At the very heart of this change is self-determination, through which Aboriginal people take ownership, carriage and responsibility for designing, delivering and evaluating policy and services on their own terms.
Aboriginal people are best placed to make decisions about the health, wellbeing and safety of their communities. Research shows that when services are designed, developed and delivered by, and for, Aboriginal peoples, their health and wellbeing outcomes are improved. The Supporting Self-determination: Prioritising funding to Aboriginal organisations policy (Word) supports these improved outcomes and self-determination for Aboriginal Victorians.
The policy aims to prioritise Aboriginal-specific funding to Aboriginal organisations which provide services for their communities’ health, wellbeing, safety needs and aspirations.
The policy is an important commitment of the Victorian Government, and is a strategic direction outlined in Korin Korin Balit-Djak: Aboriginal health, wellbeing and safety strategic plan 2017–2027 (Strategic direction 1.1.2) available on the Health.Vic website.
Prioritising funding to Aboriginal organisations project
Recognising the complexity of implementing the policy across the broad health and human services sector with multiple funding streams, the department undertook a research and consultation project to consider how best to stage implementation.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Indigenous Consulting (PIC) was engaged to conduct an audit of the department’s financial systems to identify all Aboriginal-specific funding, this included a desktop review of all departmental policy documents and guidelines, and stakeholder consultations.
An executive summary of PIC’s work and project recommendations has been developed and is publicly available on this page.
About the policy
The department is currently developing a transition strategy and resource materials to support a sustainable approach to transitioning funding to Aboriginal organisations. The transition strategy will support departmental staff and the health and human services sector to become operationally ready to implement the policy.
This page will be updated as further resources are released.