Engaging with cultural diversity

Despite the efforts of many individuals and organisations, the cultures, backgrounds, beliefs and values of groups who are not part of the dominant culture are not always acknowledged in contemporary institutions. Equitable treatment requires agencies to address isses of cultural diversity. 'Treating everyone the same' will result in differential outcomes as people do not start from an equal footing nor have the same needs.

After your organisation has developed a good understanding of the cultural diversity in your community, you might want to think about how to engage with these communities. Once they are implemented, these community engagement strategies might improve the way your organisation provides information, consults and involves diverse communities.

If your strategies are going to be successful, it is important that the communities continue to be involved in the consultation, planning and decision-making processes. Ongoing consultation will also help you to understand some of the barriers to effective engagement that are shared by all diverse groups and issue for a particular community.

Developing strategies

A good place to start is to offer cross-cultural training to your paid staff and volunteers to increase self-awareness of their own attitudes and values. This is essential because the values of your staff and management committee determine how services are delivered and the way that the organisation operates.

Cross-cultural training and your ongoing consultation process will also help you understand any relevant cultural protocols that you may need to observe. You can contact Multicultural Affairs Queensland to find out more about their training courses and those provided by other organisations.

There are also a number of strategies that your organisation can employ to overcome language and communication barriers. If proficiency in written English is an obstacle to engagement, you could provide written information such as signs, brochures and web pages in relevant languages.

To ensure that the information is accessible, you will first need to consult with diverse communities. Your consultation can also help you to determine whether this appropriate for some or all communities as well as the best way to present the content and distribute the information so that it reaches the community.

If spoken English proficiency is an issue you will need to think about when and how you might use interpreters. If your organisation does not employ staff with appropriate language skills, you may need to arrange for an external interpreter. This is particularly important while you are providing a service to a client and to ensure that community members can provide feedback about services. The use of translated material and/or interpreters can also be used to involve clients from culturally diverse communities in helping to plan better services.

It is important to consider privacy and confidentiality when using interpreters, especially in very small communities where people may know each other. You can contact Multicultural Affairs Queensland for more information and if you receive government funding you may be able to receive assistance through their funding body.

You can minimise the obstacles for people from culturally diverse backgrounds to access and work with your organisation as staff and management committee members by ensuring that you put in place good equal opportunity and anti-discrimination practices. Some of these strategies might be guided by the legislative requirements in these areas but you can also advertise positions through culturally appropriate media and networks.

By making your organisation more accessible and actively encouraging involvement in service planning and delivery, you will build up trust with diverse communities. This may also encourage greater involvement in the strategic planning process from people of culturally diverse backgrounds within and outside the organisation.

Most organisations have limited resources so you will need to determine how your organisation can best meet the needs of all of its clients, including those from culturally diverse backgrounds. After consulting with the communities, you might decide to provide ethno-specific programs and/or offer support to culturally and linguistically diverse agencies to provide their own services. There are many ways that you could provide support including an auspice arrangement or working in partnership on projects.

Developing a Culturally Competent Organisation

Engaging with cultural diversity requires an organisational review of how your agency operates. The terms “cultural competence” or “cross-cultural competence” are increasingly being used in relation to working effectively with people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.  ‘Cultural competence’ refers to

the process by which individuals and systems respond respectfully and effectively to people of all cultures, languages, classes, race, ethnic backgrounds, religions, and other diversity factors in a manner that recognises, affirms, and values the worth of individuals, families, and communities and protects and preserves the dignity of each (National Association of Social Workers, USA)

Some questions you can ask are:

• How are the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse communities different from other clients?
• How are issues of diversity recognised within the agency (are they invisible, or marginal)?
• Is appropriate ethnicity data and information collected, recorded and used in service planning?
• What assumptions and processes utilsied in the programs that you offer  (e.g. particular values, ideas, approaches) and could these prevent others from accessing your programs?
• What has the agency undertaken to encourage access : psychological, physical, emotional, processes (formal and informal)
• How is the diversity of the population represented in your agency staff and management?
• What is the level of skill of your existing staff to work with culturally diverse communities (e.g. is there cross cultural training for staff)
• Does your agency have policies relating to diversity (e.g. valuing of diversity)
• Does you agency allocate appropriate resources to support the policy eg. for interpreters?
• What input is there from clients and communities into program design and delivery, e.g. do you have consultative mechanisms that enable participation by culturally diverse communities?

The answers to these questions will lead your organisation on a path to being a culturally competent agency. There is a useful checklist available at Cultural Competency Checklist (RTF 353 kB)

Cultural competency has four key dimensions:

• Systemic—arising from systems, processes, and structures
• Organisational—based on how institutions operate
• Professional—knowledge that is gained with a particular value base
• Individual—personal world view that is developed as a consequence of socialization

These dimensions all impact on every agency. Developing a culturally competent organisation requires addressing each of these elements.  Culturally competent organisations accept and respect differences among and within different groups; continually assess their policies and practices regarding culture and expand cultural knowledge and resources; and adapt service models in order to better meet the needs of different ethnic groups.

It is noted that that the processes involved in cultural competence - introspection, self-awareness, respectful questioning, attentive listening, curiosity, interest, and caring - are in fact the same skills required in good human service practice.  This means that the shift to being culturally competent is about continuing to be caring and empathetic to all clients and communities.  The additional factor here is a greater understanding of the influence of culture, and greater confidence and comfort in working with people from different cultural backgrounds. Furthermore, making strategic changes in your agency to accommodate one group of people (i.e. culturally diverse communities) will enable flexibility and capacity within your agency to support and assist all clients, consumers and communities that you interact with.

Strengthening your strategies

Your organisation will probably need to go through a number of stages to develop community engagement strategies that are appropriate to culturally diverse communities and work within the organisation.

If the strategies that you have developed are working well, you might want to formalise them in existing policies or even develop new policies. This will ensure that they become part of your organisation’s core business and will give everyone a clear understanding of your commitment including staff, clients and other stakeholders such as funding bodies.

If your organisation receives funding from the Department of Communities, you will need to ensure that your policies also meet the Community Service Standards. These recommended policies might also provide useful guidelines for all organisations and help to strengthen areas such as accessibility, participation and governance.

Organisation and culturally and linguistically diverse communities change with changes in the wider environment. To ensure that your organisation remains relevant, you will need to regularly monitor, review and update your organisation’s community engagement strategies and the policies that they inform.

Developing relevant community engagement strategies can provide a broad range of benefits for diverse communities, the organisation and the broader community by improving accessibility, accountability and responsiveness.

Further information:

• University of Kansas resource about cultural competency
• Multicultural Affairs Queensland publications including Community Relations Kit
• Community Door information about developing a culturally competent organisation, community engagement and methods of community engagement
• Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland publication Culturally Responsive Service Delivery
• Multicultural Affairs Queensland contact for cross-cultural training information
• Multicultural Affairs Queensland information about translating and interpreting services
• Multicultural Affairs Queensland information about interpreter cards and working with interpreters