In the early 1980s, Australian research indicated that community development was the most appropriate mode of service delivery and welfare assistance for Muslim families of Turkish and Lebanese origin (Mackie, 1983). More than two decades later, another Australian study investigating how services can best achieve outcomes for children and families from CALD backgrounds also found that a community development and strengths-based approach was the most effective way of working with disadvantaged minority groups (Sims et al., 2008). That study also emphasised the importance of working in partnerships, and identified three different types of services – ethno/culturally specific, multicultural, and mainstream services.
The study also outlined the relevant and effective strategies for each service type. For
multicultural services (agencies targeting a variety of cultural and linguistic groups),
Sims et al. (2008) pointed out the necessity for engaging bilingual workers to meet their clients’ needs. To achieve this, staff need to be supported with adequate resources, and to have the ability to identify community leaders and support them to become the ‘conduit’ or link between the agency and the target communities.
In the case of mainstream services, the authors underline their potential to generate social inclusion for disadvantaged migrant populations. In combination with community services, they are in a position to strengthen ‘the development of social support networks within local communities as well as create bridges and links between these communities’ and other resources (Sims et al., 2008: 16). If such a capacity-building process is to evolve, the approach needed is an empowerment and
strengths-based one which supports communities (both individuals and organisations)
to take responsibility and make their own decisions, and which acknowledges that people’s own strengths, knowledge and skills can serve as the foundation for further learning. Translated into practice this includes:
• the provision of adequate support (through resources – funding, staff, time – and cultural competence development)
• the development and maintenance of strong and mutually beneficial partnerships and collaborative working approaches between all three types of services, and between social networks within communities
• the engagement of community leaders and other community members (formal and informal, volunteers and paid workers) to support and inform service development and build and enhance the community’s capacity (in this context, women, and especially mothers, have been identified as an important resource for reaching out to particularly marginalised members and acting as an identifiable link between communities and services, particularly in areas such as health, care and education)
• the acknowledgement of community leadership skills, and supporting, training and adequately paying community leaders and workers
• the sharing of resources across agencies (i.e. ‘cultural facilitators’ – the expertise and skills of staff need to be appropriately remunerated)
• a variety of forms of support for the involvement of staff and workers in the community (this requires broader service mandates, e.g. flexible job descriptions, less outcomes-based reporting, and organisational commitment) • change management processes of training and development at all levels in
order to implement these ways of working in agencies and services (Sims, et al. 2008).
These recommendations overlap considerably with the findings of the present research. This is described at 7.4 below.
The main principles of the community development approach to mainstream services described above have been recommended and at least partly implemented in Australia in sectors such as ethnic aged care (Barrett, 1988; Uckan, 2006) and health care (Kelaher and Manderson, 2000). However, Sims et al. (2008) go further and recommend seamless service delivery in the form of ‘wrap around’ or ‘integrated service’ models. The authors point out that sharing resources, infrastructure or even co-location can greatly facilitate the partnership approach.
However, the evaluation of the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy (SFCS) (Cortis et al., 2009) initiated by the Australian Government in 2004, and referred to by Sims et al. (2008), only partly supports the effectiveness of ‘wrap-around’ service models. Cortis et al. (2009) identify aspects of the SFCS model that are useful and effective in engaging hard-to-reach families and children (soft entry points, employing specialist outreach workers, etc.). However, they conclude that the ‘place- based and collaborative ethos’ of the model does not prove to be ‘vastly superior’ to the individual services for reaching and engaging the target groups (p. vii). The general recommendations from the evaluation point to the need to support specialist outreach workers and to provide long-term and sustainable funding in order to minimise disruption to the relationship-building process. This aligns with the points listed above.
The third type of service identified by Sims et al. (2008) is ethno/culturally specific. This type of service might seem an obvious solution to many of the barriers faced by marginalised Muslim families because they serve specific Muslim communities. These services can be expected to be more culturally sensitive and more accessible than mainstream services. They already have knowledge of individual and collective strengths, and the task of identifying needs can be met from ‘within the community’, by linking into and building on existing infrastructure and other resources. There is
research suggesting that the ethnic matching of staff can facilitate CALD families’ use of parenting and early childhood services (although it can also present obstacles, depending on the individual’s preferences) (Craig et al., 2007). Sims, et al. (2008) point out that members of newly-arrived and emerging refugee and migrant communities normally lack the confidence to engage with mainstream services, and can find that informal support networks are of little assistance. This is where ethno- specific services can act as a ‘safe harbour’ (Stewart et al., 2008 for Canada). In fact, a number of such services have been developed in Australia and around the world. However, international evidence for their effectiveness has been mixed, and there are few studies comparing ethno-specific services with mainstream services. The few comparisons there are tend to be in the areas of psychotherapy and health more generally (Sue, 1998). Research conducted in the USA found that ethno-specific counselling programmes had lower drop-out rates than mainstream services, and that they engaged clients for longer times, but they showed no significant differences in treatment outcomes (Sue, 1998). Research in the UK examined ethnic parents’ and adolescents’ satisfaction with mainstream mental health services, and found that service quality was more important than the organisation’s responsiveness to culture or ethnicity (Dogra et al., 2007).
Moreover, there is some evidence that even ethno-specific services face challenges. Firstly, there are some people who do not want to be supported by members of their own community, as this present study found. The most commonly cited reason for this reluctance is privacy (Weinfeld, 1999). Many CALD communities are closely knit, and service users can feel that accessing a service will cause them to be stigmatised in the community. In some cases they may even fear that their safety would be compromised if the community found out about their use of a particular service, for example, DV counselling, or sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinic Another challenge faced by ethno-specific services is the perception on the part of some members of the group that these services are less effective than mainstream services. There is sometimes a presumption that CALD service providers are stigmatised and seen as peripheral, and are therefore less effective at advocating on their clients’ behalf. Feelings such as these are frequently due to the fact that ethno- specific services are much smaller than mainstream services and less well resourced. The findings of this present study confirmed this finding and it seems clear that there would ideally be a range of services – mainstream, multicultural and culturally specific – where people could get assistance depending on their own needs and expectations. Whatever the available arrangement, best practice must include collaboration across the three types of services.
Figure 7.1: Cross-cultural collaboration and community capacity-building
Figure 7.1 illustrates the cross-sectoral collaboration and community capacity- building which tie in with the enhancement of informal support and social capital. This is discussed in the next section.