Deficit Discourse and Strengths-based Approaches: Changing the Narrative of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Wellbeing

Abstract

This report explores strengths-based approaches
\nto shifting the deficit narrative in the Australian
\nAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector.
\nStudies, including a companion report to this one
\nentitled Deficit Discourse and Indigenous Health:
\nHow Narrative Framings of Aboriginal and Torres
\nStrait Islander People are Reproduced in Policy,
\nhave identified a prevalent ‘deficit discourse’
\nacross Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health
\npolicy and practice. ‘Discourse’, in this sense,
\nencompasses thought represented in written and
\nspoken communication and/or expressed through
\npolicy and practices. The term draws attention
\nto the circulation of ideas, the processes by
\nwhich these ideas shape conceptual and material
\nrealities, and the power inequalities that
\ncontribute to and result from these processes.