Indigenous Psychological Services

Indigenous Psychological Services is a private company that was founded in late 1998, by Dr Tracy Westerman, an Indigenous Psychologist originally from the Northwest of Western Australia. She is of the Nyamal people from Port Hedland and Marble Bar area. Dr Westerman developed IPS primarily to address the inequities that exist for Indigenous people in relation to appropriate levels of access to specialist and culturally specific mental health and psychological services.

Consistent with our focus on cultural security, IPS’ consultants are selected based on being of good standing within the Aboriginal community.  Importantly, all consultants hold tertiary qualifications in mental health with a focus on psychology. The vast majority of IPS’ consultants are of Aboriginal descent. Non–Indigenous consultants have gone through an extensive process of demonstrating their cultural skills in working with Aboriginal communities and have a proven track record of success in Indigenous mental health.

IPS has conducted extensive work into rural and remote Indigenous communities who are experiencing complex and entrenched mental health issues. IPS has worked across three states of Australia and provided intervention to over 2,000 community members since 2003 across 16 distinct Aboriginal communities across Western Australia, New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Victoria. The focus is on the provision of training and intervention programs to ‘whole communities’ including service providers, community members and youth. The work of IPS in this area has resulted in a much needed evidence base for effective models of intervention that result in best long term sustainable outcomes for Indigenous communities.

IPS has been engaged to complete numerous state and national program and organisational reviews since it's inception in 1998. In addition to this IPS also has a firm commitment to continuing its strong reputation as providers of culturally and scientifically sound research into the particular mental health needs of Aboriginal people. The PhD research of Dr Tracy Westerman has provided a solid foundation and desire to continue the exploration of Indigenous assessment and intervention models within our organisation.