The document discusses what service providers need to know to effectively work with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities. It outlines five key answers from the Cultural Diversity Competency Framework (CDCF): 1) recognize that diversity is constant, 2) there is significant unmet need in CALD communities, 3) this need can only be met through principles of equity and economics, 4) answers involve principles and processes for sustainability, 5) diversity initiatives often fail due to lack of planning and follow through past implementation. The CDCF provides a framework to help organizations assess and improve their cultural competence.

1. What do service providers need
to know to work better with
CALD Communities?
Five answers from the Cultural Diversity Competency
Framework for disability services
Hamish Robertson
and
Jo Travaglia
Georiography P/L

2. Background
 The Cultural Diversity Competency Framework (CDCF) is designed to help
services identify and address the way in which the collective experiences and
concerns of people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD)
backgrounds, affect their access to, utilisation, and quality of outcomes from
disability services.
 These elements form the cornerstones of the CDCF. For many services, these
elements are not new – for others some elements are more familiar than the
others e.g. access.
 The CDCF was commissioned by the NSW Government’s Family and Community
(Ageing, Disability and Home Care) Service through the Northcott Society.
 The aim is to provide disability services, both generic and ethno-specific, with
a clear, practical framework by which to assess, review and improve their
service delivery to all clients.

3. Answer 1: In order to work with CALD communities,
we need to know that diversity is a constant factor
in all we do
 Recognition of the diversity of human beings and their experiences and the
complexity that diversity brings to human interactions is, and always has
been, a constant in the provision of high quality services.
 The ability of support providers to embrace and respond to diversity can be
seen as a baseline measure of their organizational capacity, capabilities and
competence.
 The effective provision of support to people with disabilities depends on
organisations’ and individuals’ responsiveness to their most complex and
challenging clients and situations.
 In modern management “speak” it depends on their resilience and agility.
 These characteristics rely in turn on the organisational, service or provider
culture - understood increasingly as those day to day dialogues that put
values into action.

4. Answer 2: In order to work with CALD communities,
we need to know that there is a significant, unmet
need in our communities
 Estimates of the number of people from culturally and linguistically diverse
backgrounds (CALD) with disabilities vary
 Current estimates are that approximately one in four people with disabilities
in Australia are either first or second generation CALD
 Highest rates of adult acquired disability are within CALD communities
 Productivity Commission Report on Government Services (2010) indicated
that people born in a non English Speaking country are much less likely to
receive disability related services (including accommodation, community
access and support, employment services or respite) than people born in
English Speaking countries
 Research information base remains poor for women, CALD and ATSI

5. Answer 3: This need can only be met through a
mixture of principles of equity and economics
Equity principles
Services should not be of poorer quality or less accessible;
The allocation and application of resources should be in relation to need;
Positive efforts are made to ensure greater uptake and use of effective services, with extra
efforts made to reach those who [are in greater need of such services] (Acheson, 1998)
Economic principles
People with disabilities from CALD have equal if not greater need for services, but this
demand remains untapped – latent versus expressed demand
The disability sector has developed the key requirements for culturally appropriate
healthcare over many years, including expertise in client directed care
The disability sector is and will continue to attract many CALD workers, who skills need to
be recognised and utilised

6. Answer 4: The best answers to most organisational
questions involve principles as well as processes,
and a plan for sustainability beyond implementation
Phase I of the CDCF project involves the development of:
A set of four principles
Applied to 10 domains
Utilising a Positive Organisational Review (POR) audit change process
To enable disability organisations to assess and develop their cultural
competence
Phase II will involve the:
Development of tools and materials associated with the audit
Distributed via an interactive website

7. A culturally competent organisation is …
one which recognises, respects and responds
to diversity in order to achieve the best
possible outcomes for all its clients.

