Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:00:55.034Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Elliott Health Program

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2015

T. Dowd
Affiliation:
Elliott, N.T.
G. Sharp
Affiliation:
Armidale & New England Hospital, NSW
Get access

Extract

Elliott is a small township in the Northern Territory situated on the Stuart Highway 260 kilometres north of Tennant Creek and 415 kilometres south of Katherine. It is on a flat tableland in a generally arid region. The town clusters around a police station, post office and store, clinic, school, supermarket, hotel, roadhouse and three petrol stations. The local church is the Australian Inland Mission.

About 50 non-Aboriginal people live in the town. Most of these are employed by government departments. While some Aboriginal families also live in Elliott, most of the Aboriginal population, which varies from 200–400 people, has settled in one of two villages to the north and south of town.

One hundred children attend the local school; more than 90% of these are of Aboriginal descent. Attendance figures for 1979–1980 indicate that mean attendance rates are 83% and 85% respectively; thus attendance at Elliott Primary School is uncharacteristically high when compared with the rest of the Northern Territory (Shimpo, 1978). Two Aboriginal teaching assistants and five non-Aboriginal staff teach combined classes from pre-school to year 7.

In this setting the Elliott Health Program developed out of the concerted and co-ordinated efforts of the school and local community health centre.

Type
Across Australia ……. From Teacher to Teacher
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Shimpo, M., 1978, The Social Process of Aboriginal Education in the Northern Territory. Department of Education, N.T. Division, Darwin.Google Scholar