Elements and Performance Criteria
- Clarify the prison structure and culture
- Identify prison management structures, hierarchies and dynamics and clarify the potential impact of these in relation to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander inmates and health workers
- Clarify prison policies and procedures to identify potential for providing primary health care services to inmates
- Identify factors that may impact the provision of culturally safe care within the prison in relation to their potential to enhance and/or impede care
- Evaluate prison environment in relation to physical, cultural and emotional safety issues for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander inmates and workers
- Identify boundaries and constraints relating to own work role in the prison environment
- Apply strategies to enhance personal resilience in a prison environment
- Anticipate the impact of immersion in a foreign and potentially hostile cultural environment
- Identify self-protective behaviour strategies and seek mentors for advice and support
- Use colleagues with the capacity to provide personal support for reflection, debriefing, solidarity and advocacy as appropriate
- Access community and family support where appropriate
- Clarify own professional role and scope of practice
- Clarify overlapping and complementary roles of workers in the prison environment
- Identify level of awareness of the Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander worker's role, knowledge and skills among other workers
- Clarify potential for own role to enhance client care in the prison environment
- Professionally assert scope of practice appropriate to own role and skills with prison staff
- Advocate for clients effectively from within prison
- Clarify inmate needs for health care and support as appropriate to worker's role
- Recognise potential impacts of providing client advocacy from inside the prison
- Employ strategies to effectively manage conflict or resentment arising from client advocacy activities
- Clarify rights and responsibilities of inmates and assert as required
- Support inmates in relation to parole and release issues as required in line with own work role and jurisdictional guidelines.
- Organise and/or provide post release support as appropriate
- Support inmates to make informed health choices
- Use accurate information about the inmate's health and potential care as a basis for informing clients about available options
- Empower clients to make informed choices on health care by explaining potential consequences of available options
- Support clients through the continuum of care in line with own work role
- Contribute to enhancing awareness of cultural safety issues
- Raise cultural safety issues in the prison environment with staff in relation to health issues for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander clients
- Build own tolerance and mutual respect of colleagues by seeking to understand reasons for any insensitivity or culturally unsafe practices
- Reinforce colleagues' application of cultural safety practices in the workplace by public and/or personal recognition
- Provide leadership in the implementation of culturally safe principles and practice
- Promote change to enhance cultural safety in the prison environment
- Offer to contribute to development and/or refinement of prison policies on cultural safety
- Identify change agents who may facilitate and/or champion needed change
- Identify potential blockages to change
- Mobilise available support to enhance cultural safety in the prison environment
- Enlist community support to enhance cultural safety in the prison environment