Multicultural resources for healthcare professionals
Multicultural Clinical Support Resource
This is a folder of resources and contains ready reference information and advice on topics such as communication, the impact of culture and language on healthcare, working with interpreters and, where to find translated health information. The folder has been provided to all Queensland health clinical service points.
The Multicultural Clinical Support Resource components are available online and this page is updated when new resources, policies or guides become available.
Health care providers’ handbooks
These three handbooks are provided as part of the multicultural clinical support resource. They provide quick reference tools for health workers when engaging with:
Cultural profiles
These documents provide information for healthcare professionals on the communication styles, health beliefs and practices and utilisation of health services of multicultural communities.
- Cultural profiles for specific refugee populations in Queensland
- Cultural profiles for 18 multicultural communities in Queensland.
Engagement and communication
- Multicultural engagement guide to assist healthcare professionals to involve people from a culturally and linguistically diverse background in the planning and delivery of health services.
- Ward communication tool to assist healthcare professionals to communicate with people who do not speak English well, or at all, about simple day-to-day issues.
- It contains words commonly used in hospital wards, together with a translation of the word, a picture and a phonetic (sounds like) spelling of the word.
- The tool is available in 30 languages, including Auslan.
Policy frameworks
The Refugee Health and Wellbeing Project aims to help meet refugees’ health needs more effectively by:
- Establishing a Refugee Health and Wellbeing Network to:
- provide support to healthcare professionals
- build capacity of the refugee health sector and
- improve partnerships and coordination across the health services, refugee settlement agencies and non-government organisations.
- Implementing a Refugee Health and Wellbeing Policy and Action Plan that will detail a range of actions to achieve the Queensland Government’s commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of refugees.
The first stage of the Project is to implement a structure for policy development and a practical tool for healthcare professionals providing services to refugees. This framework document was launched in March 2016.
Read the Refugee Health and Wellbeing: A strategic framework for Queensland (PDF, 2.1MB).