
The Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Declaration focuses on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership across all parts of the Australian mental health system and guides our work.
The Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Declaration is a call to action for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership in the Australian mental health system.
It focuses on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership across all parts of the Australian mental health system to achieve the highest attainable standard of mental health and suicide prevention outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
It also promotes an appropriate balance of clinical and culturally-informed mental health system responses, including by providing access to cultural healing, to mental health problems in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Peoples.
It also sets out principles for governments, professional bodies, and other stakeholders to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership in the Australian mental health system, and principles for working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health leaders across the Australian mental health system.
The Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Declaration was developed by the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership in Mental Health (NATSILMH) as a companion document to the international Wharerātā Declaration.
The Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Declaration focuses on a ‘best of both worlds approach’ highlighting five themes:
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The holistic concept of social and emotional wellbeing in combination with clinical approaches should guide all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health, healing and suicide prevention policy development and service and program delivery.
Across their lifespan, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with wellbeing or mental health problems must have access to cultural healers and healing methods.
Across their lifespan, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should have access to affordable, appropriate and culturally safe and competent mental health and suicide prevention programs, services and professionals without direct or indirect discrimination.
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All parts of the Australian mental health system should be guided by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander concepts of social and emotional wellbeing, mental health and healing in combination with clinical approaches when working to heal and restore the wellbeing and mental health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
It is the responsibility of all mental health professionals and professional associations, and educational institutions and standard-setting bodies that work in mental health (and also those in areas related to mental health, particularly suicide prevention) to make their practices and/or curriculum respectful and inclusive of the mental health and suicide prevention needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, as outlined in this Declaration.
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Led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, all parts of the Australian mental health system should use Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander values-based social and emotional wellbeing and mental health outcome measures in combination with clinical measures when developing evaluation frameworks for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and suicide prevention services and programs. This also applies to the development of an evidence base for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional wellbeing, mental health and suicide prevention.
Led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander values-based social and emotional wellbeing and mental health targets in combination with clinical targets should be adopted across all parts of the Australian mental health system.
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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be trained, employed, empowered and valued to work at all levels and across all parts of the Australian mental health system and among the professions that work in that system.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be trained, employed, empowered and valued to lead across all parts of the Australian mental health system that are dedicated to improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wellbeing and mental health and to reducing suicide, and in all parts of that system used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be trained, employed, empowered and valued to lead in all areas of government activity in Australia that affect the wellbeing and mental health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
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All parts of the Australian mental health system should support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders to practice culturally informed concepts of leadership.
All parts of the Australian mental health system should support and value the presence and visibility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders across all parts of that system, and further support them to be influential in all parts of it.
All parts of the Australian mental health system should support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders to exercise self-care, and to meet and to support each other, and to further develop and articulate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander concepts of social and emotional wellbeing, mental health and healing.
All parts of the Australian mental health system should support the accountability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders to their communities and to the wider Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, including by allowing them the time required to meet and listen to their communities and wider constituents and exercise culturally informed leadership among them.
The Wharerātā Declaration
The Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Declaration was developed as a companion document to the Wharerātā Declaration.
The Wharerātā Group of Indigenous mental health leaders from Canada, the United States, Australia, Samoa, and New Zealand developed the Wharerātā Declaration in 2010.
It comprises five themes on the importance of Indigenous leadership in addressing the common mental health challenges faced by Indigenous peoples around the world.
Member countries of the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership endorsed the Wharerātā Declaration in 2010 and promote it as a key part of their work.