Yarning sessions to facilitate cultural responsiveness and decolonising the curriculum in a university psychology setting

Psychology higher education providers play a critical role in growing a culturally safe psychology workforce by engaging in culturally responsive practices, embedding Indigenous perspectives, and decolonising curricula. We describe yarning sessions that aimed to facilitate collective learning, reflexivity, and decolonising praxis. They were led through relationship and governance from the Australian Indigenous Psychology Education Project (AIPEP), an Aboriginal-led project focused on decolonising psychology, and attended by non-Indigenous psychology university staff. Optional, hour-long yarning sessions over three years (4-6 per year) featured cultural introductions, open conversation, knowledge sharing, and critical reflections on decolonising psychology. Enablers for yarning participation included guidance from AIPEP facilitators; motivated attendees with some foundational knowledge; and a dedicated staff role to schedule sessions. We also describe lessons learned regarding limited time, and concerns about colonial load for Indigenous facilitators; external deadlines that could impact the process and time that reflexivity requires; and leaning into discomfort that occurs during transformational change. It was also key to ensure Indigenous governance throughout. Overall, yarning can encourage reflexivity, cultural learnings, relationship-building, knowledge, and confidence to develop teaching materials. We hope that our process and reflections are useful for higher education psychology staff and psychologists to improve workplace cultural responsiveness.