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An overview of presentations and presenters in breakout session 3.
Location |
Theme – Four concurrent sessions (choose one) |
Plenary room (Room 1) |
Breakout Session 3a: Culturally and linguistically diverse tailored programs
|
Room 2 |
Breakout Session 3b: Working with children
|
Room 3 |
Breakout Session 3c: Working with families
|
Room 4 |
Breakout Session 3d: Social cohesion through education
|
Location: Plenary room (Room 1)
Social prescribing is a healthcare approach that involves prescribing non-medical interventions to improve a person's health and wellbeing. It recognises the various psychosocial factors including social and environmental factors that impact on a person's health.
Social prescribing aims to address the underlying causes of health issues including loneliness, social isolation, and lack of physical activity by connecting individuals with appropriate services, programs, and support networks within their community to bridge the gaps and enhance meaningful engagement. This holistic approach recognises that improving social connections, engaging in meaningful activities, and addressing social determinants of health can have significant positive impact on overall health, wellbeing and quality of life.
The Fairfield Social Prescribing Project is a pilot program that has been developed as part of Fairfield City Health Alliance (FCHA). Extensive consultation and discussion were led by the FCHA Health Literacy Working group in developing the concept which has led to the finalised pilot model.
Rana Qummouth - NSW Health
Maxine Goodwin - NSW Health
Unlike many Greater Sydney Local Government Areas, the Northern Beaches is perceived as a predominantly ‘White’ or ‘Anglo’ area. Despite this perception, cultural diversity there has a long history and continues to grow. This presentation details key milestones and initiatives along Northern Beaches Council’s journey—in collaboration with key community organisations and members—towards fostering a more culturally-inclusive society, providing lessons for Councils or community organisations interested in social cohesion.
Development of Council’s first Multicultural Inclusion Plan involved internal and external stakeholders working towards greater participation and inclusion for multicultural communities. Community engagement for the Plan led to the creation of a Cultural Leaders Group bringing together cultural and faith leaders, the social services sector, and Council. The group was instrumental in developing an innovative engagement technique, Workshop in a Box, to engage multicultural communities. Moving from multicultural engagement to intercultural exchange, Council organised a community leaders' program for people from diverse cultural and faith backgrounds. Over the 9-month program, the group developed projects to encourage intercultural inclusion and interaction on the Northern Beaches. The program underscores that intercultural engagement and cultural inclusion for Councils requires creating space for diverse cultural communities to connect and contribute to something bigger altogether.
Jessica Moore - Northern Beaches Council
Dr Jinwen Chen - Northern Beaches Council
Location: Room 2
In this presentation, we will describe the development of an animation-based parent education video series called 'My Toddler and Me'. Designed for universal distribution but with a focus on bridging gaps for engagement with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, the videos seek to normalise toddlerhood and equip parents with practical strategies to promote parental and toddler emotional wellbeing and mental health. To make the videos relevant, culturally sensitive, and accessible for parents from CALD communities, they were co-designed with English, Arabic and Vietnamese speaking parents and health professionals from South-Western Sydney. The series was then produced in collaboration with a professional animation company and translated into Vietnamese and Arabic (additional translations to be added in due course).To evaluate the video series, we conducted focus groups with English, Arabic and Vietnamese speaking parents to explore impacts and avenues for implementation in a diverse range of clinical and community settings across Australia, and conducted a randomized controlled trial to evaluate impacts on parenting knowledge, feelings, and behaviour. The video series is now available as a freely available resource.
Lee Bratel - Karitane
Erin Brandtman - Karitane
Refugees have escaped situations that have endangered their lives and their psychological health and wellbeing. They have often lost family, seen and experienced atrocities, spent years in refugee camps or in transition from one country to another, and ultimately suffered a high level of trauma. Refugees have additional stressors impacting their physical, legal and psychological wellbeing in settling in a new country and may have a heightened mistrust and suspicion of government and officials.
Some of these refugees would like to care for unattached humanitarian minors (UHMs), who have different needs.
The presentation will cover:
The sessions will focus on the present of the custodian then building relationships through the family tree, knowing more their feelings and how to regulate them, their settlement journey, and taking them to their past to maintain their culture. From all this, they will start building their future. By the end of these sessions, the child and the custodian should be able to know themselves and each other closely.
