Led by a team of nutrition and dietetics educators, the curriculum embeds Indigenous perspectives through authentic partnerships.
Working with local and National Aboriginal educators, health professionals and organisations to bring real community priorities into the classroom.
Senior Lecturer, Robyn Delbridge, says the initiative was designed to create meaningful partnerships that shape both teaching and assessment.“We’re committed to authentic reciprocal partnerships that offer a diversity of perspectives,” she says.
Rather than delivering cultural safety as a standalone module, the curriculum is scaffolded across multiple subjects, placements and assessments, including an intensive anti-racism and advocacy module co-designed with an Aboriginal Health Service.
Students also complete oral reflections grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, encouraging deeper self-reflection and critical engagement with issues including racism, cultural safety and healthcare inequity.
“The oral reflections show a depth of care, insight and connection that is really quite profound,” Robyn says.
The long-term goal, she adds, is to improve health outcomes by preparing graduates who can help create culturally safe healthcare systems.
“We are now graduating students who are more aware of cultural safety and better prepared to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities,” she says.
“The aim is that our graduates will start influencing the workforce and contributing to meaningful change.”
