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MCH - Conference

Consumer Participation and CALD Communities

Eugenia Georgopoulos

Friday 5 February 2010

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CEH

We have three main program areas:

Health Sector Development Multicultural Health & Support Service Multicultural Gambler’s Help Program

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CEH

CEH assists health & community services to provide a high quality of care to refugee & migrant clients.

Through the provision of: Training Research & information Resource development Project management Education & support

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Rational for Inclusive Consumer Participation

Health care policy increasingly recognises the need to engage communities as essential partners in eliminating health inequalities

The active involvement of consumers from CALD backgrounds is integral to the development, implementation and evaluation of effective, responsive and appropriate health care

Participation conveys more than the sharing of information and opinion, it refers to having and exercising decision making power, and therefore implies empowerment

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Consumer Participation involves…..

Participation in service delivery, monitoring and evaluation, participation in policy and planning

Participation in staff recruitment

Participation in education and training

Consumers can be employed by organizations as advocates and/or consultants

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What Can Consumer/Community Participation Achieve?

Reorient services, processes and systems towards consumer/community/carer aspirations, perspectives, needs and priorities

Strengthen community action

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What Can Consumer/Community Participation Achieve?

Lead to transparent and accountable decision making processes and forums

Improve service/project efficiency, acceptability, effectiveness, access and equity

Contribute to quality services and better health outcomes for CALD consumers

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Eight Key Principles for Consumer Participation

1. Participation means partnership, means accepting uncertainty.

2. Deciding for effective consumer participation means deciding for organisational change.

3. Align your consumer involvement plans with organisational capacity. Involve staff in building that capacity.

4. Consumer Participation must be supported from the top

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Eight Key Principles for Consumer Participation

5. Consumer participation must be supported from the top down, but it is built from the bottom up.

6. It’s all about relationships, so build and use people skills.

7. Consumer participation needs partnerships, partnerships need dialogue, and dialogue needs trust. So build trust.

8. Multiple strategies work better

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What are the challenges health professionals face?

Lack of easy communication affects professionals' ability to build up relationships

Communication challenges:

Different communication styles i.e. verbal and non-verbal communication

Different approaches to knowing

Developing relationships

Talk about issues of concern

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What are the challenges health professionals face?

Cultural challenges

Different cultures and caring principles

Different decision making styles

Belief systems and behaviours

Religion, gender and attitudes towards disclosure

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Cultural competence in healthCultural competence is: “a set of congruent behaviours, attitudes and

policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enables that system, agency or those professionals to work effectively in cross cultural situations” (Cross, et. Al. 1989)

It is important because:

Establishes positive helping relationships Engage the client better Improve quality of services

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Individual cultural competencies

1. Accepting cultural ambiguity

2. Understanding cultural empathy

3. Understanding cultural complexity

4. Deconstructing cultural stereotypes

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Accepting cultural ambiguity

Feeling comfortable with diversity and understanding diversity within diversity

Challenging our own responses to what we think is authentic cultural identity

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Understanding cultural empathy

Being interested in the experiences of others and a willingness to learn from them

Absence of cultural superiority or ethnocentric perspectives that convey a judgment or evaluate on the basis of cultural bias

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Understanding cultural complexity

Culture is not homogenous Culture is fluid, affected by a complex

range of factors and is constantly being redefined

Through experiences of migration, acculturation and generational issues

Explore diversity within and across cultural and linguistic groups

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Deconstructing cultural stereotypes

Understand how we create and perpetuate stereotypes

Our awareness of creating stereotypes means we can exercise agency to address how stereotypes affect our responses

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Cultural and Linguistic Considerations in Consumer Participation

Identify and seek input from key ethnic community stakeholders, ethno-specific groups and organizations,

Acknowledge pre-migration and or refugee/trauma experiences

Advertise/provide information through ethnic media

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Cultural and Linguistic Considerations in Consumer Participation

Provide access to interpreters/ bilingual staff members, translated/culturally appropriate community information

Be aware of:

– gender /religious issues– language, acronyms, jargon– degrees of acculturation – levels of community organization and

infrastructure– size

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Types of tools for participation

Focus groups

Consumer/Community Consultations

Consumer/Community Forums or Planning Days

Consumers on Boards of Management

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Types of tools for participation

Appropriate Partnership and Consultation Mechanisms

Consumers on Project/Steering/Reference Groups

Consumers in evaluation

Language Appropriate – Information Sessions– Printed Materials

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Summary:

Acknowledge pre-migration and or refugee/trauma experiences

Lack of knowledge in the subject/issue under discussion by parents/family

Insensitive attitudes of organisations and service providers

Access to interpreters/ bilingual staff Access to translated/culturally appropriate

information

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Summary:

Awareness of the cultural protocols for different communities

Advertise/provide information through ethnic media

Identify key ethnic community stakeholders

Pay attention to language, acronyms, jargon

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Thank you

www.ceh.org.au