8. Four principles of the CDCF
 Principle 1: Each individual has a range of characteristics, capacities and
concerns which will affect their needs and choices.
 While the CDCF takes CALD and disability as primary foci, it acknowledges that people’s
gender, socio-economic status, age and sexuality, as well as their education, location,
employment and so on, will all affect their the way in which they seek out and utilise
services, and which services they consider most appropriate.
 Stereotyping is a persistent danger across all services; assumptions that an individual
comes from a large, warm embracing ‘ethnic’ family and therefore has an extended
support group is as dangerous for an individual seeking services as the assumption that
sexuality is not a concern for an woman with disabilities with a strong religious
commitment.
 Principle 2: While consumer directed care rightly argues that the individual is in
control of their choices, service providers must recognise that individuals are
relational beings, and that these relationships or context (often, but not always)
link them to carers, families and friends, groups and communities.
 These relationships have to be accounted for in the delivery of services. Moreover, it is
important to acknowledge that patterns of disadvantage, in relation to our four
cornerstones (access, utilisation, quality/safety and outcomes) occur within and across
groups and communities, and therefore services cannot respond to individual needs
without recognising and planning for community expectations and concerns.

9. Four principles of the CDCF
 Principle 3: Diversity applies not only to clients but to staff.
 Recognition and responsiveness to diversity is most successful when it treats staff
with the same level of cultural competency as the clients: building on strengths,
recognising challenges and affording all the choice as to which elements of their
experience and identity with which they wish to acknowledge and engage in the
service delivery process.
 Principle 4: In order to improve the quality of services to people with
disabilities from culturally and linguistically backgrounds, an appreciative
inquiry and positive organisational theory which seeks to build
accountable, resilient and reflexive organisations is needed.
 These theories suggests that organisations should first seek to identify and
strengthen what an organisation is doing right, in the belief that small changes
can result in large improvements in the day to day experiences of clients,
carers, families and staff.

10. CDCF
Domains
CDCF
Domains
Answer 4(a):
No single one
of these
domains is
enough = the
process of
cultural
competence
needs to
address them
all at various
levels

11. Sample CDCF questions for the practice
domain
 Is your organisation’s leadership fully committed to the CDCF?
 How is this demonstrated?
 What level(s) of cultural competence does your staff possess?
 At which levels? (Executive, management, practitioners, administration, ancillary staff)
 How do you know?
 Do you have CDCF champions within the leadership?
 Do you have CDCF champions across the staff?
 Do you have staff with specialist areas of expertise in working with people from
different language, religious and cultural backgrounds?
 How is this expertise and good practice shared within the organisation?
 What support and development do your provide your staff in relation to CC
practice?
 Are executive, management, professionals and staff engaged in ongoing dialogues
with each other and with clients and their communities?

12. Answer 5: Why do diversity initiatives fail? Because
the planning and process steps often stop at the
implementation phase
 The CDCF includes five key factors required to enable and sustain a
culturally competent organisation or service. These are:
1.1. Proactive engagement with clients, carers and communities’Proactive engagement with clients, carers and communities’
2.2. Collaboration within and across disciplines, units, teams;Collaboration within and across disciplines, units, teams;
organisation and sectors;organisation and sectors;
3.3. Sustained dialogue and development between clients, carers,Sustained dialogue and development between clients, carers,
communities and practitioners;communities and practitioners;
4.4. Critically reflective practice;Critically reflective practice;
5.5. Transformational leadership.Transformational leadership.

13. This means having plans and processes
for:

14. Having a positive view of both
what you are doing now, and
what you could be doing better
Knowing
what you
need to do
Knowing who
you need to do
it, and what
they need
Knowing why you need
to do it
Knowing who
you need to
do it with
Knowing
how well
you did it,
and what
you need to
do next

15. Example: the POR will include elements
such as:
 Planning for a diverse client base
 Creating mechanisms for ongoing, sustained, community and consumer
engagement
 Building organisational and service capacity including, but beyond, champions
 Creating supportive management strategy including goals, plans, policies,
procedures and quality control
 Promoting and supporting attitudes, behaviours, knowledge and skills necessary
for staff to work effectively with clients and each other
 Creating active recruitment and retention strategies for skilled staff

16. Conclusion: What do we need to know to
work with CALD communities?
 How to use the CDCF to support disability organisations in
their quest to ensure that their services are accessible,
appropriate and accessible (able to utilised), of the
highest quality and safety possible, and that they
facilitate the best possible outcomes for all clients.