Category: Vol 7 No 1 January 2007 – March 2007

East Kimberley and Alice Springs to gain from funding to counter petrol sniffing

Issue: Vol 7 No 1 January 2007 - March 2007

he following information has been adapted from information provided by Australian Department of Health Ageing and the ABC

The Commonwealth Government is expanding efforts to help Indigenous communities to counter petrol sniffing and other substance abuse problems. The Government’s Central Australian anti-petrol sniffing strategy will be expanded north of Alice Springs above Ti Tree as well as into Indigenous communities in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. These new areas will now have access to substantial funding under the $55.2 million anti-petrol sniffing measure in last year’s Budget. This funding is for support services to tackle substance abuse, and covers alternative activities for young people, education, rehabilitation, restorative justice and the provision of unsniffable Opal fuel.

New national qualifications for Indigenous health workers

Issue: Vol 7 No 1 January 2007 - March 2007

The following information has been adapted from the Community Services & Health Industry Skills Council website and PARTYline (newsletter of the National Rural Health Alliance).

The Community Services and Health Industry Skills Council, the peak body for the health and community services industries, was contracted by the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) to develop new national qualifications for Aboriginal Health Workers and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers. The State Training Authority passed the new qualifications in a review in December 2006; they were referred to the National Quality Council for endorsement. Following endorsement State, Territory and Commonwealth Training Ministers were required to sign-off on the qualifications which are now available for implementation.

One of the major roles of the Community Services and Health Industry Skills Council (ISC) is development of the national industry qualifications in the HLT07 Health Training Package which includes 85 qualifications. The package, which recently underwent review, includes eight qualifications at several levels, covering the roles of Aboriginal Health Worker and Torres Strait Islander Health Worker. This is the first time the package has included these roles and the health worker qualifications include career pathways from Certificate II to Advanced Diploma level. Beyond Certificate II and III level qualifications are two streams of qualifications from Certificate IV: Practice and Community Care. The Practice stream covers clinically orientated roles and the Community Care stream covers community-orientated roles.

The new package will provide improved career pathways for Aboriginal health workers and Torres Strait Islander health workers within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health work and the broader health industry.

Alcohol attributable deaths among Indigenous Australians – National Drug Research Institute releases report

Issue: Vol 7 No 1 January 2007 - March 2007

he following information has been adapted from information provided by the National Drug Research Institute and media releases from the ABC.

The National Alcohol Indicators Project (NAIP), is a nationally coordinated project aimed at tracking and reporting on trends in alcohol-related harm in Australia at national, state and local levels. One of the main objectives of the project (which is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing) is to develop a set of indicators for the continual monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of state and national alcohol policies. The National Drug Research Institute recently released the first bulletin from the project that details alcohol attributable deaths among Indigenous Australians. It is the first of a series of bulletins to be published on this topic. The release of the report generated media comments about alcohol use in Indigenous communities.