The Australian Association of Social Workers has not published any recent policy or position papers specifically related to Indigenous wellbeing, but the needs of Aboriginal people feature prominently in many of its broader platforms.

In its Social Work and Mental Health Position Paper it states social workers make up a third of the allied health workforce for public mental health services, and are the fourth largest professional group in the public mental health workforce. It calls for greater collaboration with Aboriginal communities in the development of mental health programs and funding priorities nationally, and for a whole-of-society approach to mental health – which is highly consistent with Aboriginal understanding of social and emotional wellbeing – including:

• recognising the impact of social, economic, and cultural factors on individual and societal mental health and wellbeing
• building on individual and community strengths to empower people to exercise more direction over their lives
• recognising the connection between mental health and personal relationships, housing and employment

Its Reconciliation Action Plan includes strategies to increase and retain the Indigenous social worker workforce, but elsewhere the AASW highlights research that acknowledges: “the profession’s complicity in forcibly removing children from their family, culture and country; in disregarding Aboriginal experience and cultural ways of helping; and in perpetuating the unchallenged influence of Eurocentrism in social work practice and education.”