The Development and Implementation of a Culturally Safe Survey for Measuring Knowledge, Attitudes and Values around FASD and Alcohol Use During Pregnancy in a Remote Australian Aboriginal Community Setting

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) describes a lifelong neurodevelopmental disability caused by prenatal alcohol exposure that has a devastating impact on individuals, families and communities. The prevalence of FASD is high in some Indigenous communities around the World and the only active case ascertainment prevalence study conducted in Australia found a rate of 19.44 per 100 children in the remote Fitzroy Valley region of Western Australia. Following this study community led FASD prevention activities were implemented under the Marulu (“Worth Nurturing”) Strategy in the Fitzroy Valley. A Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices survey was designed to assess the impact of the prevention campaign and gather more information about knowledge of the dangers of alcohol use in pregnancy and FASD, local attitudes, and health behaviours both around alcohol and more generally including where residents received their health information. Best practices recommend including local Aboriginal people in the development of surveys and aiming to achieve cultural security. Actions taken included consulting with local health workers during survey development, translation of key sections of the survey into the local Kimberley Kriol, and performing the surveys with the assistance of Aboriginal Community Researchers. The full survey is made available in this paper. The surveys were conducted with 200 community members during August 2015 and 203 in October 2015. Surveys were updated between the first and second waves based on learnings during implementation. Key implementation details around weather and timing, gender/kinship issues, group participation, declining participation, problematic questions and responses to the survey are described. Cultural safety was achieved but further steps could be taken to ensure future cultural security by embedding cultural safety protocols in the survey and further community consultation

Learning together for and with the Martuwarra Fitzroy River

Co-production across scientific and Indigenous knowledge systems has become a cornerstone of research to enhance knowledge, practice, ethics, and foster sustainability transformations. However, the profound differences in world views and the complex and contested histories of nation-state colonisation on Indigenous territories, highlight both opportunities and risks for Indigenous people when engaging with knowledge co-production. This paper investigates the conditions under which knowledge co-production can lead to improved Indigenous adaptive environmental planning and management among remote land-attached Indigenous peoples through a case study with ten Traditional Owner groups in the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) Catchment in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. The research team built a 3D map of the river and used it, together with an interactive table-top projector, to bring together both scientific and Indigenous spatial knowledge. Participatory influence mapping, aligned with Traditional Owner priorities to achieve cultural governance and management planning goals set out in the Fitzroy River Declaration, investigated power relations. An analytical framework, examining underlying mechanisms of social learning, knowledge promotion and enhancing influence, based on different theories of change, was applied to unpack the immediate outcomes from these activities. The analysis identified that knowledge co-production activities improved the accessibility of the knowledge, the experiences of the knowledge users, strengthened collective identity and partnerships, and strengthened Indigenous-led institutions. The focus on cultural governance and management planning goals in the Fitzroy River Declaration enabled the activities to directly affect key drivers of Indigenous adaptive environmental planning and management—the Indigenous-led institutions. The nation-state arrangements also gave some support to local learning and decision-making through a key Indigenous institution, Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council. Knowledge co-production with remote land-attached Indigenous peoples can improve adaptive environmental planning and management where it fosters learning together, is grounded in the Indigenous-led institutions and addresses their priorities