Discover Our Tennant Creek Health Services

Anyinginyi Health Abo­rig­i­nal Cor­po­ra­tion pro­vides pri­ma­ry health care ser­vices to Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple of Ten­nant Creek and four small communities.

Com­mu­ni­ty con­trolled and gov­erned by a board of direc­tors, five ser­vice sec­tions make up the organisation: 


  • Health Ser­vices Section
  • Piliy­intin­ji-ki Stronger Fam­i­lies Section
  • Pub­lic Health Section
  • Business Services Section
  • People and Capabilities Section


Anyinginyi Health ser­vice deliv­ery area totals almost 150,000 square km. It stretch­es north of Ten­nant Creek to Elliott, east­ward almost to the Queens­land bor­der and south to Ali Curung. We pro­vide ser­vices to over 7500 people.

Our Vison

Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple in the Bark­ly region enjoy equi­ty in health sta­tus with that of oth­er Aus­tralian citizens.

Our Purpose

To be a provider of high qual­i­ty holis­tic pri­ma­ry health care ser­vices to the Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ties of the Bark­ly region in a cul­tur­al­ly respon­sive way.

Board of Directors

Anyinginyi Health is a com­mu­ni­ty con­trolled Abo­rig­i­nal health organ­i­sa­tion gov­erned by a Board of Direc­tors that are vot­ed in by mem­bers of the organisation.


The Board of Direc­tors pro­vide strate­gic direc­tion for the lead­er­ship team and give a voice to all res­i­dents in the Bark­ly Region. 


Anyinginy­i Health’s day-to-day oper­a­tions are man­aged by our lead­er­ship team who have diverse qual­i­fi­ca­tions and experience.

Corporation Membership

Mem­ber­ship of Anyinginyi Health Abo­rig­i­nal Cor­po­ra­tion is open to res­i­dents of the Bark­ly region who meet the eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria in part 3.1 of the Rule Book.

Appli­ca­tions are wel­come from peo­ple of Abo­rig­i­nal descent, aged 18 or over who have lived in the region con­tin­u­ous­ly for at least 2 years. Full cri­te­ria are list­ed on page 5 of the Anyinginyi Health Rule Book.


AHAC Rule Book Registrar of Indigenous Corporations

To apply
Down­load and fill out the mem­ber­ship form.


Com­plet­ed forms can be returned to Mem­ber­ships, Anyinginyi Health Abo­rig­i­nal Cor­po­ra­tion, by any of the fol­low­ing:


Hand deliv­er | to 1 Irvine Street Ten­nant Creek, or
Email | to reception@​anyinginyi.​com.​au, or
Mail | to PO Box 403, Ten­nant Creek NT 0861


  • Mem­ber­ship forms will be tak­en to the next Board meet­ing for Direc­tors consideration.
  • The appli­cant becomes a mem­ber when their name, address and date they became a mem­ber is put on the reg­is­ter of mem­bers, with­in 14 days of approval.
  • Mem­bers names (but not address­es) are list­ed on the Office of the Reg­is­trar of Indige­nous Cor­po­ra­tions (ORIC) website.


Rights of members


Mem­bers can:

  • attend, speak and vote at gen­er­al meetings,
  • put for­ward res­o­lu­tions at gen­er­al meetings
  • be made a direc­tor if eligible


Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on mem­bers’ rights and respon­si­bil­i­ties are list­ed on page 6 of the Rule Book. 

Governance

Anyinginyi Health is gov­erned by an Abo­rig­i­nal Board. The Board per­forms its duties with the sup­port of man­age­ment and staff, in line with the objec­tives of our con­sti­tu­tion and rel­e­vant Com­mon­wealth and Ter­ri­to­ry laws. The Board also reg­u­lar­ly con­sult with mem­bers of the community.


We recog­nise cul­ture is intrin­sic to achiev­ing health edu­ca­tion and change in Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple. We oper­ate with­in a Cul­tur­al Frame­work that sup­ports a cul­tur­al envi­ron­ment.

