MCWH has been delivering health education in-language in-community for over 40 years. In 2023, we developed our Quality Standards for Health Education as both an ethic and practice, to guide program development, implementation, delivery and evaluation. This guide is for any organisation or individual implementing, or looking to implement, bilingual health education and provides guidance on 7 key themes for ensuring high quality health education.
MCWHs health education programs have been uniquely successful because health information is provided in:
- The preferred language of the women attending the program;
- location and at times that are most convenient for women; and
- ways which respect women's experiences and knowledge and understand their cultural context.
In our quality standards we outline 7 key themes that are essential to maintaining high quality standards in multilingual health education for migrant and refugee women:
- Women's empowerment
- Cultural and linguistic appropriateness
- Accuracy of health information
- Access and equity
- Confidentiality
- Collaboration
- Continuous Improvement
We hope this guide supports the delivery of bilingual health education run by and for migrant and refugee women. This woman-to-woman approach in our peer education model is based on the belief that sharing health information and experiences is the best way to increase women's health knowledge and wellbeing.