A Cultural Newsletter: Sharing Information and Embedding Cultural Conversations in Practice

ABSTRACT

This practice brief describes a cultural newsletter from Settlement Services International designed to embed cultural awareness in the everyday practice of caseworkers and practitioners. It also supports cultural knowledge and information sharing for carers and young people. The monthly newsletter includes six components: (1) celebration events from around the world; (2) traditions and recipes; (3) skill building and resources; (4) quiz; (5) examples of how culture was celebrated within the organisation over the last month; and (6) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and resources. Survey feedback and anecdotal reports indicate that this initiative has potential for significant impact.

IMPLICATIONS

• It is important to embed tools and resources in the practice routines of social work professionals to support ongoing attention and focus on cultural activities and conversations. A regular newsletter is one way of achieving this outcome.

• Resources like newsletters can be effective tools in building the cultural knowledge and connection of children and young people, as well as their carers.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural Diversity; Cultural Awareness; Out-of-Home Care; Practice Tools; Newsletter; Australia; Social Work Practice; Professional Development; Training; Cultural Knowledge; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders; Refugees; Asylum Seekers; Children; Young People

There is a strong understanding of the importance of cultural awareness, humility, self-reflection, and antiracist practices within the social work field (Moore-Bembry, 2018). Commitment to these principles is reflected in high levels of investment in the training and professional development of social workers in preservice education (e.g., Feize & Gonzalez, 2018) and in practice settings (Melendres, 2022). Nonetheless, research continues to describe challenges in practice, reflecting the gap between policy, theory, intent, and real-world attitudes, biases, and practices (Sawrikar, 2017). The challenges for service professionals can be particularly strong when working with children and families who have had a complex settlement journey through refugee or asylum-seeker pathways. These pathways often are marked by significant trauma, isolation from family, and disempowerment. Providing appropriate support requires high levels of self-awareness and respect for cultural diversity, knowledge of different cultures, the sociohistorical contexts, a trauma-informed approach, and deeply respectful engagement (Lau & Rodgers, 2021).

Settlement Services International (SSI) is a not-for-profit organisation that works to support culturally and linguistically diverse children, young people, individuals, and families. An important part of their support takes the form of building professional capacity across human service organisations to achieve high-quality service provision. SSI staff report that, in their consultations with social service colleagues, there are low levels of confidence around where and how to access information that will help them understand a diverse range of cultures and appropriate forms of engagement. They encounter a widespread nervousness, not because human service professionals do not want to engage in culturally appropriate practice, but because they do not want to risk causing offence by doing the wrong thing. This fear is described in previous research with social workers (see for example, Cane & Tedam, 2023).

SSI’s Culturally Responsive Framework

Settlement Services International’s Culturally Responsive Framework lays the foundation for cultural competence, centred on four components of culture: (1) Ethnicity: family heritage, traditions, routines, and ways of communicating or socialising; (2) Faith: religious practices, and frameworks that influence how a person views the world; (3) Language: terminology, words, and dialects used by and within families; and (4) Journey: settlement journey and the experience of sitting outside the dominant culture. Of course, culture is dynamic and complex. People can have more than one culture, leading to a unique mix of cultural components that are held dear and influence the way they move through the world (Marsiglia et al., 2021). The four elements of the SSI framework reflect the elements identified by Lau and Rodgers (2021) in their systematic review of culturally competent practice.

Out-of-Home Care

Within the out-of-home care (OOHC) sector, protecting the right of every child to be raised within their own culture (UNCRC, 1989) can be particularly challenging, especially because of the shortage of foster families, reducing opportunities for the cultural matching of a child to a family (Waniganake et al., 2019). Social workers have an important role to play in working with the child and birth family to honour their culture, and also in supporting the cultural awareness of foster carers (Atwool, 2016). We know from research that supporting cultural connection for a child in care is critical to positive outcomes, including child wellbeing and the preservation of family and community relationships (Croakley & Gruber, 2015). Meeting the cultural needs of a child or young person involves a process of exploration, collaboration, and negotiation with all important stakeholders. These processes challenge caseworkers to reflect on their own attitudes and values, potentially uncovering unintended biases, acknowledge and address power imbalances, and partner with cultural communities in a spirit of cultural humility (Nguyen et al., 2021). For many practitioners and carers, finding a child’s country of origin on a world map, looking at a flag, learning how to cook a meal, or attending a cultural community event can be a starting point to consider culture. While the research cautions against tokenism (Herring et al., 2013), these activities only constitute tokenism if they are both the starting and ending point in a willingness to learn. They can serve as an effective doorway into developing new cultural understandings.

SSI and Their Work in Out-of-Home Care

Settlement Services International’s Multicultural Child and Family program (MCFP) works to support culturally appropriate placement for children in care; family restoration and adoption; unaccompanied humanitarian minors; and transition to independence for young people in out-of-home care when they reach 18 years of age. The MCFP Culturally Responsive Practice (CRP) approach aims to provide client-centered, strengths-based, evidence-informed guidance for staff and carers to achieve sustainable outcomes for people from diverse cultures, faiths, language groups, and ethnic backgrounds (SSI, 2022). The CRP is based on the principle that sharing information about culture with staff, carers, children, and young people can increase their interest and curiosity about cultural celebrations and practices, and change conversations that relate to culture. All children in OOHC supported by SSI engage in the design and implementation of a cultural care plan and participate in cultural life story work. The SSI approach prioritises connection for the child with at least one person who has shared cultural components in their life, and facilitates cultural discussion and information sharing.

