Refugee Youth Voice: Postcards to the Premier

The Refugee Youth Voice: Postcards to the Premier Project was part of a broad consultation process to understand the challenges faced by Refugee Youth in NSW, Australia. The research bought together voices of youth from a refugee background with those who set policy at various levels of government including The Coordinator General Refugee Resettlement (CGRR): Peter Shergold; Multicultural NSW; over 30 key service providers and Western Sydney University. The research presents new and interesting strategies to “work with” Youth from a refugee background so that government policymakers and key stakeholders can work more collaboratively to address the intractable challenges youth face, to effect change

Dance for Life: Expressive Arts for Cultural Wellbeing with Young People: Research and Evaluation Report

Developing strong mental health and wellbeing of young people is one of the most pressing issues Australian Society is currently facing. Anxiety and depressive disorders are increasing worldwide in adolescents with social, political, and environmental causes implicated. In Australia a post pandemic report on youth mental health and wellbeing found that 51% had difficulty completing daily tasks with 34% experiencing high or very high levels of distress (Headspace 2021). Worldwide public health policy has gradually shifted from a deterministic set of individualised ill-health factors to include a more holistic view of health and wellbeing (Mackay 2016). The World Health Organisation’s definition of health has come to include social determinants such as education, income and social protection, food and job security, housing, social inclusion, structural conflict and affordable and accessible health services. Current research indicates that social determinants “can be more important than health care or lifestyle choices in influencing health” (WHO 2021). What is still missing from this definition of wellbeing is the role of creative expression, arts and cultural values as imperative to cultural wellbeing (Mackay 2016). This research evaluation was commissioned by Kulture Break, a dance company with a focus on inclusion and wellbeing for young people. The aim of the research was to identify how their creative arts programs were able to influence young people’s wellbeing; specifically, in terms of social inclusion, confidence, sense of belonging and life aspirations. Further to this the research aimed to find out how dance as an expressive art can improve wellbeing and social cohesion within communities and better inform understandings of how wellbeing is experiences to inform nation wellbeing policy. This evaluative research project reviewed how dance programs at Kulture Break are implicated in the cultural wellbeing of young people that attend their classes

Better Elder Care: Towards Culturally Appropriate Aged Care Service Provision for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Older (65+) Adults in Greater Western Sydney

The population of Greater Western Sydney (GWS) is growing, ageing, and becoming more diverse, but little is known about the aged care needs of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) older people is GWS. In this report researchers worked with older CALD adults in a series of creative expression workshops to gather data on their ageing experiences in GWS, and on the issues that affect them in aged care service provision. It argues that the application of a cultural well-being framework to CALD aged care would be beneficial and would enhance a sense of belonging and community that would reduce feelings of isolation for CALD seniors, the vast majority of whom live independently. Findings indicate that older CALD adults are deeply linked to their social networks and families. They also want to continue to be active and take part in the wider community, and require public transport services to enable autonomy. Navigating the fragmented aged care system in Australia emerges as a particularly complex issue for older CALD adults, some of whom require at-home care. Recommendations include the adoption of a cultural well-being framework to inform aged care service provision; block funding for approved CALD care providers to enable social interaction; more green spaces for social gatherings; and bilingual language training opportunities for the CALD aged care sector

COVID-19 and “ageing well” for the older migrants and refugees in rural Australia : the case of Bhutanese elders in Albury, New South Wales

Purpose The purpose of this study is to highlight the challenges and opportunities for the well-being of older migrants and refugees in rural Australia by learning from the example of the Bhutanese community in Albury, New South Wales. Design/methodology/approach This viewpoint focusses on health and aged care barriers that affect the well-being of older migrants and refugees in Australia. It also demonstrates how these can be intensified due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings Engagement though agriculture, and a sense of "belonging" strengthen the cultural well-being of the Bhutanese older adults in Albury. However, major issues remain as health-related resources and information are lacking in rural Australia. How this group's meaningful activities in Albury enabled collaborations to be built is shown in this working example and can provide lessons for other communities that experience similar problems of disconnection as they get older. Research limitations/implications The information regarding the Bhutanese older adults in Albury is primarily based on the authors' personal communication with the General Secretary of the Bhutanese Australian Community Support Group in Albury Wodonga Inc. Originality/value Australia's older population is growing rapidly, and older adults from culturally and linguistically diverse migrant and refugee backgrounds face numerous barriers such as limited linguistic, health and digital literacy. The authors describe common health and aged care issues that affect the well-being of older adults in rural Australia. They particularly emphasize those that occurred or intensified due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This novel information is now especially relevant to the health and aged care sectors in changing and diverse communities not only in Australia but also overseas

Art as a connection to the divine in women’s lives : cultural wellbeing through creative process

