The Koori Youth Health Workshop was designed to encourage participants to make positive life choices.

The workshop will also show the students what services Hunter Health has to offer not only them, but their parents, uncles and aunties.

“We’re tapping into the Koori grapevine,” Raymond Terrace Health Centre clinical integration coordinator Megan Alston said.

“We’ll follow up with the students afterward to see if they’ve talked about it with their friends and families.”

The project began in 2015 as a partnership between the Wahroonga Aboriginal Corporation and Raymond Terrace Health Centre.

Wahroonga executive director Dianne Ball said the idea was an extension to the importance of Aboriginal identity among children.

“We have to connect our kids to the culture but we also have to take care of their health,” she said.

“Health is part of closing the gap on disadvantage and we’ve still got a long way to go.”

The first workshop was held last year at the health centre and covered mental, dental and sexual health as well as diet and exercise, and drug and alcohol awareness.

Fifty-four students took part across three sessions. They each filled out a health passport to identify what they had learnt from the talks.

A survey also assessed their knowledge prior to and after the workshop.

The workshop was such a success Hunter River High School asked organisers to run another one for about 50 of its year 7 students in the second half of 2016. Preparations are now underway.

But it’s already on the state government’s radar as a successful model since it was recently discussed at NSW Health’s Clinical Innovation symposium. 

Ms Alston said there had been a push to deliver more services remotely in Port Stephens to indigenous communities. Even then she said there were limitations.

“There are some services like dialysis that you just can’t,” she said.

“This workshop is about breaking down that barrier to help encourage them to come through our doors and we couldn’t have achieved what we have so far without Wahroonga.” 

The Wahroonga Aboriginal Corporation was established to represent the interests of indigenous people. Wahroonga means the journey home.

“There was nothing here like this in Raymond Terrace in the 90s,” Ms Ball said.

“We had to think of a name and it was the first street we came across as we were talking.”

The corporation also works with Hunter Health to deliver the i-Fit exercise program for indigenous women among its numerous programs.