Introduction: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities continue to express the need for self-determined health and wellbeing approaches. Self-determination supports improved health and wellbeing outcomes for communities. Insights into the ways self-determination can be achieved in practice are needed to inform health and social services innovation.
Methods: The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community on Kaurna Country in northern Adelaide were engaged to understand the challenges facing the community and to identify multilevel strategies to strengthen social and emotional wellbeing. A respected local Aboriginal person engaged with 17 community members and 66 workers from health and social services in yarning circles. A content analysis identified self-determination as both an overarching principle and a practice in strategies proposed by participants to strengthen social and emotional wellbeing. A secondary analysis extracted discrete actions and strategies articulated by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members and service providers that foster self-determination.
Results: Practices to promote individual self-determination were articulated as empowering client-led decision making when navigating health and social service programs and actively listening to the voices of community when designing programs. Actions which foster collective self-determination included establishing places to connect and practice culture and strengthening leadership within families and communities, as advocates and navigators, to support and empower community to find their way to services. Strengthening Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community control, governance, workforce and leadership -including local Kaurna leadership - were seen to represent collective self-determination at the organisational and system levels.
Conclusion: Actions which promote individual and collective self-determination were woven through social and emotional wellbeing strategies articulated by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and service providers in northern Adelaide. Our findings provide insights for operationalising self-determination in community-led initiatives and health and social services reform to strengthen social and emotional wellbeing.