Understanding the importance of connection: an indigenous exploration of the social and emotional well-being and resilience of a rural cohort of Aboriginal young people

Abstract

<p>Our story began in the pursuit of understanding Aboriginal young experiences of resilience and well-being. This was achieved by adopting an Aboriginal story method, combined with thematic analysis using winanga-li (to listen, to hear, to know and to remember) to <i>hear and listen</i> to the young people's stories, a method presented by Kovach ([2010].<i>Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts</i>. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.) to honour the talk. This paper presents Aboriginal young people's views and experiences of resilience and well-being. Using a qualitative approach, we conducted yarning interviews with 15 Aboriginal young people. Our analysis revealed the overarching themes of belonging, experiencing distress, being strong, recognising risk and maintaining positivity, which is comprised of a set of subthemes to exemplify multiple layers of well-being and resilience for the young people in this study. These findings confirm the absolute importance of connections, culture and community to young Aboriginal people and expose the distress that results from the loss of these relationships and connections. Given the known link between connections to culture, health and well-being implications, the findings of this study have relevance for clinicians, researchers, and policy-makers.</p>