SPEAKERS

Anagha Joshi, Senior Research Officer, Australian Institute of Family Studies

Julie Ngwabi, Senior Child Mental Health Advisor – Health, Emerging Minds

Chris Dolman, Senior Practice Development Officer, Emerging Minds

 

Topic

Children from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities represent a large and growing proportion of children in Australia. Practitioners are frequently interfacing with families with CALD backgrounds who face unique challenges that can affect access to services or children’s mental health. Despite this, for practitioners working with these families, there is limited research on child mental health in Australian CALD communities to guide their practice.

This presentation will focus on findings from a scoping review, conducted for Emerging Minds, to understand what factors affect child mental health in CALD communities in Australia. It will also provide key implications for practice when working with children and families from CALD backgrounds.

Emerging Minds: National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health supports practitioners to engage with parents in early intervention and prevention conversations about the social and emotional wellbeing of their children. As part of this, Emerging Minds is continuing to expand on a range of resources to support practitioners working with culturally diverse children and families. This presentation will provide an overview of several aspects of this work, including the importance of practitioners:

• working in culturally competent, culturally curious and child-focused ways, regardless of their practice setting
• developing cultural understandings to work effectively with families from cultures other than their own
• having an awareness of how their own beliefs, values and assumptions are shaped by culture
• understanding how respectful, collaborative and curious conversations with children and families can help them to reconnect with skills, wisdoms, their community and cultural traditions, and respond to the problems they are facing.

About the speakers

Anagha is experienced in evidence synthesis and knowledge translation, and has produced practice papers, resource sheets, short articles and webinars to increase uptake of evidence in the child, family and welfare sector. She recently completed a scoping review to understand what Australian research exists on child mental health in culturally and linguistically diverse communities with Emerging Minds.

Anagha has a clinical and program implementation background, with experience working with diverse communities in Australia and internationally.

Julie completed General Nursing training in Zimbabwe, and a Diploma in Psychiatric Nursing before moving to Australia with her family in 2004. In Australia, she completed a Graduate Certificate in Nursing (Dual Diagnosis) and a Masters Degree in Mental Health Nursing. Her passion is family-focused mental health care. For the past 10 years she has worked as a Perinatal Mental Health Clinician, COPMI Coordinator and Family and Carer Consultant in Sydney, NSW.

Julie believes in a holistic and systemic approach to mental health care to achieve positive mental health outcomes. She is also passionate about CALD and social justice issues. In her spare time, she volunteers to support recently arrived refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in the community.

Chris is a social worker who has been working for the past twenty years with individuals, couples and families facing a broad range of concerns. Chris lives in Adelaide and currently works with Emerging Minds in practice development, and as a practitioner with Rural & Remote Mental Health Service within South Australia Health. He has previously worked as a counsellor, supervisor and manager in a family and relationships counselling and family violence service.

Chris is a member of the Dulwich Centre teaching faculty and has delivered training in narrative therapy locally as well in Beijing, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Kigali and Singapore.  

Eligibility

VTMH seminars are open to individuals, from all disciplines and working in all sectors, who are based in Australia and interested in diversity and mental health.  

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