Diversity in Action Forum: Meeting the Needs of Multicultural Seniors

Broadmeadows, 26 July 2006

Address by Peter van Vliet, Executive Officer

Thank you for the opportunity to speak at today’s forum and I welcome you all.

It gives me great pleasure to speak on behalf of the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria, a key partner with the State Government in delivering culturally appropriate aged care services.

Victoria’s multicultural communities deeply appreciates the work you are all undertaking in improving HACC service delivery to culturally and linguistically diverse HACC clients under the Victorian cultural planning strategy.

At the outset I would particularly like to thank our HACC access and equity officers here today for their wonderful work.

I would particularly like to thank Gita Rotherham, based at the Migrant Resource Centre, and Samia Mina and Halime Duzan, at ADEC.

Thanks also must go to Meyer Eidelson of ADEC for his wonderful work as the Statewide Access and Equity Officer, providing support to the 12 Access and Equity Officers across the state.

Cultural action plans are an important part of the service delivery jigsaw puzzle to ensure we get our service response right to our ever-expanding culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) seniors’ population.

It’s incredible to note that in just five years—2011—38% of over-65s in Melbourne will be from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

In the North-West region of Melbourne which already has the highest percentage of diversity amongst the 65+ population this proportion could well increase to around 50% of over 65s by 2011.

In the City of Brimbank, over 9,000 people or 66 % of that age cohort are from CALD backgrounds.

In the City of Moreland the CALD seniors’ figure is 10,000 people or 50% of that age cohort (2001 statistics).

The challenge of culturally appropriate service delivery is therefore a significant one and it is important we get our service responses right.

People from CALD backgrounds are identified as one of the ‘special needs groups’ within the broad HACC target population, as defined in the Commonwealth HACC provisions.

Since 1997, the Department of Human Services (DHS) has requested all HACC agencies develop Cultural Action Plans based on the HACC Cultural Planning Tool.

There are around 130 HACC agencies in the North-West who with the assistance from the HACC Access and Equity Officers, are developing and implementing cultural action plans.

This enables agencies to ensure that their programs are both accessed by CALD senior people and that programs are culturally sensitive.

The strategy is one response to the considerable data gathered by governments at the Federal and State level that show that ethnic consumers have been consistently under-represented in HACC services.

Over the past decade or so, the Cultural Planning Strategy has had a major influence in changing the provider culture in the Home and Community Care Program.

Some of the areas in which progress has been made include:

• increasing the numbers of bi-lingual workers,
• increasing CALD consumer participation in service planning and policy,
• expanding the amount of information available in community languages,
• and developing greater numbers of partnerships between generalist HACC providers and ethno-specific agencies.

DHS has an important role to play in ensuring that agencies submit their plans by 30 September each year according to their service agreements and, in return, agencies are provided appropriate and timely feedback by the Department.

We are gratified that last year over 90% of HACC providers in the North and West Region submitted cultural action plans. Ideally we at ECCV would like to see a 100% return and hope DHS can move towards this in the near future.

This high number of cultural action plans shows the strong commitment by providers to deliver quality services to the entire community and I congratulate HACC providers on their ongoing commitment to the many ethnic communities in the region.

The demands on HACC providers are always increasing and there are often waiting lists for HACC services.

Ethnic communities in particular tend to utilise social support services such as planned activity groups which often have large waiting lists.

While we appreciate DHS’ commitment to increase funding for planned activity groups by up to 5% over the next three years we want to ensure this commitment is met and not quietly forgotten.

There is a lot of wiggle room in the wording of this commitment and we would prefer DHS commit to this modest and well-needed initiative as soon as possible.

We also want to see the State Government’s commitment to the Culturally Equitable Gateways Strategy maintained in some form beyond June 2007 when CEGS funding expires.

Recent DHS research has shown an 8.75% increase in the use of HACC services by CALD seniors across the metropolitan region.

This is a significant achievement and reflects the enormous amount of work that has gone into implementing CEGS by the various project workers, including ECCV.

CEGS has worked hand-in-glove with the HACC cultural planning strategy and it is important we do not weaken in our resolve to meet this on-going challenge with both policy tools.

Finally as ECCV executive officer it is important that I stress we should not discount the role of ethno-specific providers entirely.

Where there is sufficient critical mass within individual multicultural populations, ethno-specific service providers should be considered part of the solution to getting service responses right—they should not be dismissed out of hand.

Now let me introduce today’s activities.

Today, we will hear from five agencies across the North-West region about their particular cultural action plans.

Some of the initiatives include:

• employer flexibility to respond to the cultural needs of staff,
• outsourcing care for specific clients to ensure clients receive culturally appropriate care, and
• the use of different promotional strategies in order to increase the use of HACC services in particular cultural communities.

We thank the agencies represented for sharing their strategies and hope that it provides stimulation for further innovative strategies to service the ever growing CALD seniors population.

Congratulations to you all for the great work you are continuing to do in meeting the needs of ageing multicultural seniors.

This is important work and it comes at a time when people are more vulnerable than before and need a helping hand.

Our post-war migrants have made an enormous contribution to the Victorian community in building this state into the economic, social and cultural powerhouse that it is today.

It is important work; giving a little back when they need a helping hand.

Thank you.