Challenges Of VACCHO

Great health disparity is seen between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people compared to non-indigenous people in relation to health outcome and life expectancy. The health disadvantage in indigenous group is mainly due to low employment rate, education, poor nutrition and physical activity and lack of access to health services (Indigenous health AIHW2017). Improvement in the health status of the indigenous group is a major challenge for the Australian government as well as for specific health agency. The report reviews the role of the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organization Inc. (VACCHO) on addressing health disparities in indigenous population of Australia
History and background of the service VACCHO was established
in the year 1996 as a peak representative of community controlled health organization in Victoria. They are mainly involved in strengthening support networks and developmental opportunities for the health and well-being of Aboriginal people. It is an Aboriginal community organization where cultural identity is an important strength for their member. They regard understanding of Aboriginal culture among their members to be important because it will help them to connect with them, understand their health disparities and act against them (About us, 2017). Their current projects for improving the lives of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups include building clinically and culturally safes GPs for aboriginal patients, training health care workers to deliver good diabetes prevention program, deliver childhood nutrition training to early childhood practitioners, distributing surplus food to aboriginal community organization and many others (Current projects, 2017).
Vision and objective The vision of VACCHO is ‘Vibrant, healthy, self-determining Aboriginal communities’.
The main objective of VACCHO is to promote health and well-being of the indigenous population of Australia by enabling the community to reach their full potential in life. They aim to achieve this through the philosophy of community control and by means of partnership with range of private, community and government agencies working in the areas of aboriginal health. In order to move ahead in their journey of collaboration between indigenous and non-indigenous group to achieve health equality, they follow the values and principles of empowerment, respect, confidentiality, team work, integrity, commitment and passion towards their work (Values and principles,
2017).
Services offered and membership VACCHO provides range of services such as educational service, workforce development, consultancy service and implementation of range of projects and research. Some of the services for work force development include the following-
• Aboriginal health promotion and chronic care- it provides support to VACCHO members regarding culturally appropriate health promotion and prevention of disease.
• Alcohol and other drugs- The service trains staffs in diagnosing and treating opioid dependent patients.
• Social and Emotional Well-Being Services- It provides assistance to workers involves in Common wealth funded Programs like Link-up Victoria, Alcohol and Drug Workers and Stolen Generation workers (Workforce development, 2017).
Apart from this, VACCHO is also involved in key projects like-
• Family-focussed child nutrition programs- They work along with Better Health Company to offer child nutrition resources to Koori family with young children and infants.
• Food security project- VACCHO has entered partnership with SecondBite, a food rescue organization to address food insecurity issues in Victorian aboriginal people and supplying surplus food to local agencies. The program is tailored to the needs of Victorian aboriginal community (Food security 2017).
• Health Together Victoria- This initiative is aimed to facilitate health eating and physical activity in children and work setting in Victoria.
All the services and projects implemented by VACCHO is mainly for the aboriginal people living in Victoria. There are also many associate member and organization working in collaboration with VACCHO. Other members involve in collaborating the service includes-
• Communication team- to advocate on behalf of VACCHO members and promote role of key stakeholders in the organization.
• Finance team- to provide support to VACCHO members by means of services like processing payment and meeting statutory and regulatory requirement in the funding process.
• Quality management team- They focus on retaining the quality management standards to adequately address the needs of the member and the community (Business Services, 2017).

Contact and location of the service VACCHO offers community based support to indigenous people living in Victoria. To get further information about the organization and direct feedback to them regarding their service, people can visit the following website of the company- www.vaccho.org.au . They are located at 17-23 Sackville Street, Collingwood, Vic – 3066. The main contact number is [phone].
Challenge
The key challenges faced by VACCHO in implementing the service include funding issues and great inequity between health outcome of indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.
There is also difficulty in retaining allied health professionals which limited the ability to provide culturally appropriate care. To address this obstacle in care, they tried to overcome the obstacles by the implementation of several workforce development program that gave necessary training to cater to the needs of indigenous people in Victoria (The role of Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services in Indigenous health, 2017). Certain resource inadequacies may also take place in such organization due to remoteness of location and service delivery challenges. However, the liaison between aboriginal health care workers and non-indigenous group can help to address this limitation in service (Freeman et al.,
2016).
Personal reflection on selection of the organization VACCHO organization has been particularly selected for this report to evaluate how the organization has contributed to addressing health disparity in indigenous people. There are many challenges in developing tailor made service for this group. VACCHO is regarded as the leading advocate for the health of Aboriginal people in Victoria and analysis of their performance is important so that other organization also gain an understanding about the unmet needs of this group. This analysis helps to understand the approach needed to meet the future health demands of the indigenous community in Australia.