Ghassan Noujaim - SSI
Zena Almouiee - SSI
Location: Room 3
The Community Restorative Centre's Family Case Worker, Reylene Galloway, will present on the complexities facing multicultural families attempting to navigate the criminal justice system. Reylene will identify the specific challenges experienced by multicultural families with a family member in custody, including language barriers, stigma and shame, social isolation, financial hardship and navigating changed family dynamics. The presentation will use a case study to illustrate the positive impact of engagement with our program - which provides counselling and support to anyone in NSW with a family member or friend in a correctional centre - at the earliest possible point in the family's interaction with the criminal justice system, and how the Family Casework Service assists families from multicultural backgrounds to navigate the system. This includes practical support for families during court proceedings and in the lead-up to imprisonment, how to advocate for an incarcerated family member and assistance with planning for release and family reintegration following a period of imprisonment. The presentation centres Theme 2: Fostering Inclusion for Cohesion, specifically research and/or case studies on the impact of community programs focused on early intervention and navigating the criminal justice system.
Reylene Galloway - Community Restorative Centre
This presentation discusses the implementation and outcomes of Cross-Cultural Parenting Workshops conducted by Family Support Newcastle (FSN) in collaboration with Heaton Public School, Jesmond Public School and the Multicultural Neighbourhood Centre, targeting multicultural families facing unique parenting challenges in regional Newcastle, NSW. Recognising the urgent need for tailored support, FSN developed these workshops in response to community requests, utilising Targeted Earlier Intervention funding from the Department of Communities and Justice. The program balanced evidence-based parenting programs with the community's voice, ensuring a flexible and responsive approach. Workshops focused on managing emotional dysregulation and technology use among children while fostering an inclusive environment that honoured cultural diversity. This approach successfully engaged over 20 parents from seven countries, highlighting shared parenting challenges across backgrounds. Key findings reveal that community-driven initiatives and partnerships with local organisations significantly enhance engagement and participation. Attendees provided positive feedback, expressing a desire for ongoing support despite cultural and religious considerations, such as Ramadan. This initiative exemplifies how social work principles—collaboration, cultural competence, and responsiveness—can bridge gaps in service delivery to multicultural communities. The insights gained underscore the importance of adaptable, community-centric practices in effectively supporting diverse families in Australia.
Erin Beard - Family Support Newcastle
Teagan Barry - Family Support Newcastle
Location: Room 4
Developing cohesive communities in a multicultural society with large numbers of immigrants is crucial for fostering social harmony, reducing conflicts, and promoting mutual understanding. This presentation explores assisted self-governance has emerging to be an important approach towards proactive social inclusion. This approach empowers individuals from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds by fostering self-organised, community-based initiatives. Assisted self-governance encourages immigrants to actively participate in community life, helping to combat social isolation and enhance the well-being by supporting them to integrate into the broader social fabric. The presentation will highlight the strategies CASS Care Ltd. employs to assist immigrants in navigating social services and creating sustainable, self-managed community groups. The presentation aims to provide practical insights into how similar community-based governance models can be applied to address a wider range of social integration issues in communities.
Professor Bingqin Li - Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales
Ivan Wong - CASS Care
TAFE NSW is Australia's largest provider of skills training, delivering to over 150 communities in NSW, skilling 260 occupations across 85 industry sectors. Our learner population is diverse, supporting around 92,000 learners from a culturally and linguistically diverse background (CALD), 43,000 with disability, and 38,000 identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. In 2023, we launched TAFE NSW's Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Plan, which includes our Reconciliation Action Plan, Disability Inclusion Action Plan, Multicultural Plan and currently developing Gender Equity Action Plan and LGBTIQA+ plan. Through initiatives such as peer mentoring programs, cultural safety training, staff capability uplifts, and learner-led campus events have helped create vibrancy and a sense of belonging. We've also embraced inclusive teaching methods, such as differentiated instruction and learner-centred design for learning, to support diverse learning styles and needs. This presentation will explore how TAFE NSW's approach to conscious inclusion helps students thrive and empowers staff to drive initiatives that enhance participation and well-being through recent case studies. We will share recent case studies, including TAFE NSW-led efforts to establish all-gender bathrooms, multifaith rooms, and education and employment opportunities for recently arrived refugee communities in regional NSW.
Zak Ekandi - TAFE NSW
Dr Paula Abood - TAFE NSW
22 Apr 2025