Multicultural Health Week 2019: Health Literacy of New and Emerging Communities Since 2009, the NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service has annually held Multicultural Health Week to raise awareness of health issues experienced by culturally and linguistically diverse communities. The theme for Multicultural Health Week (2-8 September) is health literacy of new and emerging communities. Health literacy is recognised as a critical issue for health services. Health literacy refers to how people understand information about health and health care; how they apply that information to their lives; how they use it to make decisions and act on that information. Foster Carer forum again proves popular NSLHD recently hosted its second Foster and Kinship Carers Forum. The forum was held during Child Protection Week to acknowledge the role of carers and their families who care for children and young people in out of home care. Around 30 foster and kinship carers participated in the forum where they learned about challenging and aggressive behaviours, anxiety and depression. The feedback from the forum was positive, with carers saying the content was helpful when caring for vulnerable children and young people. The forum was also a successful collaboration between the Northern Sydney Child Protection Service and Child Youth Mental Health Services.
Ryde Hospital staff celebrating multicultural health week
New and emerging communities are defined as communities which are: • Recently settled compared with more established culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities; • Smaller in number of residents but with significant increase in the past 5 to 10 years;
communities;
• Experiencing significant
barriers in accessing health care and/or poorer health outcomes; and
• Isolated in their geographical area. Staff across the district celebrated multicultural health week by holding information stalls across the district to spread the word about the importance of health literacy within new and emerging communities.
• Lacking sufficient infrastructure and
resources compared with more established CALD
NSLHD OOHC Co-ordinator Liz Beveridge, NSLHD Child Protection Service Manager Mandeep Paddam, Coral Tree representative Matthew Symonds, NB CYMHS Pauline Leung and NSCPS Counsellor Imogen Richards
WWW.NSLHD.HEALTH.NSW.GOV.AU 11
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