The Anyinginyi Health Board aims to:

embed cul­tur­al respon­sive­ness and behav­iours into oper­a­tional and employ­ee functions

have clear objec­tives and func­tions under­stood by members

be made up of direc­tors who are rep­re­sen­ta­tive of var­i­ous inter­est groups while bal­anced with the skills required for good governance

show trans­paren­cy in struc­ture and deci­sion making

imple­ment evi­­denced-based goals and strategies 

invest in resources that are respon­sive to com­mu­ni­ty needs.

Primary Health Care Model

Anyinginyi Health adopts a social com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment approach to deliv­er­ing pri­ma­ry health care ensur­ing Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple have the right to afford­able, acces­si­ble and appro­pri­ate health care. Pri­ma­ry Health care has a broad focus on the social con­di­tions and envi­ron­ment rather than just health care ser­vice. Anyinginyi Health holis­tic approach is based on social jus­tice, equi­ty, com­mu­ni­ty inclu­sion and social accept­abil­i­ty broad­ly linked with the social deter­mi­nants of health. 


The inte­gra­tion of pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures through pub­lic health aware­ness, edu­ca­tion, health pro­mo­tion and com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment are key to com­mu­ni­ty capac­i­ty build and to empow­er­ing Abo­rig­i­nal indi­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ty accept­ing self-respon­si­bil­i­ty for health and well­be­ing. When man­ag­ing Abo­rig­i­nal client care the three com­po­nents of fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty and cul­ture are intrin­sic to good health outcomes.


The mod­el rec­og­nizes the strong role Cul­ture and Cul­tur­al Author­i­ty plays in a holis­tic approach to good health and well — being. The mod­el respects the diverse cul­tur­al lead­er­ship struc­tures and cul­tur­al iden­ti­ties of Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple, fam­i­lies and clients. Cul­ture sets the foun­da­tion for Anyinginyi to strive to be com­pli­ant with main­tain­ing cul­tur­al respect and ensures the prin­ci­ples of cul­tur­al respon­sive­ness are con­sid­ered in the design & imple­men­ta­tion of health care. 



Our mod­el inte­grates Pri­ma­ry Health Care best prac­tice and Cul­tur­al best prac­tice – this is how we do business.

Strategic Plan

Anyinginyi’s Strate­gic Plan guides the direc­tion and out­lines per­for­mance areas for the organisation. 


The six pri­or­i­ties of the 2020 – 2022 Strate­gic Plan are:

1. Cul­tur­al respon­sive­ness & com­mu­ni­ty engagement

As an Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty con­trolled health ser­vice, we will lis­ten to the com­mu­ni­ty and always show respect for cul­ture and cul­tur­al practices.

2. Strong gov­er­nance
& leadership

We will con­tin­ue to build upon our rep­u­ta­tion as a pro­fes­sion­al, well man­aged organisation.

3. High-qual­i­ty, holis­tic pri­ma­ry health care

We will offer high qual­i­ty, com­pre­hen­sive pri­ma­ry health care ser­vices to sup­port our clients’ phys­i­cal and social and emo­tion­al well­be­ing in a way that sup­ports them to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for their own health.

4. Oppor­tu­ni­ty for our
staff & the community

We will sup­port all our staff to be the best they can be, includ­ing through pro­vid­ing employ­ment for Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple and sup­port­ing them to be lead­ers with­in our organisation.

5. Tack­ling Abo­rig­i­nal disadvantage

We will con­tin­ue to be a voice for the com­mu­ni­ty and to work with oth­ers to address the inter­gen­er­a­tional dis­ad­van­tage car­ried by the Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple and fam­i­lies of the Barkly.

6. Sus­tain­abil­i­ty & Innovation

We will try new ways of deliv­er­ing our ser­vices and run­ning our organ­i­sa­tion, while ensur­ing that Anyinginyi con­tin­ues to oper­ate from a sus­tain­able and sta­ble base.


