VLAF cultural context forum
Are you culturally competent?
One of the most vexed questions in the legal aid sector is how do we plan for service delivery for clients from diverse cultural backgrounds when they have limited or no understanding of our legal system. For example many of us are familiar with and have worked with clients who think that any interaction with the courts and police means ‘big trouble’.
The Victorian Legal Assistance Forum (VLAF) CALD (Culturally and Linguistically Diverse) Working Group identified this as a major issue for legal aid sector workers and hosted a forum on the 16 February 2012.
Over 80 people attended the VLAF Forum, The Question of Culture – dealing with CALD Communities, to hear Michal Morris, from the Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health in Carlton present the keynote address. The context of culture - how organisations engage with recently arrived and refugee groups is mission critical to planning programs in this sector. Her talk addressed this issue and looked at the question of what a culturally competent organisation looks like and what steps can be taken to reach that goal.
Cultural competence requires that organisations:
- have a defined set of values and principles, and demonstrate behaviours, attitude policies and structures that enable them work effectively cross-culturally.
- have the capacity to (1) value diversity, (2) conduct self-assessment, (3) manage the dynamics of difference, (4) acquire and institutionalise cultural knowledge, and (5) adapt to the diversity and cultural contexts of the individuals, families and communities they serve.
- incorporate the above in all aspects of policy making, administration, practice, service delivery and systematically involve consumers, families, and communities.
An important concept coined by Michal was judicial literacy, based on the concept of health literacy. According to Michal “Health literacy structured around comprehension – and the ability for an individual to make an informed decision. It is about developing information in a way that has both a cultural and individual meaning for the person we are communicating with. And then enabling them to take that information to inform their choice.” She emphasised that this concept is important because the justice system is complex and it is very difficult to navigate and understand the system. She went on to add “Health literacy works on comprehension, decision-making and empowerment. It addresses more than the communication interaction and has the opportunity to look at the whole person.”
Taken together, the framework of cultural competence and the information and advice given through the filter of judicial literary, could give the sector a sound model for communicating complex legal concepts to clients.
Gillian Davy, Jemal Ahmet and Angela Costi
The keynote address was followed by an excellent panel discussion on Good Practice Models of CALD Engagement chaired by Angela Costi, Chair of the VLAF CALD Working Group and Victoria Legal Aid CLE worker. The rest of the panel consisted of:
- Vicky Guglielmo, Arts and Participation Program Manager, City of Melbourne
- Jeremiah Temple, Social Inclusion Mentor Program Coordinator, The Salvation Army
- Dr Regina Quiazon, National Program Manager, Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health
- Gillian Davy, Community Legal Education Worker, Western Suburbs Legal Service
- Jemal Ahmet, CEO of Whittlesea Community Connections
The panel discussed a number of compelling approaches to working with communities and common themes emerged on the approaches that got the best results. They involved listening carefully, thinking deeply, having an open mind and engaging with clients with empathy. The panel members openly discussed projects or programs that had failed and shared their learnings and experience. Jeremiah Temple related the exasperation of African communities and workers at the expectation that all Africans could be dealt with a one size fits all approach. Jemal Ahmet thought that organisations that already knew how to deal with people, respect them, listen to their needs and respond, were ahead of the game. All agreed that the organisations in the room dealt with the same clients and that the Forum had brought different sectors closer to working together on solutions.
The keynote address and Powerpoint presentation are available below.
The Forum is also available on DVD.
For more information on VLAF and to obtain a copy of the DVD please contact Simon Roberts sroberts@vla.vic.gov.au (03) 9269 0545
Keynote address - Michal Morris PDF
Keynote address Powerpoint PDF
