Good practice principles
The department is:
- developing and maintaining policies and strategies that improve access to mainstream services such as fee waivers and priority access policies, particularly for recently arrived refugees and people seeking asylum without a Commonwealth safety net or Medicare
- embedding cultural competency requirements and inclusion considerations into design, commissioning and delivery so all mainstream programs and services are welcoming, safe, trauma-informed and meet diverse needs related to culture, ethnicity, language, race, religion, visa status and other experiences or forms of disadvantage
- enabling health services to undertake service improvement and engagement projects to better address the needs of multicultural communities experiencing poorer health outcomes
- ensuring all forms of discrimination are prevented and eliminated in the department and its funded services, in line with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006
- advocating to the Commonwealth, local government and other state departments to eliminate access barriers and improve the cultural competency of mainstream services.
Practical resources and supports
- Department of Health:
- Refugee and asylum seeker access policies and fee waivers in public hospitals, ambulance services, community health, dental services, catch up immunisation, and other health services
- Designing for Diversity resources on inclusive policy, program, and service design
- Refugee and asylum seeker health services: Guidelines for the community health program
- Whole of Victorian Government universal design and Victorian Health Building Authority universal design
- Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health cultural competence assessment for organisations, training and tip
- Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission Reducing Racism Hub .
Actions we will take
| Flagship initiatives | Timeframe | Lead division |
|---|---|---|
2.1 Women’s health initiatives address health inequities experienced by multicultural women by providing support that is culturally safe and responsive to the needs of the community including:
| Ongoing | Community and Public Health |
| 2.2 Rollout of a $6.2 million investment in Multicultural Storytime (over four years) to promote connection to language and culture and improve health literacy and service engagement across the early years health system. | 2023–24 to 2026–27 | Community and Public Health |
| New and continuing actions | Timeframe | Lead division |
|---|---|---|
| 2.3 Undertake a service improvement pilot project to improve cancer support and treatment for multicultural communities. This involves a two-year project focusing on cancer support and treatment for Karen and Afghan refugee communities in the Bendigo region, led by the Bendigo Community Health Service in collaboration with the Loddon Mallee Integrated Cancer Service and Bendigo Regional Cancer Centre. | 2023–24 | Hospitals and Health Services |
2.4 Continue culturally competent cancer screening initiatives under the Victorian cancer screening framework to improve screening rates for multicultural communities including:
| 2023–26 | Community and Public Health |
| 2.5 Continue resourcing for Dementia Australia to provide sector and workforce education and training and support for people living with dementia and their families in Victoria, including a focus on culturally specific dementia support. | Ongoing | Hospitals and Health Services |
2.6 Implement the Diabetes Victoria CALD strategy to improve multicultural community participation in diabetes and chronic disease prevention through the Life! program including:
| 2023–26 | Community and Public Health |
| 2.7 Promote the findings of a recent multicultural resilience project jointly funded by the Australian and Victorian governments and undertaken by the Victorian Council of Social Services to ensure more accessible, culturally competent emergency response preparedness for multicultural communities. | 2023–24 | Community and Public Health |
| 2.8 State-funded Priority Primary Care Centres across Victoria continue to provide GP-led care for people in Victoria including culturally and linguistically diverse people who need urgent care. This includes people without Medicare cards such as people seeking asylum and international students. | 2023–24 | Community and Public Health |
2.9 Three new Children’s Health and Wellbeing Locals in Brimbank-Melton, Southern Melbourne and Loddon to deliver a culturally competent approach to multidisciplinary paediatric and allied health services for children aged 0–11 experiencing developmental or behavioural challenges, and their families, including through:
| Ongoing | Hospitals and Health Services |
| 2.10 New Mental Health and Wellbeing Locals to build on the Mental Health and Wellbeing Hubs service model, which provided inclusive and accessible services for multicultural communities through targeted engagement, cultural competency training and translated resources. | Ongoing to 2026 | Mental Health and Wellbeing |
| 2.11 Infrastructure and model of care for the new Mildura alcohol and other drug residential withdrawal and rehabilitation service, which adopts a place-focused engagement approach and applies universal design principles. | 2023 to ongoing | Mental Health and Wellbeing |
2.12 Continue implementing community health and primary care system improvement initiatives that benefit multicultural communities such as:
| 2023–26 | Community and Public Health |
| 2.13 Adopt a universal design approach in new health infrastructure to ensure accessibility including for multicultural communities, in line with the Whole of Victorian Government universal design and the Victorian Health Building Authority universal design . | Ongoing | Victorian Health Building Authority |
