This presentation will provide a brief overview of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) and will describe promising initiatives such as the Centre of Best Practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention (CBPATSISP).

Emerging from a national consultation, the Centre of Best Practice operates from an anti-colonial viewpoint and is grounded in strengths-based concepts that value culture and community ownership. Mental health and wellbeing amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities have become a critical issue and evidence suggests that it is worsening. This increasing concern stems from increasingly high rates of psychological distress, hospitalisation for mental health conditions and most critically, increasing suicide rates.

Mainstream western approaches to mental health and services have an ongoing history of failing to consider and address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ needs. This includes failure to acknowledge historical and cultural contexts within conceptualisations of mental health and wellbeing.  The wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples cannot be understood without appropriate recognition of these important contexts.

This presentation covers work undertaken by the CBPATSISP and will review SEWB, which has emerged as an important concept within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing. Whilst the term SEWB is often used to refer to issues of ‘mental health’ and ‘mental illness’, the concept of it is much broader and more holistic. SEWB recognises the importance of connection to land, culture, spirituality, ancestry, family and community; and how these interrelate to impact the individual, their family, and community. Issues relevant to SEWB can stem from a wide range of areas, including unresolved grief and loss, trauma and abuse, domestic violence, removal from family, substance misuse, family breakdown, cultural dislocation, racism and discrimination, and social disadvantage. This concept has been further developed by the Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association. Such discussions involve the holistic nature of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wellbeing as well as the historical impacts resulting in social determinants that adversely impact wellbeing. In recent times, innovative approaches are emerging within the field of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wellbeing that confirm a promising way forward. This presentation will address how work within the wellbeing and mental health space must be undertaken in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and prioritises the importance of culture in programs and services.

Professor Pat Dudgeon AM, a Bardi woman from Western Australia, is a psychologist and professor at the Poche Centre for Aboriginal Health and the School of Indigenous Studies at The University of Western Australia. Her research focuses on Indigenous social and emotional wellbeing and suicide prevention. She is the Director of the Centre of Best Practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention, and the lead Chief Investigator for the national Transforming Indigenous Mental Health and Wellbeing research project. Professor Dudgeon has served on numerous boards, including the National Suicide Prevention Office Advisory Board, NACCHO Culture Care Connect, Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit Australia) and AIPA, and was a National Mental Health Commissioner for five years. A leading voice in Indigenous mental health, her significant publications include the Working Together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Wellbeing Principles and Practice (2014) and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project Report – What the Evidence and Our People Tell Us (2016).

Professor Tracey Bunda is a Ngugi/Wakka Wakka woman and grew up on the lands of the Jagera/Jugera/Yuggerapul peoples. She is Professor of Indigenous Education, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, at The University of Queensland.

During the course of her extensive three decade career she has held senior Indigenous leadership roles in each of the universities in which she worked. Professor Bunda’s research interests are informed by critical theoretical approaches for understanding how race and power ideologically manifest in white institutions; storying as methodology and the agentic role of Aboriginal women in Aboriginal community uplift.

Disability research policy has a long history in Australia. The Australian Government prides itself as engaging in “evidence based policy”. Evidence based policy requires the voices of the people as per the philosophies of democracy. However, the question lies, to what level have the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with disability been heard and included in the research that informs policy development?

This presentation traces the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with disability voices in research to highlight the disadvantage due to inequitable presentation and representation in Australian disability research and policy formation. The presentation will conclude with suggestions on ways to strengthen the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability in research and government policy development. 

Professor John Gilroy is a Yuin man from the NSW South Coast and is a professor of Indigenous health and disability, specialising primarily in disability studies in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at The University of Sydney. John has worked in disability and ageing research projects and community development initiatives with Aboriginal communities, government, and non-government stakeholders for most of his life. He is the first person to create Indigenous research methodologies in disability research. John is passionate about Aboriginal owned and driven research as means to influence policy. John has led many research projects in urban and rural/remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

As social work continues its reckoning with colonial histories and ongoing responsibility in the dispossession and harm of First Nations peoples, the profession faces a critical choice - to continue superficially incorporating First Nations perspectives as add-ons to existing frameworks, or to fundamentally transform itself through accountable, Nation-specific engagement with First Nations’ knowledges, sovereignty, and governance. This keynote challenges the persistent homogenisation embedded in pan-Indigenous approaches to social work practice, education, and research, critiquing these approaches that collapse the distinct epistemologies, laws, and relationships to Country of over 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nations into a singular "Indigenous perspective."

