Project Update: Bilingual Health Workforce Evaluation Project

Written by Jun Song - Project Coordinator – Bilingual Health Workforce Evaluation

The Bilingual Health Workforce plays a crucial role in the health and community care sectors, acting as a successful model for individuals from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds. This is especially important for those facing language, cultural, and systemic barriers when accessing healthcare in Australia. Our Bilingual Health Workforce Evaluation project, funded by the Queensland Care Consortium (QCC) and with True being recognised as one of seven recipients, aims to address this issue.

Ensuring the attraction and retention of skilled workers in the health and community care sectors is essential for providing appropriate services to clients. This project is a joint effort between the Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland (ECCQ) and True. ECCQ has been at the forefront of multicultural health initiatives, notably through their blood borne viruses and sexually transmissible infections (BBV&STI) and Chronic Disease programs, employing bilingual health workers to serve CALD communities for an extended period. True employs bilingual health educators to deliver educational services to these communities as part of a national program called Health in My Language.

Through this partnership, the Bilingual Health Workforce Evaluation project seeks to:

  • Assess the benefits of Queensland's bilingual health and community care workforce across various stakeholder levels.
  • Document the available career development pathways for this workforce.
  • Offer practical recommendations to support sustainable career pathways.

By evaluating and enhancing the effectiveness of bilingual health workers, we aim to support this workforce in gaining greater recognition and value, thereby enabling them to better serve culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities and improve overall healthcare accessibility and quality.

BHW Team

Project team from TRUE and ECCQ attended the QCC forum.

 

Since its beginning in September 2023, the project has reached out to 385 individuals through over 80 stakeholder engagement sessions. As we move into Phase 2, we are actively collecting data through individual interviews, surveys, and focus groups/group consultations. If you are a bilingual health worker or bilingual community care worker, we encourage you to participate in our survey (please scan the QR code provided or use the link: https://forms.office.com/r/ffnr284GNn).

For further information, please do not hesitate to contact Jun (project coordinator, jun.song@true.org.au) or Michel (project assistant, michelg@eccq.com.au).