This project provides an opportunity to explore how Digital Health applications and experiences can be designed and implemented to enhance Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social and Emotional Wellbeing (SEWB) and mental health outcomes. With a specific interest in the potential of virtual and augmented reality, other media or strategies are also encouraged as part of an overall approach that engages with and learns about Aboriginal knowledge and wellness frameworks. The aim is to create culturally meaningful and relevant solutions that support self-determination, including intersections with technology.
Innovative solutions are required across health services, education systems and cultural institutions that do not sufficiently support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to live with positive levels of SEWBs. As a culturally specific definition of health and wellbeing, SEWB is “a holistic concept which results from a network of relationships between individuals, family, kin and community. It also recognises the importance of connection to land, culture, spirituality and ancestry, and how these affect the individual”. These must be understood in the context of colonisation, whose many harmful legacies include unjust and inequitable health, wellbeing, social and cultural outcomes. Meanwhile, Digital Health applications – when co-designed with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – offer great potential to support positive SEWB. Emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality, for example, can provide virtual environments that transcend the restrictions and oppressions of contemporary society.
