The Perspective
Cultural Perspectives has a significant reputation for being able to engage with CALD communities around issues that are sensitive and that involve stigma. Our current work with the ageing and disability commission delivers best practice in working with older people and adults with disability from CALD backgrounds on the sensitive issue of abuse and neglect.
CIRCA recently completed a really interesting piece of work exploring interment practices and preferences among different cultural groups in the eastern part of Sydney. Though the topic of death, burial, and cremation sounds morbid and grim we found that through in-person focus groups of people from similar backgrounds rich, dynamic, and animated conversations emerged.
The subject of giving and volunteering has been a focus in our research and marketing work for the past 5 years. Most recently we have been working with the Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation to broaden the reach into CALD communities.
Having been lucky enough to work in multicultural communications for the past 8 years, I can honestly say that many of the people I have worked with in CALD communities are some of the most charitable and generous people I have known.
It has therefore been such a wonderful opportunity to be working with the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation to create a ‘giving bridge’ between those communities and the wonderful work done by the Children’s Hospital at Westmead and Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick amongst other services. The following article gives voice to this journey.
For so long they were the quaint indecipherable square blotches on posters and bus shelter panels, QR codes have now come into their own not only indispensable in disease management but also as a growing technology-busting interface bringing multilingual information to migrant and refugee communities.
In his feature article, Pino Migliorino tracks the growth and importance of QR codes in modern multilingual communication in Australia.
CIRCA’s Director of Research and Evaluation, Lena Etuk casts a critical eye on the annoyingly consistent and problematic tendency for Australian research companies to undertake English language research with people from non- English backgrounds.
This colour blind approach is at best clumsy and at worst a risk as it can result in ineffective and misdirected communications and engagements strategies.
From traditional, face to face facilitation and engagement methods to screens with multiple faces and muted microphones – Cultural Perspectives have been adaptive and innovative in our approach to engagement practices.
Most recently our Engagement team were appointed by the NSW Child Death Review Team (CDRT) to facilitate the planning and development of key CDRT strategic and narrative documents. Our team utilised a segmented methodology to ensure the final deliverables were informed and endorsed by all CDRT members.
In a time of COVID and adapting to meet the scarce time and resources of CDRT members, methodology applied digital engagement tools for the purpose of gathering data, facilitating, and developing final documents in a timely manner.
The outcomes from this approach have formed part of the key strategic documents, developed as the NSW Child Death Review Team Charter and NSW Child Death Review Team Code of Conduct, which can be found here.
At Cultural Perspectives, engagement is a skill without cultural bounds.
