Working safe in Aboriginal communities /

The following common themes are in response to questions pertaining to the identification of factors which may impact on the ability of Aboriginal enterprises to work safely: Lack of engagement process or involvement in a policy community; Recognition of the role of community as factor in decision making; Challenges pertaining to the myriad of technical and program documentation; Lack of m [...] The results of this research confirmed our initial observation: the structures of support and processes of compliance that constitute the injury prevention system in British Columbia do not adequately reflect the unique circumstances and perspectives of Aboriginal enterprises or the communities those enterprises serve. [...] The first sets the background and context for the study: here we desrcibe the how the research was conducted, and set the study in a larger context of Aboriginal issues in British Columbia today. [...] In NAHO‟s reading, the Australian studies indicate that some of the additional stress found in the Indigenous workforce was derived from the unique circumstances of being Indigenous: i.e., the stress arose from racism, or the sometimes overwhelming expectations of the community, or the difficulties associated with having to act as a bridge between two cultures. [...] P. 9 In essence, lacking a clear and substantial set of empirical studies, the authors of the NAHO report extrapolate from the assumption of racism and marginalization – in the author‟s words, a „lack of cultural safety‟ - to the outcome of poor health arising from a stressful or psychologically unhealthy work environment (see also (Smye and Browne 2002), or to marginal (i.e., dirty and dangerous)