenous knowledge [
The students will be provided with the survey through the survey platform. The Bunya Nuts representative for the discipline will upload the link to the learning management system for the subject. The link will be accompanied by an announcement to encourage student participation. The survey will remain open for at least 3 weeks, and students will be encouraged to complete it.
The development of the resources begins with the Bunya Nuts working group to identify topics within the curriculum for each discipline. These topics will be discussed in focus group discussions with Aboriginal community–controlled health services, identifying the specific learning or information that the group determines as important for the students to know, understand, and apply within their professional practice. On the basis of the results of the discussions, one-on-one interviews will be conducted and video or audio recorded (according to participant preference). The interview questions and topics will be directly linked to the outcome of the focus group discussion, ensuring Indigenous self-determination throughout the process. The clips will be edited into short clips and reviewed by the participants to ensure that the message remained as intended.
The resources developed will be made available to the school teaching staff within the various disciplines. The resources will be uploaded to the learning management system. Staff will be invited by the project team to access the resources. The project team will have control over who can access the resources and analytics to track where the resources are implemented within the learning management system, to ensure that the resources are only implemented in accordance with the ethical guidelines. The teaching staff will copy the resources into various points within their subjects to ensure that an Indigenous voice is present. The implementation of the resources will be accompanied by support processes outside this project, including teaching principles, an andragogy framework, and professional development opportunities for the staff. The project team recognizes the importance of not only what is taught (the content) but also how it is taught (the andragogy).
The analysis of the data will be undertaken by the research team, in collaboration with the community partners and the Bunya Nuts. The andragogy framework guides the analysis, centering Indigenous knowledge and learning methodology within the context of adult education. Specific analysis will be conducted for each data set—the focus group discussions, interviews, and surveys.
Interviews will be transcribed and entered into NVivo (QSR International) [
The Centre for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges’ processes for the analysis of data will be followed. The results of the validated survey will be analyzed to measure the impact of the authentic community-controlled teaching resources on the staff and students’ attitudes, knowledge, and learning experiences in relation to Indigenous perspectives within their professional learnings. The quantitative data will be carefully cleaned, with frequencies identified using SPSS [
Drafts and initial thoughts will again be shared with the community organizations to provide feedback regarding the progress and impact of the resources developed. The community guidance will influence modifications in the teaching resources for future implementation, beyond the scope of this project.
The protocol for the first stage,
Through the “preparing the soil” stage of the PAR, the “planting the seed” Bunya Project protocol emerged, as depicted in
PAR is an empowering methodology that privileges local knowledge and lived experiences throughout every facet of the project [
This study encourages universities to develop partnerships with Indigenous community organizations in curriculum development. Establishing and maintaining authentic partnerships with Indigenous community organizations is important for the development of the future workforce and provides essential knowledge and skills for all graduates. Academic staff and institutions must move past an “othering” mindset, including the notion that developing relationships with Indigenous community organizations and including Indigenous perspectives in the curriculum is the sole responsibility of Indigenous academic staff. The reality is that Indigenous staff numbers in universities are low, globally. Embedding Indigenous perspectives into the curriculum is the responsibility and privilege of all the academic staff. It is not possible to create a checklist or a descriptive “how to” guide, as teaching and learning must be grounded and relevant to the local context. This paper outlines the guiding principles developed from the lived experience and reflectivity of the authors as community members and educators.
In Australia, government policy and legislative requirements have been introduced to ensure that curricula and workplaces implement training and professional development opportunities for students and staff, so that they can develop and apply knowledge and skills that create conditions for cultural safety and culturally responsive health care. Authentic partnerships with community organizations are an obvious place to start. Students can then commence their career with a strong foundation by understanding how to work authentically with Indigenous organizations and peoples. This paper outlines how to approach and achieve this outcome.
As this paper also shows, partnerships require reciprocal benefit and authenticity, creating the opportunity for universities to positively and authentically work with Indigenous community organizations to share knowledge skills and resources that will benefit not only the university and the students but also the community organizations and their staff and clients.
The Bunya Project protocol unifies elements identified by past studies to form a comprehensive approach to embedding Indigenous perspectives within higher education with community engagement and leaders, andragogical framework, staff accountability, and student evaluation.
The growing momentum to include Indigenous perspectives into higher education and preparing graduates to work effectively with Indigenous populations is positive. However, current implementation processes in Australia lack accountability [
It has also been identified that Indigenous peoples cannot be solely responsible for all learning and teaching in academia. Indigenous and non-Indigenous academic staff must work together to implement the curriculum, using culturally safe [
In accordance with United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determine health care and education [
Previous studies in the area have identified the importance of the local context, of working with a single community—this does not reflect the diversity within Indigenous populations in Australia. The Bunya Project protocol extends this to include leadership from a diversity of communities.
The Bunya Project protocol also challenges educators to push past the concept of pedagogy to ensure that teaching and learning are receptive to the adult learner [
Transformational learning is central to this space and was identified throughout previous studies [
COVID-19 affected the project, as lockdowns restrict interactions. Even during times of eased restrictions, communities were very cautious to engage owing to the risk posed by COVID-19 and have cancelled events or adapted to web-based events. However, the pandemic provided another opportunity to highlight Indigenous excellence as the overall response to the pandemic, including public health messaging and responses, and the rapid adaptability to web-based connectedness has been exemplary.
The Bunya Project was developed in 1 university and 6 communities, which does not reflect the diversity of Aboriginal peoples or Indigenous peoples globally.
This study reinforces the necessity for universities to be active in engaging with Indigenous communities to influence education content and, consequently, outcomes. It is not the responsibility of the few Indigenous staff to champion this; the implication is that the majority must authentically engage with the community and privilege their leadership and expertise within teaching and learning design, delivery, and evaluation.
The value and implication of the Bunya Project lies in its demonstration of how universities resource staff to engage with community organizations and members within the university setting. If working well with Indigenous peoples requires the readiness of non-Indigenous staff and students, universities need to provide staff with cultural capability training, facilitating opportunities to learn. This Bunya Project protocol and its “preparing the soil” and “planting the seeds” stages model a process for best practice and authentic engagement that creates space, respect, and recognition of the value and privilege to learn from Indigenous leadership and expertise.
PAR of the Bunya Project is working to evolve university education through the quality delivery of an IGA that prepares students to be informed professionals throughout their careers and to contribute to creating conditions for Indigenous peoples to experience cultural safety; this is a lifelong learning journey. The intended learnings from the Bunya Project are expected to extend beyond university through continuing personal and professional development and application throughout the individual’s career.
Indigenous Graduate Attribute
National Health and Medical Research Council
participatory action research
University of Technology Sydney
The authors thank Dr Mark Ragg of Ragg & Co for the contribution to the development of the protocol. The study received funding from the University of Technology Sydney Graduate School of Health seed grant program.
Data will be made available; however, they have not been collected yet.
None declared.