The final report of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Support for Older People from Migrant and Refugee Backgrounds makes sweeping recommendations to improve access and quality of services, and promote better health, wellbeing, inclusion, and connection for seniors.
A centrepiece recommendation is the call for a dedicated elder abuse prevention and response strategy to address the likely increase in such abuse in Victoria’s ageing population.
In August 2021, the Parliament of Victoria called for an Inquiry into the adequacy of services and the range of challenges and barriers older people from migrant and refugee backgrounds face in accessing and navigating services.
The Inquiry was tasked with considering issues such as social isolation, civic participation, digital literacy, elder abuse and access to culturally appropriate aged care and home care services, as well as generating ideas to advance the physical and mental health and wellbeing of Victoria’s multicultural seniors.
Conducted by the Legislative Assembly’s Legal and Social Issues Committee, and chaired by Natalie Suleyman MP, the Inquiry’s final report was tabled this August. It made 76 recommendations and 61 findings, drawing on 73 submissions and five public hearings that consulted with communities across Victoria. To reach a wide audience, the Inquiry was promoted in plain English and 20 languages via both social and traditional media channels.
ECCV made a written submission and ECCV CEO Emiliano Zucchi and Chairperson Eddie Micallef appeared before the Inquiry in February.
Many of the Inquiry’s recommendations reflect ECCV’s submission and affirmed what we have advocated for years: older people from migrant and refugee backgrounds face barriers in accessing culturally safe and responsive care, placing them at greater risk of poor mental and physical health and preventing them from living full, active lives.
A strong, culturally responsive framework
One of the key Inquiry findings was that systems can be hard to navigate, and not culturally safe or responsive to the needs of older people. ECCV sees these as significant barriers to accessing care and strongly advocates addressing them with a suite of recommendations that improve how language services are used, promote services and resources more effectively, and streamline and integrate services in partnership with multicultural and ethno-specific organisations.
The report adopted ECCV’s definition of ‘cultural safety’ and view that mainstream service systems must modify their policies and practices to achieve better outcomes for culturally diverse communities.
As acknowledged in the report, services that are not culturally safe can influence a person’s level of engagement, particularly if they have had adverse experiences of disrespect or discrimination before.
The report has urged the Victorian Government to promptly establish a strong framework to enable the sector to provide high-quality care. Crucially, it suggested that state-based reforms must complement national reforms and push for greater investment in support for older people who face additional barriers to accessing care, particularly those living in regional and rural communities.
The inquiry has recommended a range of measures to help develop a culturally responsive framework, including increased support for service providers to apply cultural safety principles, investing in the establishment of ethno-specific aged care facilities, reviewing language services policies, and trialling and implementing a care finder program to assist older people with navigating services.
These recommendations reflect concerns raised by ECCV that difficulties associated with navigating a complex system, and the lack of culturally inclusive and appropriate care, can lead to delays in accessing quality and timely support, which places older people at risk of poorer health outcomes.
The report also emphasised the important role that multicultural and ethno-specific organisations play in delivering effective services.
It concluded that different levels of government must increase their commitment to working in partnership with the multicultural sector, and embed Victoria’s bicultural and bilingual workers in all aspects of service delivery. These measures will facilitate better care outcomes, improve the quality and inclusiveness of aged care services and reduce barriers to access.
The unique value that multicultural organisations such as ECCV bring to community engagement is captured in Recommendation 70, asks that the Victorian Government work with ECCV to develop and implement in-language community education programs about aged care services to increase awareness and reduce stigma and misinformation among culturally diverse communities.
The report also supports initiatives such as the Centre for Cultural Diversity in Ageing’s Inclusive Service Standards and multilingual phone line.
A holistic approach to wellbeing
The report found that the lack of culturally responsive care places older people from migrant and refugee backgrounds at greater risk of poor mental and physical health.
In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected Victoria’s culturally diverse older population, increasing the risk factors for elder abuse, social solation, and digital exclusion, and contributing to lower overall health and wellbeing.
The report recommended that services take an intersectional approach to address the various factors that shape health and wellbeing outcomes. An intersectional approach recognises that older people’s diverse circumstances – such as their gender, their income level, and whether they live with a disability – affect how they interact with and are viewed by society. Many factors can influence how older people access support services, their vulnerability to elder abuse, and their level of engagement with their communities.
The report makes a series of recommendations with an intersectional lens, which aim to promote healthy ageing, address social isolation and loneliness, improve digital inclusion, provide holistic wrap-around supports, and fill research gaps in our knowledge of the experiences of culturally diverse older people. This is significant because the barriers to accessing services and the risk of poorer health outcomes can intensify if people experience multiple forms of disadvantage.
ECCV’s submission stressed the importance of increased investment in co-design and civic engagement initiatives, including providing more opportunities for older people to participate in decision-making, and introducing diversity targets to increase the representation of older people in advisory bodies.
These recommendations were adopted by the report, which concluded that facilitating the input of older people in decisions that affect their lives will help identify areas for improvement and ensure that “service delivery meets the needs of older people from migrant and refugee backgrounds, and those of their peers”.
Elder abuse prevention and response
A centrepiece recommendation is the call for a dedicated elder abuse prevention and response strategy to address the likely increase in such abuse in Victoria’s ageing population.
This recommendation is reflected in ECCV’s
submission, which stressed the importance of multi-sector collaboration, a research agenda to improve our knowledge of elder abuse in migrant and refugee communities, and sustainable, long-term funding to raise community awareness and build the cultural safety of elder abuse response and prevention agencies.
The report suggested that the strategy should incorporate specific actions for migrant and refugee communities, including:
- Long-term funding for a culturally appropriate elder abuse awareness-raising campaign and education program
- Funding for organisations and groups to implement place-based culturally specific initiatives
- Additional funding for Elder Abuse Prevention Networks.
What’s next?
The state government has six months to consider and respond to the recommendations of the Parliamentary Inquiry. ECCV welcomes the report and looks forward to working with the government to implement the Inquiry recommendations to ensure older Victorians from migrant and refugee backgrounds get the care they need and deserve.
“Reform of this scale takes considerable time and commitment. It is important the recommendations are implemented through meaningful, ongoing consultation with the multicultural sector,” says ECCV chairperson, Eddie Micallef.
Read more:
ECCV Submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry Final report of the Parliamentary Inquiry
This article was published in the
Spring 2022 edition of Golden Years.