Our Guid­ing Principles

In imple­ment­ing our Strate­gic Plan, we are guid­ed by the fol­low­ing principles:

  • Social jus­tice
  • Empow­er­ing indi­vid­u­als to take rea­son­able respon­si­bil­i­ty for their health
  • Assist­ing to address the social deter­mi­nants that con­tribute to the poor health sta­tus of many local people
  • Com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and empowerment
  • Focus on clients
  • Cul­tur­al responsiveness
  • Respect for our­selves and all people
  • Respect com­mu­ni­ty autonomy
  • Abo­rig­i­nal and non-Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple work­ing togeth­er as one team
  • Qual­i­ty rela­tion­ships, inter­nal­ly and externally
  • Devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for staff
  • Effec­tive communications
  • Finan­cial­ly responsible
  • Out­comes focused
  • High qual­i­ty report­ing, inter­nal­ly and externally

Read the full Anyinginyi Health Abo­rig­i­nal Cor­po­ra­tion Strate­gic Plan 2020 – 2022 here:

AHAC Strategic Plan 2020 - 2022

Research

Anyinginyi Health will not be accept­ing new research appli­ca­tions until fur­ther notice, to ensure that cur­rent approved stud­ies receive the nec­es­sary sup­port and atten­tion.


This web­page will be updat­ed as soon as appli­ca­tions are open. Enquiries can be direct­ed to Anyinginyi Health Research Offi­cer, Heather Bur­ton email to: research@​anyinginyi.​com.​au to make enquiries. 


Research appli­ca­tion form For ref­er­ence only until notice is giv­en that Anyinginyi Health is accept­ing applications:

2022 Research Application Form

Annual Reports

Aboriginal History

Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple have lived in the Bark­ly Region for over 40,000 years. The area around what is now the town of Ten­nant Creek was used by Waru­mungu peo­ple dur­ing times of drought due to the pres­ence of per­ma­nent water holes. 


When the Ten­nant Creek Tele­graph sta­tion was built in the 1870s the Waru­mungu peo­ple expe­ri­enced their first inter­ac­tions with Euro­peans, some worked for the sta­tion and received rations. 

From the 1880s onwards, as vast tracts of Waru­mungu coun­try were grant­ed as pas­toral leas­es and stocked with cat­tle, Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple were unable to con­duct their tra­di­tion­al hunt­ing and gath­er­ing prac­tices. Peo­ple were forced to set­tle on sta­tions or the Abo­rig­i­nal reserve. Many men worked as stock-men, drovers, butch­ers and gar­den­ers. Women car­ried out domes­tic work in the sta­tion hous­es. Pay­ment was gen­er­al­ly in rations only and con­di­tions were usu­al­ly poor.


The dis­cov­ery of gold in the 1930s saw the estab­lish­ment of the town­ship of Ten­nant Creek. It was off lim­its to Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple until the 1960s. Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple worked on the gold mines, many of which were locat­ed on what had been the Waru­mungu Reserve.



The fed­er­al Labor Gov­ern­ment led by Gough Whit­lam adopt­ed the pol­i­cy of ​‘self-deter­mi­na­tion’ for Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in 1972. This pol­i­cy saw Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple move, or return to Ten­nant Creek from cat­tle sta­tions and Warrabri Abo­rig­i­nal set­tle­ment (Ali Curung). Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple now make up over half of the pop­u­la­tion of Ten­nant Creek and near­ly 70% of the greater Bark­ly population.

Language Groups

Many Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple speak sev­er­al dif­fer­ent lan­guages. Fre­quent­ly Eng­lish is a third or even fourth lan­guage. Lan­guages spo­ken through­out the Bark­ly Region include:

  • Waru­mungu
  • Warl­man­pa
  • Warlpiri
  • Jin­gu­lu
  • Garawa
  • Mud­bur­ra
  • Kayte­tye
  • Alyawarr
  • Anmaty­err
  • Wambaya

Tennant Creek & Barkly Region

The Bark­ly Region is a huge expanse of land that cov­ers more than 300,000 square kilo­me­tres from the trop­i­cal north to the arid desert south. It is an area larg­er than Vic­to­ria or New Zealand. The town of Ten­nant Creek is locat­ed between Kather­ine and Alice Springs along the Stu­art High­way.

Ten­nant Creek has a pop­u­la­tion of approx­i­mate­ly 3,500 peo­ple. It is the fifth largest town in the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry and is ser­viced by:

A pri­ma­ry school

& high school 

CHILDREN

2 day­care facilities

super­mar­ket

post office

gym­na­si­um

town swim­ming pool

sev­er­al pubs & clubs

sev­er­al restaurants

Pop­u­lar tourist attrac­tions in the area include:

Links to Ten­nant Creek and Sur­round­ing Area sites:

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