Drawing on my being as a Wiradyuri Wambuul woman and Associate Professor of Social Work, I argue that decolonisation demands we return social work to First Nations, the original carers of family, community, and society. This return is not metaphorical, it requires material engagement with the specificities of land, language, kinship structures, and governance systems of Nations. For Wiradyuri people, our relationship to Country is not context or background, it is the foundation from which all being, ethical practice, pedagogy, and research must emerge. When social work operates through pan-Indigenous frameworks, it perpetuates epistemic violence by erasing Nation-specific knowledges and replacing them with settler-constructed categories.

Central to this transformation is the practice, education, and research framework of Whiteness as Risk (Russ-Smith, Farwa, and Wheeler, 2023). Rather than positioning First Nations peoples, families, communities, and knowledges negatively or sites for extraction, this framework names and centres Whiteness, its norms, its gatekeeping, its violence, as the primary risk factor social work encounters.

This keynote will reorient risk away from culture and toward Whiteness, exposing how social work institutions themselves generate harm through their investments in white supremacy, colonial authority, carcerality, genocide, and cultural erasure. Throughout, I weave Wiradyuri concepts and ways of knowing to demonstrate that centring Nations is not simply additive, it fundamentally reshapes what social work can be.

The invitation to the profession is clear: transform or continue colonial violence. Social work's future requires action to own its Whiteness and the risk it poses, and to be led by First Nations communities on our own terms, within our own Nations, accountable to our systems of law, knowledge, and Country.

Associate Professor Jessica Russ-Smith (she/her) is a sovereign Wiradyuri Wambuul woman, multi-award-winning researcher and educator, and Associate Professor of Social Work at ACU, where she chairs the Indigenous Research Ethics Advisory Panel. A two-time university medallist and 2024 recipient of the AAUT Citation Neville Bonner Award for Indigenous Education, Jess is driven by a fierce commitment to First Nations sovereignty, data sovereignty, and social justice. Her research and teaching challenge colonial power structures in social work, health, and higher education, while her 2024 book The AI (R)evolution: Valuing Country, Culture and Community in a World of Algorithms disrupts dominant AI narratives by centring First Nations perspectives and rights. A regular contributor to ABC Radio National and The Conversation, Jess advocates for justice and accountability in national conversations on Indigenous data sovereignty and AI ethics. Her work is grounded in sovereign methodologies and research approaches that centre Wiradyuri knowledges and First Nations ways of knowing, being, and doing, and she remains committed to creating transformative, decolonising learning and practice spaces guided by First Nations sovereign knowledges. See Jess's Linkedin profile here.

Located at: 9 Missenden Road, Camperdown
Recently refurbished rooms include ensuite bathroom, LCD TV, FREE wireless Internet access, tea and coffee-making facilities. Walk to Newtown’s lively King Street for restaurants and night life. 15-20-minute walk to the University of Sydney conference location. Visit their website.

Located at: Goulburn Street, Surry Hills
One, two and three bedroom apartments. Apartments include a balcony or courtyard, a fully equipped kitchen, laundry, air conditioning, wifi and modern appliances throughout. Stylish cultural and café scene at your doorstep. Short 20-minute bus ride to the University of Sydney conference location. Visit their website.

Located at: 74-80 Ivy Street, Chippendale
Recently refurbished rooms with a contemporary interior design and fit out. Features include a kitchen and laundry with plenty of room to make you feel comfortable in the space. Situated amongst Chippendale’s cool cafes and eateries, galleries and close to local retail outlets. 20-minute walk to the University of Sydney conference location. Visit their website.

Located at: 52-60 Enmore Road, Newtown NSW 2042

Boutique studios rooms based in Newtown, you’ll be a block from the Enmore Theatre and a hop, skip and jump away from the vibrant and entertaining King Street. Situated a 25-minute walk from the conference location or a short bus ride departing from King Street to City Road.

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