As Australia's cultural diversity continues to grow, so does the need for mental health and other services to be more responsive to the diversity in their local communities. Increased cultural diversity brings a range of approaches to understanding and explaining mental illness and mental wellbeing, and increased responsiveness by services ensures greater access and equity in service delivery for culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
Cultural beliefs about what constitutes mental illness and how to respond to it will affect how people from migrant and refugee backgrounds display distress, explain symptoms, seek help and whether or not they will choose to access health services. Mental health and other professionals who try to understand and work with differing cultural views about mental illness will more successfully engage with culturally and linguistically diverse consumers and communities and achieve better mental health outcomes (Kleinman and Benson 2006 as cited in MHiMA 2014). Read more about some of the key issues related to transcultural mental health.
Culturally and linguistically diverse communities are typically underrepresented within mental health and other services (MHiMA 2014) and this is also identified by members of the Tasmanian Transcultural Mental Health Network. However, data exploring the people of Tasmania from the 2016 Census shows that:
Audio files about COVID-19 in: Dari: https://soundcloud.com/mrc_tas_settlement/sets/dari-coronavirus-informatio.. read more
MRC Tas advice (http://mrctas.org.au/covid-19/) Migrant Resource Centre Tasmania (MRC Tas) (http://mrctas.org.au/covid-19/.. read more
Red Cross have provided these simple health messages in languages other than English about COVID-19 to share with community me.. read more
Audio messages about COVID-19 in: Dari: https://soundcloud.com/mrc_tas_settlement/sets/dari-coronavirus-informa.. read more
Radio interview on RUOK Day (https://www.abc.net.au/radio/northtas/programs/breakfast/breakfast/12631966) On ABC Northern .. read more
Counsellors helping surivors of torture at STARTTS. Marc Fennell interviews counsellors from STARTTS about working with people fro.. read more
Members of Hobart's growing Syrian community gathered at the Goodwood Community Centre to share a meal prepared by Rimon Ghazal.. read more
The Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs, Senator the Hon Zed Seselja announced the outcome o.. read more