Art and the spiritual have an ancient connection; however, articulation of how the making of art can instigate a spiritual experience, influence artistic practice, and affect change in women’s lives has not been well articulated. This paper focuses on the way contemporary women use art in their search for deepened understanding of inner self, belonging, and as a way to connect to a “divine energy” that helps them cope with challenges and experience joy. Based on the analysis of sixty-three women’s artworks and stories from an art and spiritual festival and interviews with ten women artists, I articulate the complexities of the relationship between art making and the divine through women’s lived and embodied experiences of the art-making process. Through this research, I found that women in the process of making art experienced a connection with a divine energy that inspired their artworks, gave them a sense of connectedness, and was central to their sense of wellbeing

The SPICES art framework : a practitioner tool to deepen understandings of cultural and spiritual wellbeing

The term wellbeing is commonly used to describe a person’s mental, physical, emotional, and affective states; however, conceptions of wellbeing predominantly neglect how cultural and spiritual aspects of an individual or community may be implicated in wellbeing. In this study, I explore the concepts of cultural and spiritual wellbeing through an examination of how a women’s community group used creative processes to make their stories and artwork for The 2009 Women’s Room Ancestral Connections Exhibition. I gathered data on women’s creative process through Arts Based Research and A/r/tographic methodologies, as this allowed me to combine direct experience of art making with my researcher and teacher roles to analyse the cultural and spiritual significance of women’s stories and art. The research led to my development of a new arts analysis tool called the SPICES framework as a way to explain, analyse, and practice the cultural and spiritual intent of stories and artworks. The study found that women primarily used three approaches to making their art being 1) Spiritual approach, 2) Intuitive Channelled approach, and 3) Expressive Symbolic approach (SPICES framework). My research found that Women were empowered by their creative agency to question dominant cultural conceptions of societal roles, express their cultural perspectives, as well as to cope with the challenges of everyday life. Making art using a SPICES approach enabled an individual creative agency which could also become a communicative action strategy for the expression of cultural and spiritual values within community. Implications for policy makers, practitioners, and researchers suggest the need to develop more sophisticated understandings of the relationship between Cultural Wellbeing and art making, particularly for marginalised communities, as this will shed light on how cultural beliefs and practices influence health and wellbeing, and better inform understandings of how cultural and spiritual aspects of personhood can manifest within community

Ancestral Connections Exhibition

This exhibition is held every year in the Blue Mountains and involves women sharing their stories and art that expresses their spiritual, personal and cultural beliefs

Navigating Resettlement: Matched Mentoring and Creative Media Design with Refugee and Migrant Youth in Transition, Greater Western Sydney

According to the UNHCR, the number of people displaced due to persecution, conflict, generalised violence or human rights violations has increased significantly since 2015. There are currently more than one million refugees in need of resettlement. Experiences of forced displacement call on us to consider the lived reality of those attempting to resettle in Australia and to ask how communities can work together to respond practically and compassionately to the diverse emotional, material and educational needs of refugees. Navigating Resettlement was a collaborative year-long research project between the Western Sydney University Centre for Educational Research and SydWest. This research looked at how young refugees’ educational and life aspirations could be supported through an informal educational model using mentoring, digital literacy workshops and a creative space. The story of young refugees who were part of the SydWest Study Centre in Blacktown in 2016–17 will be highlighted in this report. The young people who were part of the Navigating Resettlement project expressed high educational aspirations as well as hopes, dreams, challenges and desires for livelihood opportunities. The hope of the research team is that the Navigating Resettlement project serves as a successful model for authentic engagement with young refugees and continues to impact positively on policy development and pathways into education

[In Press] A scoping review of ageing experiences among culturally and linguistically diverse people in Australia : towards better ageing policy and cultural well-being for migrant and refugee adults

Background and Objectives: Australia’s population is growing, ageing, and becoming more ethnically diverse, resulting in barriers and challenges around social inclusion for non-English speaking migrants and refugees. This scoping review investigates the experiences of ageing within Australia among older adults from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) migrant and refugee backgrounds to identify barriers to social integration. Research Design and Methods: A scoping review of English-language literature and grey literature on the experiences of ageing among CALD migrant and refugees living in Australia was conducted from January 2000 to January 2021, according to Arksey and O’Malley’s review process. A total of 34 studies were identified for analysis. Results: Three primary themes were identified: (i) socio-cultural similarities in settlement experiences; (ii) engagement with technology for social connection; and (iii) engagement with family and community networks. Discussion and Implications: Ageing, language, socio-cultural and technology contexts shape attitudes to belonging, as well as access to sociomedical services. We argue a cultural well-being framework may assist in developing policy for improved social integration of older CALD adults. As the focus is on social and cultural experiences, all studies with a primary focus on medical and other chronic conditions were excluded. Future studies could include health related articles to present a more comprehensive approach regarding older CALD adult needs. Follow-up research could focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the experiences of older adults in Australia, in particular those of CALD backgrounds