Work has begun! And it's keeping me off the streets.

The induction week gave us some better understanding of the region we’re in, and the history of the respective organisations that we have joined for the next wee while. In week two, the rubber hit the road. Or rather, pens hit notepads, fingers hit keyboards and post-it notes hit walls and desks. The days have been packed and quite intense. Between that, and trying to fit in some exercise, and some further exploration of Alice’s attractions, there has been limited time to write about the work that has actually taken me here. 

My secondment takes place with the NPY Women’s Council. The Women’s Council was established to give a voice to the women of the Ngaanjatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunjatjara lands, and their families. Their mission statement is formulated as follows: Our core purpose is to work with the women and their families of the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara region in central Australia to increase their capacity to lead safe and healthy lives with improved life choices. Advocacy has been an important focus point for the Council, including advocacy for legal rights in the traditional lands of the members, and assisting women to have active roles in their societies, and traditional culture. A notable win has been to get restrictive alcohol implemented for a number of their communities. On top of that, the Council delivers a range of critical services to its members. These services include e.g. a Child Nutrition and Well-being programme, Traditional Healers (Ngangkari) who work alongside and together with western medicine, a Youth Team (the largest team in the NPYWC) and a Domestic Violence team. The Ngangkari will come to Melbourne in July, to deliver a Dean's Lecture, so watch this space for more information (I can't find anything on the interwebzz at the moment).

While most of the other secondees have picked up existing projects, that prior secondees worked on, the project I will attempt to tackle is a new one. The NPYWC has set itself the goal to be more proactive and strategic about the research projects they engage in. At the moment, several research projects are ongoing involving the NPYWC, with different academic or governmental partners. Most of these collaborations have been initiated by the external parties, although there are a number that have been devised and developed by for example the NPYWC programme managers.

The Council receives regular requests to facilitate or participate in research projects, in all forms and sizes, and these request come in varying stages of development. At the moment there is no strategy, process or central capability to assess external requests, and to manage and guide the development of appropriate project plans. Nor is there central scope to ensure the research is carried out optimally, with adequate back reporting of outcomes to the Council, let alone to study participants. This does not mean that the current collaborations aren’t productive, but running them tends to take a lot of time of the managers, and there is varying experience in dealing with academics, and academic research. 

Moreover, there is no central strategic approach to prioritising and actively initiating research, or driving the research agenda of the Council. 

So I have set out to achieve two things. For the shorter term, I will develop a process for assessing external requests, and actively engaging in the development of such proposals to ensure the work feeds into the mission and needs of the Council. As a more long term goal it would be great if the Council can expand its experience and capacity to initiate and lead research projects. I will provide the Council with a roadmap to achieve this.

There are some interesting challenges that make the work fun. The most obvious one is the short amount of time available. Then, the research that is done with the Women’s Council’s involvement, is mostly in the Humanities space, and studies by definition involve Ananga (Aboriginal people) as subjects or participants, who not infrequently are to be considered vulnerable participants. This means that very delicate and considered ethics processes are required. I am not overly familiar with the typical collaborative partners. So that means there is a need for me to brush up and learn quickly. I am grateful to the many people who have taken the time to speak with me, based both within NPYWC as well as in other organisations here in Alice Springs, to make sure that what I come up with is practically applicable. I go from feeling in control ("I got this! I know how research processes work, and what a good reciprocal collaboration looks like!"), to freaking out a little bit ("Ohhhhh there's so much information out there already, and I'm just scratching the surface!!!"), aaaannnnd back to feeling in control. I just want to share a great quote, by the Chair of the Central Australia Human Research Ethics Committee, Chris Perry, who said that a lot of work here was about "translating stories to statistics". I loved this as we in University tend to tell people to tell a story, rather present data, and it underpins the difference between the two worlds so well.

I got to present my progress to the Managers' Meeting today, and I think my findings and plan were received well. My supervisor let me know that the presentation, and the underlying thinking, sparked fresh insights during the remainder of the meeting, so that leaves me feeling like I'm at least contributing in a small way. More work to be done to make it sustainable! 

I have been embedded in the Domestic Violence team of the Women’s Council, because my immediate supervisor manages this team. I am so deeply impressed by the women on the team, and the very difficult job that they do. They seem to divide their time between responding to phone calls of their clients who may be in need of assistance, and traveling out to communities to provide support and training over there. Whereas the message of the induction week was one of optimism and perseverance, the reality of daily work in this team is more grim. While they dream of a world where their jobs are no longer needed, one of them told me that realistically, they are happy if they can just keep the women and children they work with safe. 

Taking a step back from this, I realise that the overall work that the Women’s Council does, becomes even more important. Growing capacity and resilience as per the mission statement, will lead to a more stable society with better and healthier lives for everyone. I just hope my tiny contribution can be useful in getting there. 

Some photos of our hike in Ormiston Gorge last weekend, and I'll close with this: we have booked in going to Uluru next weekend!

  

We also visited these ochre pits. Ochre is a natural clay earth pigment which is a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. People in Australia have used it for many purposes, for many tens of thousands of years, and it's long been a valuable trading commodity. Uses have traditionally included body decoration, sun protection, mortuary practices, cave painting, bark painting and other artwork, and medicinal uses.