ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to increase nurses’ compassion towards their clients by providing information on and insights into the complexity of factors that can bring a person to a point in their life where they will need our care. It explores important social issues associated with mental health, and social and emotional well-being: child abuse and substance misuse. The chapter overviews the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations and looks at specific factors impacting on their well-being. It discusses examples of how social determinants impact on mental health in general, drawing out the cumulative effect on well-being experienced by Australia’s First Peoples. Legislation outlawed the use of their own languages, and controlled where people could live and who they could marry, so the reproduction of Indigenous families, social structures and institutions was severely disrupted in many areas. Police harassment, violence and an extreme over-representation in the criminal justice system are other challenges to social and emotional well-being.
