In all the discussion groups and interviews with Australian Muslim families, service providers and key community members, participants strongly emphasised the need for communities themselves to enhance their own capacities: to advocate for their rights and needs; to deal with issues affecting communities and families; and to participate in and contribute to the broader Australian community. Participants overwhelmingly agreed that empowerment should start from the grassroots level and involve and target individuals, as well as community organisations and key community leaders.
Some suggestions proposed by participants included:
• scholarships to increase the numbers and the diversity of community members trained in the social, welfare, health and related services, with the aim of reflecting the cultural diversity in the mainstream services, and increasing the communities’ access to services and their social participation
• training programs for ‘key community members’ (e.g. religious leaders/elders) and others to enhance understanding of the service system and its referral processes, how to deal with family conflict, how to increase youth engagement, and so on, with the aim of strengthening the communities’ capacity to identify and deal with issues in culturally appropriate and acceptable ways, and to collaborate with formal services
• training programs for organisations in such issues as: community development and networking; applying for funding; management and the role of steering committees; planning and delivery of services; and monitoring and accountability of grants, with the aim of augmenting organisations’ capacity to make the best use of the available resources
• developing and strengthening partnerships and cooperation between mainstream services, ethnic community organisations and informal support networks (e.g. mosques), with the aim of making the best use of communities’ and services’ capacity for partnerships and collaboration
• meeting spaces and financial resources for community organisations, taking particular note of arts spaces, with the aim of empowering communities to make their own opportunities for both outreach and cultural preservation; • ‘supported’ funding for ethnic community organisations and programs, which
provides, where needed, guidance, assistance and monitoring, with the aim of supporting community services/organisations to deliver good practice and to increase accountability
• an ‘accreditation system’ for mosques to enhance their accountability, which will provide mosques with greater legitimacy and allow communities to develop their internal and external capacity and networks further
• culturally appropriate awareness-raising and community-development programs: around anger management (for different groups, e.g. men, families ‘as a whole’, youth); devising strategies for dealing with family conflict; devising strategies for dealing with the stigma and shame about accessing, for example, mental health, and extra-family-support services; devising strategies for dealing with and reporting discrimination; etc., with the aim of enabling
both mainstream and community service providers to better assist their clients, and allow clients to become better connected to their communities
• programs which build and enhance trust and collaboration within and across communities, with the aim of enabling greater capacity within and across communities.
5.7 Conclusion
Participants used various strategies for coping with family discord, such as getting advice around child-rearing practices, or finding avenues of support in cases of family disharmony, including DV. These strategies involved informal support – family and friends, or religious leaders and key community members – as well as ethnic/multicultural services and formal mainstream services.
Overwhelmingly, when asked where they would go for advice or help relating to family issues, young participants identified family, friends or trusted community members as their main sources of support. Parents were more likely to get advice from ‘significant community members’, mainly religious leaders or respected elders. Religious leaders were often consulted on family issues including parenting, marriage and divorce, and family or intergenerational conflict. While there was satisfaction with these forms of informal support, it was acknowledged that their capacity was limited, both in terms of availability and in relation to knowledge of Australian service systems. There were also concerns about confidentiality and the usefulness of the advice provided.
Community members, especially those in key roles and in ethnic community organisations, were very useful for maintaining the cultural heritage and identity, for liaising with mainstream services, and for offering services directly. There were some concerns about whether there were enough resources and skills to maintain these organisations, and about too much focus on the ‘cultural’ and the needs of very specific target groups.
Most Muslim families reported having used mainstream services such as welfare and social services at different stages in the process of settling in Australia. For parents and youth, formal support was a key way to get their social needs met. Most frequently mentioned were government welfare services, settlement services for recent arrivals, and church-based and other not-for-profit charitable organisations. A number of barriers and difficulties in accessing formal services were mentioned, including language and communication problems, mistrust of the service, lack of knowledge or understanding of the service, and personal problems.
A number of gaps were identified, including services and support for young people, services that supported families as a whole, support for single parents, attention for refugees and recently arrived migrants, and the special needs of the elderly and carers. There were also suggestions made about how the ethnic community and its schools and mosques could become involved in the provision of services and in linking Muslim communities to the broader Australian community, both in terms of participation and in relation to accessing support.
6 Good Practice Case Studies
This section presents a number of good practice case studies identified through this present research. Most of these were identified by the research participants, usually the service providers or the key community members. The family participants rarely provided actual examples of programs, but they commonly described the characteristics of services that would best meet their needs. From all these suggestions, we followed through by contacting the service or program provider, and either interviewed them or gathered additional documentary information about the service/program.
We also conducted brief web-searches to identify further examples of good practice, although the scope of the research did not allow for a systematic, rigorous or Australia-wide search, nor could we evaluate all the existing services or programs that were recommended to us.
In selecting the case studies, we took into account family participants’ and key informants’ views and recommendations, as well as general criteria of good practice gleaned from the literature. In order to qualify as ‘good’ practice, a service, project or program must fulfil one or more of the following criteria:
• Innovation – Work is undertaken in a new way, or current practice is extended in new directions.
• Evidence-based – The service is explicitly based on a rigorous evaluation. • Theoretically grounded – The service is based on an established theory of
effective interventions.
• Culturally sensitive – The service recognises and adjusts to the cultural characteristics of the clientele.
• Strengths-based – The service focuses on supporting families’ existing capacities.
As the fieldwork for this project was conducted in two locations in NSW, most of the case studies and programs presented here reflect the situation in these two locations. However, web-searches produced examples from other States, Victoria in particular, and these have been included as well. Where possible, we have relied on evidence from evaluation reports and documentation, as well as stakeholder consultations, in order to identify the ‘key (good) practice’ ingredients and ‘lessons learnt (areas for improvement)’.
There are a total of 23 case studies, six of which were the result of the web-search. They are classified into four categories according to the main purpose of the service, program or initiative: family support (8); young people (9); enhancing social cohesion and inclusion (3); and education and school-based (3). Figure 6.1 provides a snapshot of these case studies.
The presentation of each category includes a brief summary of the context in relation to the findings of this research and of any relevant literature (e.g. reports that would be useful to consult in the future).
Figure 6.1: A snapshot of the 23 case studies