Over 50 Afghani families have come to settle in Griffith and over time the issues these refugee families face have impacted on their access to services. Service providers have come together in a collaborative way to address the needs of these community members. The need for specific education relating to 'families' was identified through the Project Field Liaison Officers' interaction with various services and community consultations. Topics for education include women's health, parenting adolescent children and the early childhood years, which helps the Afghani community to understand what services are available to assist them in facing the challenges of living in Australia.

The Trans-cultural Rural & Remote Outreach Project seeks to develop sustainable diversity-aware mental health services for culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Griffith. The Afghani Family Health Project is a collaborative approach to meet the needs of this vulnerable group.

Community members identified a gap in their knowledge of services available in Griffith and the role these services play in supporting them and their families to improve their quality of life in rural Australia.

Issues included lack of knowledge of how to access to relevant health and other support services and awareness of cultural difference and expectations in Australia.

Service providers experience very low numbers of referral and presentations from the identified community group and, while sure that the group has needs, are unable to develop strategies that engage the community. A different approach was needed to enable equitable access for this marginalised community.

A project working party of eight key local organisations was established. This group meets with Afghani community representatives to identify other key stakeholders to bring them together to provide education and information. It is vital that the education occur in a setting where the community is already comfortable to inform and educate them about solutions to their issues.

Providing education sessions to the Afghani community has been a successful program intervention. Many participants struggle to master the fundamentals of English language and therefore are limited in their ability to ask questions pertaining to complex health issues, mental health and cultural difference.

Ensuring mental health and health services are culturally sensitive and responsive means starting from where the community is 'at' and supporting them to clarify their issues and how they may improve the lives of individuals and families in their community.

This fits with Strategic Direction 2: creating better experiences for people using health service.

The Family Health Program working party commenced in 2006 with the first topic of women’s heath being co facilitated by a bilingual mental health clinician and the women’s health nurse from Griffith community health. As women's health is an issue of great sensitivity for this cultural group and was presented a women's only event, the bilingual worker was able to ensure that sensitive issues where presented in a culturally appropriate manner. Twenty one ladies attended the event and only one had previously had a post operative pap smear; on the day nine of the ladies took the opportunity make appointments with the women’s health nurse. Prior to this event there had been nil presentation for this service from this identified community group.

The second session focused on the 'Challenges of Parenting Adolescents of refugee families in Australia'. The session was facilitated by the bilingual clinician and co presented by a representative from the Department of Education School Counsellor Coordinator and the Department of Community Services Senior Case worker. This session was open to all parents and a number of fathers participated on the day. The session was attended by over 20 service providers, for whom meeting the needs of parents and adolescents is core business. A number of community members made appointments with the Transcultural Mental Health Services clinician and took information away for future reference in relation to the other services on offer.

For many of the service providers it was an in-service about what other services are available and how they can work together to better meet the needs of the community.

Feedback since this time indicates that the community have continued to access these service providers.

Engaging the community in topics that are of importance to them and the wellbeing of their families has enabled service providers to establish meaningful relationships with the community members. Taking a collaborative approach to this activity has meant that the community has a greater awareness of the range of services that can provide support in Griffith.

On each occasion the community members and service providers provide evaluation feedback and suggestions for further topics of interest. Future sessions will cover topics of early childhood development and the early school years and looking after yourself and your family from a broader social health perspective; balancing family life budgets and problem gambling are some of the sensitive issues to be discussed.

The building of community capacity and partnerships that has occurred through these programs has facilitated strong networks between the local communities, multicultural agencies, non government organisations, mental health and health service providers. These links ensure the changes to practices at partner agencies are sustained and make a real difference to the Afghani community.

Health and the other agencies were able to identify service gaps and are currently developing initiatives to address these issues. Clarifying the stages and characteristics of adolescent development on the day will reduce the inter-generational conflict that has been a feature of the parenting experience of the participants.

Providing information directly to parents about relevant issues has overcome some of the confusion the parents experience as due to language barriers. The parents often receive information via their children; this information may sometimes be filtered or changed in translation by the young person.

Through the inter-agency/collaborative approach each of the organisations who participate is able to share the experience in their organisation. The working party will continue to work together to provide culturally sensitive and aware education to this and other community groups in Griffith. Negotiations have started to provide similar sessions for the Turkish speaking and Pacific Island communities.  Transcultural Rural and Remote Project initiatives undertaken at one of the four demonstration site are then considered for implementation at the other sites where Field Liaison Officers are available to initiate the program.

Communications and Publications Coordinator, Development Unit
Greater Southern Area Health Service
Phone: 02 6933 9184