2013 - 2018
In 2013, PCV commenced its Culturally Responsive Palliative Care Community Education Project, initially with the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health and later, with the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria.
Through community engagement and peer education, PCV aimed to raise awareness of, and access to, palliative care services in the Chinese, Maltese, Italian, Turkish, Vietnamese, Greek, Macedonian, Polish, Croatian, Arabic-speaking, Dutch, Jewish, Indian, Karen, Serbian and Spanish communities.
Key achievements
- Community education sessions about palliative care – 5,516 people from 15 ethnic communities have participated in 186 community education sessions in community languages delivered by trained bilingual health educators.
- Media and communications activities helped to raise awareness of palliative care more broadly among the 15 ethnic communities.
- Cultural responsiveness education for palliative care services – 31 x 4 hour workshops attended by 491 palliative care staff and volunteers.
Resources developed
High quality resources were developed with the relevant communities, including:
- A peer education resource tailored to include specific information about culturally sensitive issues.
- Bilingual information leaflets about palliative care – these are available in 17 languages on our website and in hard copy.
- Training handbooks and a video clip used for the culturally responsive education program for the clinicians in the palliative care sector.
Reports
These include a short summary and the executive summary of the evaluation. The full evaluation is available on request.
2018 - 2020
Palliative Care Victoria stepped up its engagement with multicultural and palliative care sectors in several ways:
Capacity building
- Through training sessions for multicultural aged care workforce, aimed at strengthening capacity to support individuals presenting in ethnic aged care programs with chronic or terminal illness.
- Site visits to Palliative Care Services for ethnic aged care workers to meet with key staff and learn how the palliative care system works.
- Culture Centered Care Workshops in metropolitan and regional Victoria, for clinicians in aged care, community health and palliative care sector aimed at building capacity to communicate effectively with cultural and gender diverse individuals and families about end-of-life care.
Community education
PCV continues to offer community education sessions to organised groups in the multicultural/multifaith community, service provider networks (such as CHSP/HACC), interfaith committees, faith leaders and spiritual caregivers.
In 2019, PCV supported the United Spanish Latin-American Welfare Service to provide 15 information sessions in Spanish language to seniors’ groups in metro and regional Victoria. Information sessions were provided where required in language to members of the Ethiopian community.
Community palliative initiatives in multicultural communities
From 2019-2021, PCV supported three initiatives by ethnic communities seeking to add a community palliative approach component to their existing aged care support services.
In partnerships with the Serbian Community Association of Australia, St Michael’s Debre Genet Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the United Spanish Latin American Welfare Centre, Palliative Care Victoria provided technical support/information and training on palliative volunteering, introduction to the local palliative care services and ongoing support to the project managers.
The project description and process was written up with the assistance of two RMIT university students and are attached below:
Further information
If you have any questions regarding this project please contact:
Tonina Gucciardo-Masci
Community Engagement & Capacity Building Manager
T 03 9662 9644
E tgmasci@pallcarevic.asn.au