Celebrating Our Work With CareFlight
As we approach our milestone of 30 years in operation, Cross Cultural Consultants has realised that there are some things worth celebrating in the world of business. One of these is good relationships, which is why we’re taking a moment to talk about CareFlight today.
You may already know that CareFlight has been a key player in Australia’s aeromedical services industry for more than three decades, including more than 10 years operating in the Northern Territory. What you might not know is that CareFlight is also a key client of Cross Cultural Consultants and has been an important part of our journey in the last few years.
Cross Cultural Consultants have worked with CareFlight for several years, delivering cross cultural training to CareFlight employees at all levels of their organisation. CareFlight has been entirely committed during this time to learning how to effectively engage and work with Aboriginal people in a meaningful and mindful way, particularly involving patients in need of emergency flights to access medical attention. They operate in in some of the most remote locations in the Northern Territory, across all situations and encountering a variety of day-to-day challenges.
Working cross cultural is always a complex undertaking, as anyone who has operated in this space can confirm. CareFlight deals with this at a further level again as their staff often deal with patients in a state of distress and high emotion, struggling to make rational decisions. In these situations, there is a higher risk to both patients and staff, which is why it is so important to target potential increases to risk where possible. CareFlight have dedicated themselves to this in their commitment to cross cultural training, which is universally recognised as one of the core foundations in transforming how services are delivered by cultural outsiders into often minimally understood cultural environments.
There are confronting issues of Aboriginal health in the Northern Territory, as in many parts of Australia, despite continued efforts by governments on all sides to ‘Close the Gap’. It is a constant challenge for service providers working in these fields to recognise the unique nature of Aboriginal culture,and acknowledge the connections and strength that Aboriginal people can bring when it comes to solving their own health problems.
As a cross cultural training provider, and as an Aboriginal business, we are proud to have worked with CareFlight, and hope to continue to do so into the future. Their extended commitment to embracing cross cultural ways of working should be commended, along with their dedication to working with Aboriginal businesses like Cross Cultural Consultants to offer authentic and informed cross cultural training programs to all of their staff.
Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash