How do I provide care for my family and community

Caring is part of our role

Caring for our family and elders and our community on their journey to finishing up is an important role for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Working together

Like everything else in our lives, everything works better when we come together! There is strength in numbers. The time spent together during this journey bonds us and is an important time to address our concerns and worries.

There is useful information about caring for your loved ones and community while they are on their palliative care journey. There is information on support that carers can need as well.

Information on providing care 

• 'Caring for your mob at the end of their life' (1.3MB pdf), from the Australian Government Department of Health.
• A guide to care for those with a terminal condition: Honouring the choices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the ACT community (751kb pdf) (from ACT Health but relevant to all).
• CareSearch provides several resources for carers to help them to care for their loved-ones.
  • How to Care
  • Practical Caring Resources which includes:
    • Services and Support
    • Managing Medicines
    • Transport
• Resources for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Carers from Carers Australia
• What to do when death occurs from Aboriginal Funerals.

Support for carers 

• Coping with Sorrow, Loss and Grief: A self-help resource to help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people trying to cope with sorrow, loss and grief (1.05MB pdf) from Lifeline Information Services
• Grieving Aboriginal Way booklet (2.74MB pdf) was developed by Indigenous Psychological Services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to raise awareness about grief. It has also been adapted into a Grieving the Aboriginal way fact sheet (90kb pdf) by the Tasmanian Department of Health.
• Grief and Loss: Help for Aboriginal people going through Grief (519kb pdf) from the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia
• Rising spirits: Grief and Loss is a website from the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia is an information resource for the Aboriginal community
• Staying Strong Stories booklet (2.38MB pdf) provides Aboriginal people with support and guidance for dealing with life challenges
• Watch a 5 minute video by Beyond Blue called Stories for Keeping Strong.
• The following leaflets are available from the Indigenous Substance Misuse Health Promotions Unit of Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council (SA)
  • Sorry Business Grief and Loss (1.44MB pdf)
  • Telling your story - Getting over grief (1.09MB pdf)
  • What do we tell the children? When someone dies (1.05MB pdf)

They told us in the city hospital that there was nothing more they could do. We wanted to bring him home and they transferred him to the local hospital… I took him home for about three months with help from palliative nurses… they gave me a bed in the hospital in the room with him so in the last—you know, we’d been together—43 years we were,