Our Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan

The Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association (APNA) received endorsement from Reconciliation Australia for our first Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan in November 2024. 

A Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) provides a guide for APNA as an organisation and our staff as individuals to enable us to work more deeply on reconciliation.

We would like our RAP to focus on:

• analysing where we are as an organisation
• supporting individual staff in their own journey of reconciliation
• establishing effective processes & practices for ongoing reconciliation.

APNA has committed to this first Reflect RAP as part of our broader commitment to diversity and inclusion and to improve the health of Australian communities.

Our RAP Artwork

We commissioned APNA member, artist and Nurse Practitioner Lesley Salem to create a piece of art that tells our story. 

You can read about the artwork in detail in the Reflect RAP on page 19. 

About the artist 

Lesley Salem is a Wonnarua woman, artist, author, nurse practitioner and long-time APNA member who works tirelessly to improve the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, for which she was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2022. Following in the footsteps of her late father Les Elvin, an artist and Elder of the Wonnarua Nation who was NAIDOC Artist of the Year in 2008, Lesley has used the power of art to create change.

Her art uses a contemporary dotting style and embraces traditional cultural symbolism to tell stories. She considers her creative and nursing careers to be complementary and inseparable. She uses art to help gain the trust of people who had previously been disengaged from health, helping them heal from illness and trauma in a way that resonates with them. 

Visit Lesley's website.