Community-led Health Communications – Ethnic Council of Shepparton and District

The Optimise team is seeking engagement with community organisations, communications or media who are working with CALD communities to participate in the co-design process. This is to help improve messaging to CALD communities in times of pandemic and public health initiatives.

Staying abreast of the changing requirements during COVID-19 can be difficult for everyone but can be especially challenging for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) groups. In order to keep our communities safe, it is important to clearly communicate and articulate the value of adhering to Victorian Public Health measures, and to do so in a culturally appropriate way for different CALD groups within Victoria. Community-led communication design has been observed to be an effective way to tailor messaging and content to the unique needs of different cultural groups. Engaging communities to play a role in leading the response builds trust and self-efficacy which are critical to wellbeing.

Objective

To facilitate the co-creation of community-led communication and resources to ensure CALD communities can adhere to Victorian Public Health directives and remain safe throughout and post vaccine rollout.

How might we help CALD communities effectively create and share health messaging?

Our aim is to improve adherence to health measures and give CALD communities a sense of ownership and control over how messaging is created through community designed and delivered communications. We hope this will improve health outcomes and foster greater self-efficacy and hope among participating communities. Our approach is to move beyond design research and develop outputs that can be implemented directly into participating communities.

We will facilitate a series of participatory research and co-design activities around what effective CALD health communications looks like. This process will generate insights that will directly inform the creation of communication material with CALD community leaders and communications practitioners. The specific communication channels or formats will be decided by the co-design participants. Burnet Institute’s public health epidemiologists and medical anthropologists will work alongside designers and content writers to support the community to develop and disseminate communications.

Deliverables

The key deliverable will be co-created health communications with three Victorian CALD communities. Members of key communities engaged in the Optimise cohort (TBC- Northern African, Indian and Chinese) will be invited to participate as members of the co-design team. Team members will include community members, influencers, and community communications media where possible. Communications strategies will include formal and informal communications and mixed media strategies based on the needs of each community.

The Optimise team is seeking engagement with community organisations, communications or media who are engaging with CALD communities to participate in the co-design process.

Timeline

July-October 2021

For further details, contact Dr Stephanie Fletcher-Lartey stephanie.fletcher@burnet.edu.au

CALD Messaging to Northern African - Indian and Chinese CALD

	The Ethnic Council of Shepparton and District acknowledges the Yorta Yorta People of the land which comprises the Goulburn Valley. We pay respect to tribal Elders, past, present and emerging and we celebrate their continuing culture and acknowledge the memory of their ancestors.
	The Ethnic Council of Shepparton and District is a peak body whose mission is to promote and represent the social, cultural and economic well-being of ethnic communities in the Goulburn Valley Region through the provision of quality and innovative settlement, refugee support, community development, and information and advocacy services.