Family wellbeing: my story

One of the greatest challenges facing public policy-makers,\ud researchers and health professionals as we enter the 21st\ud century is how to develop appropriate strategies and\ud interventions to reduce growing health inequalities. In the\ud context of Indigenous Australia, there is an increasing\ud recognition of health inequalities and in response, innovative health interventions are being actively pursued. Many such initiatives are being targeted to empower individuals to assume greater control and responsibility for the conditions framing their health. One such initiative is the Family Well Being Program (FWB), that was developed in Adelaide by a group of Indigenous people as a very informal set of meetings in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders could come together to talk about issues and ideas and gain support from the group. The FWB approach can be described as Participatory Action Research (PAR). The PAR process used in ‘family wellbeing’ is that a 2-step approach is taken. First, the program itself aims\ud to build the personal skills people need in order to become\ud more motivated and confident. This first step is achieved\ud through structured personal development training workshops\ud that offer participants a safe group environment where they\ud can reflect on important questions about themselves and their place in society. Topics covered include, grief, loss, basic human needs along with several others. Step 2 involves followup community development processes aimed at supporting groups of participants to address identified priority community issues arising out of personal development training.\u