The Cultural Newsletter

The Cultural Newsletter was an SSI initiative designed as a conversation starter and doorway into cultural awareness. It is designed for practitioners and caseworkers, foster carers, children, and young people. It hopes to spark opportunity for individuals to talk about their own culture as well as learn about other cultures, and to build practitioner confidence to engage in cultural conversations. The first challenge in the design of the newsletter was to decide which cultures to celebrate. There were 21 different ethnic groups amongst the SSI cohort of children and young people providing an initial map for content. The material was written to be accessible to children aged 12 years and over. Twelve years old is a developmental age at which children often take an interest in exploring their own identity, sense of belonging, and traditions. The SSI team sought traditional recipes from carers, caseworkers, and practitioners, involving interesting conversations about which meal “belonged” with which culture. For example, baklava was the subject of much discussion between Lebanese, Greek, and Turkish colleagues.

In 2019, an A–Z list of events booklet called “Connecting with Culture” was developed. This was a snapshot of annual cultural celebrations. This was complemented by a hard-copy calendar produced in 2020, highlighting a diverse range of monthly cultural events. The newsletter is a proactive strategy to promote cultural awareness and responsiveness through advocacy and sharing of cultural information to stimulate interest through questions and curiosity. The newsletter is released monthly and includes:

• celebration events around the world. These events can be linked to the caseworkers’ or practitioner’s calendar. It relays the history and traditions of the event

• information about traditions, languages, locations, and recipes from a featured country

• skill-building information and resources relating to effective cultural conversations, social etiquettes, and reflective practice

• a fun quiz

• examples of how culture was celebrated within the organisation over the last month

• images that reflect cultural celebrations, including maps; images of national and local celebrations (with the permission of the participants), and images of faith celebrations sourced on the web.

In response to feedback, the newsletter also includes a section that gives specific focus to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. SSI does not work specifically with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families, although they may on occasions if an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person is referred to an SSI program because there is a placement need or because a child may identify with several cultures. Nonetheless, caseworkers felt that it was appropriate for all people living in Australia to be aware of and honour the traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Information about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander celebrations and traditions is gathered from trusted, published sources (e.g., SNAICC, 2021). The quality of this information will be enhanced in future through direct consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Has the Newsletter Been Useful in Practice?

The newsletter has been initially distributed across SSI child and family practitioners, and a limited number have been distributed as an information tool to sector colleagues. Feedback was gathered from SSI caseworkers through an informal internal survey that was sent by email after the distribution of the fifth newsletter and completed by 23 practitioners. The caseworkers were asked questions such as how useful has the information been and how have you used it? It is important to note that the survey was not anonymous and so there may have been a reluctance on the part of the respondents to be critical. Because this was an in-house survey without formal ethics approval, it is not appropriate to report the findings of the survey in detail. Increased risk of positive bias in the responses is another possible consequence of a non-anonymised survey. Our intention is to conduct rigorous evaluation in the future.

In summary, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with the majority of respondents reporting that it was useful, informative, and confidence building. The respondents shared anecdotes about using the newsletter to prompt conversations with their clients. Those who were less positive said that they were only interested in some parts of the newsletter, they found it too long, or had no time to read it. Anecdotally, the developers of the newsletter observed that it prompted a significant rise in queries that came to them from caseworkers who were looking for more information, which is evidence of cultural responsiveness. Caseworkers reported that the newsletter helped some children and young people feel a stronger sense of stability, with the knowledge that their culture was seen and understood by the organisation responsible for their care. It helped some young people to build a network of friends from different cultural backgrounds.

In response to the negative survey feedback, which centred on the need for quick and easy to access to information, the newsletter is now being published through an online platform that allows readers to control how much detail they wish to explore. The SSI team hope that even a limited dip into the information will fuel interest, start conversations, and help practitioners develop a bank of information that will grow over time. An additional benefit of the online platform is that it opens the way for linking the information provided with organisation-wide communications, normalising awareness of culture within organisational settings.

Discussion

The cultural newsletter is a promising practice initiative that aims to promote individual awareness and organisational change. It is a practical tool that is designed for stimulating curiosity, knowledge building, and initiating cultural conversations. The newsletter will continue to evolve in response to feedback. It serves as an exemplar strategy to support the embedding of regular information sharing and discussion about culture in the routines of practice, in contrast to the common practice of quarantining these discussions for annual professional development workshops. It provides a starting point, an invitation to further knowledge building and the challenging of personal bias. It is a conversation starter, and those conversations can make a significant difference to a child who has been removed into an unfamiliar family environment and is wanting to stay connected to their cultural traditions and identity (Lau & Rodgers, 2021).

We acknowledge that information about cultural food and celebration is “scratching the surface” when it comes to genuine understanding of cultural ways of being, and not the same as the sophisticated level of reflection and cultural humility that is critical to good social work practice. However, as stated above, it is a starting point.

Conclusion

While the newsletter has not yet been the subject of its own rigorous trial, feedback surveys and anecdotal reports of impact to date are very positive. Moving forward we will seek feedback from carers and children, as well as caseworkers and practitioners external to SSI. Once we have established acceptability and usability across diverse contexts, we will conduct a study to explore impact and outcomes. The newsletter is an evidence-informed initiative and there is early support for its value as a catalyst for positive change.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).