The Culturally Equitable Gateways Strategy (CEGS) is a three and a half year strategy funded by the Victorian State Government to improve the access of older people from ethnic communities to local government Home and Community Care (HACC) services. 

CEGS aims to increase ethnic older people's use of HACC services provided by local councils. The program has funding to employ CEGS workers in local councils, ethnic-specific organisations and Migrant Resource Centres. 

These workers are supported by positions at the ECCV and the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV).

There are various parts to the CEGS Strategy including:

• Partnerships between local government and ethno-specific agencies through CEGS workers
• ECCV and MAV sectoral positions  
• Migrant Resource Centres (MRCs) examining the availability and training of bilingual and multicultural workers in local government HACC services
• Small and emerging communities with ageing populations funding to better link those communities to local government HACC services
• Department of Human Services (DHS) translating information about HACC services into 20 languages and undertaking research on what does cultural diversity mean for HACC over the next 20 years.

The Victorian Government’s Culturally Equitable Gateways Strategy (CEGS) provides funding to the ECCV for a sectorial position to resource the ethnic sector. This includes:

• Support and advice to the ethnic sector regarding CEGS
• Participation in the sectoral partnership developments between the ECCV and MAV
• Examining sustainability post the current CEGS funding period.  

ECCV CEGS activities:

• Organising a CEGS Good Practice Forum
• Facilitation of CEGS Workshops for the CEGS Ethnic Sector Workers
• Organising CEGS Information Sessions for small and emerging communities
• Supporting AGWS, MCWS, APCS to pilot test CEGS Evaluation Framework Tools and resourcing DHS to brief CEGS agencies on the roll out of the Evaluation Tools
• Participating in the CEGS state-wide, regional and sub regional meetings
• Undertaking regular planning meetings with the MAV focusing on the sectorial partnership
• Supporting to individual CEGS workers and agencies on request including AGWS, CCSSCI, MCWA, APCS, VASS, Co. As. It., Jewish Care and   MRCs
• Producing various ECCV CEGS documents including CEGS Information Sheets.

ECCV activities have resulted in:

• Strong ECCV support for the CEGS Program  
• Better relations between the two sectorial partners – MAV and ECCV
• Stronger engagement of the MRCs in CEGS
• Stronger, more positive relationship between the ECCV CEGS and DHS
• Increased confidence in CEGS being demonstrated by CEGS ethnic sector agencies.

For further information from the Department of Human Services on the CEGS project go to:

 http://www.health.vic.gov.au/hacc/projects/gateways.htm

 
For further information on the Municipal Association of Victoria's role in the CEGS project go to:

 http://www.mav.asn.au/CA256C2B000B597A/OrigDoc
/~471119BA8CA72F8ACA256FA7007AD496?OpenDocument

New Resources:

The Culturally Equitable Gateways Strategy (CEGS) was implemented between 2004 and 2007 by almost fifty agencies representing local governments, ethnic and multicultural organisations, and sectoral advocacy bodies in four Metropolitan regions and in the City of Greater Geelong.

ECCV CEGS Resources Guide http://eccv.org.au/doc/CEGSresources.pdf

Ethnic Aged Care Services Guide http://eccv.org.au/doc/AgedCareServicesGuide.pdf

^{The Culturally Equitable Gateways Strategy  officially came to an end on 31st Dec 2007 and from the 1st January 2008 has been replaced by the Supported Access Pilot Project, details of which are now available on this web site.}