Media Release: Utilising our diverse workforce: How the Multicultural Centre for Women's Health evolved their national Health in My Language COVID-19 Program to bring a new focus on Sexual and Reproductive Health for migrant and refugee communities.
The Multicultural Centre for Women's Health (MCWH) has announced an important evolution of their national Health in My Language program, funded by the Commonwealth Government to run until June 2025.
Health in My Language began in 2022 as a vital national response program to address barriers to vaccine literacy and uptake during the COVID-19 pandemic. A workforce of 44 bilingual health educators were recruited and trained by MCWH and then employed at their Victorian Centre and by national partners in every state and territory across Australia.
From February 2024, Health in My Language performed a remarkable pivot to evolve into a national sexual and reproductive health program. Renewed funding for this 2024 phase of the program delivers on the 2023 Senate Committee recommendation made in the ‘Ending postcode lottery’ in response to the Inquiry into Universal Access to Reproductive Healthcare, where the Australian Government identified the Health in My Language program as an important national platform for advancing sexual and reproductive health equity.
“Our ability to respond dynamically to the government’s urgent health care priorities is due to our trained and highly skilled workforce of bilingual health educators, coupled with our unique feminist-led model for health education and our expertise delivering sexual and reproductive health information to migrant and refugee communities over the past 46 years” says Dr Regina Torres-Quiazon, Director of Programs at the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health.
“We know that migrant and refugee women face intersecting structural, systemic and personal barriers to accessing sexual and reproductive health services, whether they have recently arrived or whether they have been here for a longer period, and even if they can speak English very well.
Our culturally tailored, peer to peer approach is based on respecting the knowledge that people already have about their bodies and themselves. Our Health in My Language program facilitates further learning so that migrant women can make informed decisions about their own health and wellbeing on important topics such as understanding menopause, safer sex, contraception choices and pregnancy choices,” she concludes.
The launch of the Health in My Language program took place in Liverpool (NSW) on 25 October 2024, led by The Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health and the program’s New South Wales’ based partner STARTTS. The launch marks the moment when the national bilingual health educator team have completed their six-week long accredited training, which was delivered by the MCWH Training and Capacity team in partnership with the program’s Queensland based partner True Relationships and Reproductive Health. The delivery of Health in My Language bilingual health education sessions will commence nationally from November 2024 to June 2025.
For more information, please contact: Kim Grosser, Strategic Communications Manager, Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health at kimg@mcwh.com.au.