KKB190 Yatdjuligin - Cultural Safety in Indigenous Australian Context

Unit Outline: Semester 2 2026, Kelvin Grove, Internal

Overview

Culturally Safe practice is an essential element in a professional's ability to work in a holistic and accountable way with Indigenous Australian peoples and their communities. This requires deconstruction of your own cultures, values, beliefs and attitudes by taking you on a learning journey that allows you to move beyond cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity through to cultural safety.

This unit will prompt you to develop your own strategies to be a culturally safe practitioner in both innovative and creative ways.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:

1. Interrogate the rise of colonialism and its impact for Indigenous Australians
2. Deconstruct the dominant systems that impact on Indigenous Australians
3. Apply the framework of Cultural Safety to your own culture, values, beliefs and attitudes and their impacts for Indigenous Australians
4. Construct, within your own practice settings, the application of principles of cultural safety

Content

Learning Approaches

When teaching Indigenous knowledges, the traditional context allows for a lag period of watching before doing. In our unit, we are constructing learning which supports critical self-reflection and analysis. Our teaching approach privileges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges, voices and standpoints. A blended learning environment in this unit underpins the holistic nature of Indigenous knowledges. Group discussions, yarning circles, interactive lectures, tutorials, supported opportunities for a critical self-discovery journey will have deeper and transforming, culturally safe implications for your discipline studies and practice.

Feedback on Learning and Assessment

Assessment criteria sheets and individual feedback will support your summative assessment.

Assessment

Overview

Assessment items submitted after the due date without an approved extension will not be marked and will receive a grade of 1 or 0%. If special circumstances prevent you from meeting the assessment due date, you can apply for an extension. If you don't have an approved extension you should submit the work you have done by the due date and it will be marked against the assessment criteria. QUT's assessment submission requirements reflect the expectations of professional practice where you will need to meet deadlines.

Unit Grading Scheme

7- point scale

Assessment Tasks

Assessment: Reflections

Articulate your knowledge and understanding of the impact of colonial history on Indigenous people through critical self-awareness.

Write three critical reflection that respond to topics in the learning materials. These topics can be identified in Canvas Site. 

This assignment is eligible for the 48-hour late submission period and assignment extensions.

Assessment: Poster

This assessment articulates your journey from cultural awareness through to cultural safety, translating the impact on self and practice.
1. Individual written submission (1000 words) of your cultural safety journey.
2. Poster presentation that explains the application of cultural safety principles in your own practice setting. 

This assignment is eligible for the 48-hour late submission period and assignment extensions.

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is a commitment to undertaking academic work and assessment in a manner that is ethical, fair, honest, respectful and accountable.

The Academic Integrity Policy sets out the range of conduct that can be a failure to maintain the standards of academic integrity. This includes, cheating in exams, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion and contract cheating. It also includes providing fraudulent or altered documentation in support of an academic concession application, for example an assignment extension or a deferred exam.

You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.

Breaching QUT’s Academic Integrity Policy or engaging in conduct that may defeat or compromise the purpose of assessment can lead to a finding of student misconduct (Code of Conduct – Student) and result in the imposition of penalties under the Management of Student Misconduct Policy, ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.

Requirements to Study

Costs

Students will be required to make their own way to Cherbourg Mission and pay for their own transportation costs. 

Resources

Risk Assessment Statement

There are no risks associated with this unit.

Course Learning Outcomes

AB01 Bachelor of Built Environment (Honours)

1. Design and critically evaluate sustainable and creative solutions to social, economic, technological and environmental challenges.
   Relates to: Reflections, Poster
2. Communicate knowledge, ideas and creative solutions in diverse modes, for a range of contexts and diverse audiences.
   Relates to: Poster
3. Strategically collaborate with diverse stakeholders and communities, including First Nations peoples.
   Relates to: Reflections, Poster
4. Reflect on feedback and experience, and display professional and ethical judgment and initiative.
   Relates to: Reflections, Poster