Indigenous culture offers mental health lessons

Rural mental health workers have been told Indigenous people with mental illnesses are more likely to recover than non-Indigenous people in remote areas.

Jane Beckman, a mental health worker in the east Kimberley, in northern Western Australia, has told colleagues at an annual conference that the communal approach to healing taken by Aboriginal families leads to a better recovery rate in young mental health patients.

Ms Beckman says the mental health community can learn from Aboriginal culture.

"A lot of the interventions are based on empowering the family and so I guess we're really doing what Aboriginal people have always done, just trying to build those community support networks so that young people with mental illness feel included, feel like they belong and feel like they've got support around them," she said.

Source: ABC News Online

Date:21/02/06