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 Vision

Barkly Aboriginal Communities are healthy, thriving, and happy places.

Organisation Chart

Our Purpose

The provision of high quality flexible primary health care services within a culturally responsive framework to Aboriginal people of the Barkly.

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.


AH Rule Book (AH Constitution) 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 2024 – 2027 Strate­gic Plan are:

1. Cul­tur­al Respon­sive­ness

Our Identity is grounded in the cultural values, beliefs and practices of Barkly Aboriginal people and communities.

2. Quality Primary Health Care

Our holistic Primary Health Care (PHC) model continues to develop and guide quality care.

3. Governance

Board of Directors are supported to provide vision and leadership.

4. Community Engagement

Community collaboration in the design and delivery of our services is valued.

5. External Collaboration

Holistic organisation coordination of services and programs. Support and development of working relationships with external organisations.

6. Staff

Safe and supported environments for all our staff.


We Value:



• Local Elders whose vision in 1984 led to the establishment of primary health care services for Wumparani people that continues to flourish. 

• Barkly Aboriginal people’s rights to live healthy sustainable lifestyles in their communities.

• The existence of Aboriginal Culture in the Barkly region for tens of thousands of years and continues to thrive.

• Anyinginyi Health Board of Directors for their commitment, vision and leadership. 

• Anyinginyi Health Staff for their dedicated contributions to the delivery of quality primary health care services to Aboriginal People of the Barkly.

• Our Youth, Our future leaders.

Read the full Anyinginyi Health Abo­rig­i­nal Cor­po­ra­tion Strate­gic Plan 2024 – 2027 here:

Anyinginyi Health Strategic Plan 2024 - 2027

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

Anyinginyi Health | Annual Reports (AH | AR)

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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