| 2.14 Review and refresh the Safer Care Victoria Partnering in health care framework: a framework for better care and and tools to apply the framework. This will include a focus on practical strategies to support the engagement of diverse consumers and communities in healthcare partnerships and improvement initiatives. | 2023–26 | Safer Care Victoria |
| 2.15 Review and refresh Healthcare that counts: a framework for improving care for vulnerable children in Victorian health services to include a stronger focus on culturally competent responses for multicultural, refugee and asylum-seeking communities. | 2023–24 | Hospitals and Health Services |
| 2.16 Develop and implement a new Victorian cancer plan 2024–2028, which includes actions to improve cancer prevention, screening, treatment, and care for priority populations, including multicultural communities. | 2024–28 | Hospitals and Health Services |
| 2.17 Implement the newVictorian sexual and reproductive health and viral hepatitis strategy 2022–30 including the commitment to intersectionality, diversity and reducing stigma, racism and discrimination. | 2022–30 | Community and Public Health |
| 2.18 Ensure the new Victorian public health and wellbeing plan 2023–27has a strong focus on improving health inequities including for Victoria’s multicultural communities. | 2023–27 | Community and Public Health |
Good practice example: Improving multicultural cancer screening rates
The Victorian cancer screening framework guides Victoria’s delivery of and investment in the national cancer screening programs (breast, bowel and cervical). The framework’s 2022–26 strategic plan identifies multicultural communities as a priority population for all screening programs. Cancer screening partners undertake a range of initiatives designed to address barriers to cancer screening for multicultural communities, with a focus on accessible services and improving health literacy across screening programs for health professionals and community members eligible for screening.
Under the Victorian cancer screening framework, a series of targeted multicultural community engagement initiatives were undertaken in 2022–23 including:
- cancer screening education sessions for community groups and capacity-building sessions delivered to multicultural health professionals and champions about bowel screening and cervical screening
- bowel and cervical screening education sessions for multicultural communities and organisations including Turbans4Australia, Glen Eira Adult Learning Centre, Springvale Indo-Chinese Mutual Assistance Association (SCIMAA) Vietnamese community group, Centre for Multicultural Youth South Sudanese women’s group, Nike and Western Bulldogs Community Foundation
- capacity-building sessions delivered for bicultural workers, community champions and disability health workers at organisations including Wyndham Disability Services Network, Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health and through the CALD Communities Taskforce
- distribution of a quarterly multicultural newsletter to more than 150 stakeholders from community organisations to share the latest cancer screening and prevention information and resources
- BreastScreen Victoria’s Re-engaging Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Clients for a Breast Screen Project. This included four activities to re-engage lapsed screeners from multicultural communities: in-language SMS (15 languages); in-language phone call (six languages); dedicated language group bookings with in-person interpreter (four languages); provide clients with information about bowel and cervical screening. A total of 5,033 clients were contacted through the project, with 1,993 booking an appointment. Of those who booked an appointment, 89.5% (1,784) attended their screen. This included 26 clients screening through group bookings with an in-person interpreter.
The department also funds media campaigns created and delivered by cancer screening partners. Campaigns include specific multicultural creatives or in-language resources for multicultural communities. Recently funded campaigns include:
- the Young People’s Cervical Screening Campaign, a collaboration between Cancer Council Victoria (CCV) and the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health, with a focus on new creative for Punjabi and Tamil speakers
- the CCV Early Detection Campaign, which includes a focus on Mandarin and Arabic-speaking audiences and has the option for all website materials to be translated into any language
- the CCV Bowel Screening Campaign, which includes a new creative for Hindi, Punjabi and Vietnamese-speaking communities.
-
Refugee and asylum seeker access policies and fee waivers in:
- Hospital access for people seeking asylum – policy.
- Ambulance payment responsibilities, authorisations and concessions
- Community Health Program access policy
- Access to Victoria’s public dental care services.
- Vaccination for special-risk groups.
- Current guide to asylum seeker access to health and community services in Victoria.
Designing for resources on inclusive policy, program, and service design.
Victorian Health Building Authority universal design .
Whole of Victorian Government universal design .
Refugee and asylum seeker health services: Guidelines for the community health program.
Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and cultural competence assessment for organisations and tip sheets.
Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Reducing Racism Hub and resources for the public sector and organisations.
Reviewed 16 April 2024