Reference no: EM132290571 , Length: word count:3000

Assignment

You have just been recruited as a project officer for a non-government welfare service located in a large rural town. The organisation provides a range of services to the local community including occasional child care, youth services, home help for the frail aged and NDIS services for people with disabilities. The organisation employs around 50 paid staff with community welfare qualifications including social workers.

There are two large culturally and linguistically diverse communities in the town. The Yazidi's who have arrived in the last 2 years as refugees from Northern Iraq as well as the Italian community, many of whom arrived in the town as migrants in the 1950's and 60's establishing small businesses and purchasing and working on local farms. The Yazidi community are primarily made up of young families. Some of the adults attend English classes at the local technical college, while others have begun to get employment with the local council as cleaners and gardeners.

The organisation has recently appointed a new CEO, originally from Melbourne who is from a migrant background (came to Australia from Poland in the late 1980's) and has a particular interest in engaging in the development of culturally appropriate services. One of the projects that you have been required to lead, is the cultural responsiveness project. The aim is to build the organisation's capacity to provide services to these CALD communities. The service has not had a strong record of providing culturally appropriate services, with very low levels of service use from CALD community members. For example, the Yazidi community is comprised of many young families, however very few access the occasional child care service or parenting groups. The Italian community includes a number of adults with a range of disabilities as well community members with aged related conditions however very few are registered with the NDIS or access services for the frail aged.

Your first task is to consult with both communities and senior agency staff. In preparation for these consultations respond to the following questions:

1. Provide a brief overview of both ethnic communities, their demographic and linguistic characteristics, challenges and strengths. Explore their migration histories and the impacts of social policies on their migration and settlement experiences.

2. What are some of the potential barriers to accessing services that may be being experienced by members of each community? Identify relevant theories which can explain these potential service access issues.

3. What are some of the potential challenges being experienced by agency staff in providing culturally responsive services? Identify relevant theories which can explain these potential service delivery issues.

4. Identify at least one culturally responsive strategy that the service/s might need to consider in order to respond to the above challenges

Attachment:- case study.rar