2016 has started as last year ended, with substantial activity and strengthening collaborations. For an overview of 2015, please see our Annual report.
Since the start of this year, we have continued to deliver Cultural Safety, health literacy and intercultural communication education to medical and other students and health professionals from Alice Springs Hospital, Public Health, Primary Health Network, and also to volunteers of a juvenile justice program in Central Australia.
In February we had a visit from the Member for Lingiari, Warren Snowden and the President of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Brian Owler who was impressed with the philosophy and activities of Poche NT.
Find out more about Dr Owler’s visit to Poche and Central Australia.
On the research front, the small Poche team have been kept busy with several important collaborations, including completing the first wave of interviews for the National Institute of Labour Studies’ (NILS) evaluation of the disability insurance scheme in the Barkly.
In March, we conducted fieldwork with Dr Lloyd Einseidel and the Baker IDI team investigating HTLV1 in remote communities. The level of engagement from the communities visited has been very positive.
Our next major research activity will be in co-investigating disability on the NPY Lands through two projects, National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) & Australian Research Council (ARC) led by Sydney University’s Dr John Gilroy, who we will be welcoming to the Poche Centre this month for the duration of the research collaboration, which includes the NPY Women’s Council & Centre for Remote Health (CRH) staff member Heather Jensen.
A final piece of news for 2016 is to welcome the members of the Top End Indigenous Transitions Pathways (ITP), who will now be integrated with Poche NT to achieve our mutual goal of encouraging and supporting more Indigenous people to study medicine and other health disciplines.
Sadly, we will be saying goodbye in May to Acting ITP Director Cheryl Davis, who has decided its time to get back to her home in WA. We wish Cheryl the very best and thank her for all of her support over the last few years and hope it wont be the end of having the opportunity to work together in the future.