2022 was another busy and fruitful year for CIRCA. Across 26 projects this year we were able to speak with nearly 500 people from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Syrian, Bhutanese, Samoan, Arabic-, Mandarin-, Cantonese-, Vietnamese-, Italian-, Dari-, Korean-, French-, Nepali-, and Tagalog/Filipino-speaking backgrounds. Our vast and talented network of bi- and multi-lingual and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Consultants as well as our amazing core team of research staff make this all possible. I’m so proud to be part of a team that is able to help government, non-profits, and businesses make informed decisions about policies, programs, and communication campaigns that affect people from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander as well as from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. When we’ve got a seat at the table, we have a chance of having an impact.
With COVID restrictions easing at the start of the year we were also able to get out and about to meet our partners, clients, and colleagues in person. I’m sure we’re not the only ones who enjoyed that face-to-face time this year after years of going without it! Aside from great meetings with clients and partners this year, we were excited and really happy to attend the Australian Evaluation Society’s annual meeting in Adelaide and The Research Society’s annual meeting in Sydney, to learn from other leading research practitioners and better understand emerging trends in the field. Learning, growth, and practice improvement are central to us at CIRCA, and having the opportunity to pause and reflect at conferences was vital this year. It’s been an inspiring year – we’ve got some cool new developments in the pipeline! It also confirmed areas in which prevailing research approaches and methodologies need improving to ensure that data captured reflects the breadth of our population diversity.
One of the things we’ve been noting as an apparent industry trend is the relatively little attention given to the impact of policies and programs on culturally and linguistically diverse Australians. Pretty disheartening when nearly a quarter of all Australians speak a language other than English at home, and these policies and programs are intended to benefit “all”. It’s also worrisome given our experience on the few CALD-focused evaluations that have been commissioned, often finding positive program impacts are less likely to be experienced by people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Given all of that, one of the things we’re going to be encouraging decision makers to pay attention to is the impact of their programs, policies, and campaigns on culturally and linguistically diverse peoples, via evaluation. Because we can’t know what we don’t seek answers to or measure.