MCH - Conference Consumer Participation and CALD Communities

1. MCH - ConferenceConsumer Participation and CALD Communities Eugenia Georgopoulos Friday 5 February 2010

2. CEH We have three main program areas: • Health Sector Development • Multicultural Health & Support Service • Multicultural Gambler’s Help Program

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. What Can Consumer/Community Participation Achieve? • Reorient services, processes and systems towards consumer/community/carer aspirations, perspectives, needs and priorities • Strengthen community action

7. 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

8. Eight Key Principles for Consumer Participation • Participation means partnership, means accepting uncertainty. • Deciding for effective consumer participation means deciding for organisational change. • Align your consumer involvement plans with organisational capacity. Involve staff in building that capacity. • Consumer Participation must be supported from the top

9. Eight Key Principles for Consumer Participation • Consumer participation must be supported from the top down, but it is built from the bottom up. • It’s all about relationships, so build and use people skills. • Consumer participation needs partnerships, partnerships need dialogue, and dialogue needs trust. So build trust. 8. Multiple strategies work better

10. 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

11. 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

12. Cultural competence in health Cultural 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

13. Individual cultural competencies • Accepting cultural ambiguity • Understanding cultural empathy • Understanding cultural complexity • Deconstructing cultural stereotypes

14. Accepting cultural ambiguity • Feeling comfortable with diversity and understanding diversity within diversity • Challenging our own responses to what we think is authentic cultural identity

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. Types of tools for participation • Focus groups • Consumer/Community Consultations • Consumer/Community Forums or Planning Days • Consumers on Boards of Management

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. Thank you www.ceh.org.au