Temporary Indigenous Mobility in Remote South Australia: Understanding the challenges for urban based health and social service delivery

Abstract

Remote dwelling Indigenous people in Australia frequently move between remote communities and urban centres for reasons such as access to health and social services, cultural and family obligations, and leisure. Such mobility challenges health and social service providers to not only deliver services to remote communities but to make sure that adequate services are available in places Indigenous people visit. This paper documents how service providers in two urban centres in remote South Australia respond to the challenges presented by temporary Indigenous visitors. The paper identifies a number of reasons why the existing health and social service sector is poorly set up to deal with the needs of temporary Indigenous visitors. While many service providers are aware that different groups of (temporary) Indigenous clients may require different services, they are limited in their capacity to change existing service strategies due to rigid funding structures and a lack of inter-agency collaboration and service coordination.