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 Gwenda Gless
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Gwenda Gless is an Aboriginal Health Worker and clinic coordinator
for the Wurli-Wurlinjang Aboriginal Health Service at Katherine in
the Northern Territory.
Gwenda and her co-worker Dean Turner were among the 26 people
who attended the CRC for Aboriginal Health’s Chronic
Conditions Industry Roundtable in
Melbourne in February. The roundtable was held to examine current
activities within the Chronic Conditions
program and then to produce a list of further research
questions and/or other activities that are priorities for the
community-controlled health sector and other organisations
servicing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Gwenda said it was the first time she’d ever been to a
meeting about research, but the Wurli-Wurlinjang Chief Executive
Officer couldn’t go and asked Gwenda if she would go
instead.
'Normally I don’t get involved at that high policy level
with people from all over the place. But as the participants were
there to talk about Aboriginal health, which was something that we
as Aboriginal Health Workers are dealing with day-to-day, I thought
they’d value input from practitioners.
'And all this knowledge that the people at the roundtable got on
this research stuff really impressed me.
'I think they should have more Aboriginal Health Workers
involved at this level, specially the roundtable when they’re
talking about our mob.
'We’ve never had that opportunity before—it’s
all been clinical stuff instead of preventive health or health
promotion programs. I’ve been with the [Aboriginal Medical
Service] for 20 years and never been involved with programs like
ABCD [Audit and Best Practice for Chronic Disease] and Healthy
Skin.'
For Dean Turner, who is also a health worker at
Wurli-Wurlinjang, the Chronic Conditions Industry Roundtable was
also the first meeting about research development he’d ever
been to. He enjoyed it for networking and finding out what everyone
was doing.
'I was surprised and pleased when I found out that everyone was
moving together in one direction instead of shooting off in all
directions when it came to how they approached chronic
disease.'
He was impressed by people's awareness of chronic diseases and
the way they were focusing on the five chronic diseases. In
particular, he was glad 'to hear their approach involved family and
recognised the importance of family in healing processes'.
'A lot of organisations don’t involve family; they just
work on an individual level. But our best results have involved
family for support, particularly for chronic conditions, such as
smoking. So it was good to hear how they were starting to recognise
the role of family in helping with the healing processes rather
than focusing on the individual.'
From CRCAH Annual
Report 2005/2006
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