Overview of the multicultural health action plan

The Department of Health multicultural health action plan 2023–27 outlines our commitment and action to improve the health and wellbeing of multicultural communities over the next four years. It sets out improvement goals and actions to embed cultural competency into all our services, programs and policies.

The plan outlines our vision, as well as practical resources and supports, good practice principles and examples. It describes the actions our department will take over the next four years across six improvement goals:

1. Invest in targeted policies, programs and services that improve health equity.
2. Design and deliver accessible and culturally competent mainstream policies, programs and services.
3. Provide language services and accessible communications.
4. Strengthen community engagement, capacity building and lived experience representation.
5. Enhance cultural competency through workforce capability and inclusive leadership.
6. Build evidence-based approaches through data, research and evaluation.

The plan offers practical guidance for the department’s internal workforce on how to meet the needs of multicultural communities across policy, program and service development, as well as commissioning, management and evaluation work.

The plan builds on our existing efforts through the (former) Department of Health and Human Services’ Delivering for diversity: cultural diversity plan 2016–19 and lessons learnt through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our progress in implementing the plan will be reported through the Victorian Government’s annual report on achievements in multicultural affairs, which is tabled each year in parliament.

To address the ongoing impacts of colonialism, culturally unsafe practice and structural racism within the health and wellbeing system, Victoria has partnered with the Aboriginal community-controlled health sector to develop the Aboriginal health and wellbeing partnership agreement and action plan 2023–25. The Multicultural health action plan 2023–27 does not detail this important work, but we recognise that Aboriginal people, families and communities in Victoria are diverse and are part of our culturally diverse society.