Program
Multicultural Women’s Health and Well-being Convention
Multicultural
Women’s Health
and Well-being
Convention
Pictured above: long before the convention preparation for the two intense days has already began;
community leaders and convention presenters preparing their papers and receiving specific training to
guarantee lively and productive discussing sessions
23-24 Oct 2003
Thur - Fri
707 Wellington Street, Perth
Ethnic Communities Council
of Western Australia
WEST AUSTRALIAN TRANSCULTURAL
MENTAL HEALTH CENTRE
Supported by:
GROWING ROOTS FINDING WINGS
Venue: The Grand Chancellor Hotel
The convention brings
together women from all
walks of life to discuss,
debate and develop plans
that will improve all aspects
of health for migrant and
refugee women.
WOMEN’S HEALTH CARE HOUSE
DISABILITY SERVICES COMMISSION
MIDLAND WOMEN’S HEALTH CARE PLACE
“HEALTH IS A STATE OF COMPLETE PHYSICAL, MENTAL AND SOCIAL WELL-BEING AND NOT MERELY THE ABSENCE OF DISEASE AND INFIRMITY”
“HEALTH IS A STATE OF COMPLETE PHYSICAL, MENTAL AND SOCIAL WELL-BEING AND NOT MERELY THE ABSENCE OF DISEASE AND INFIRMITY”
Organising Committee Members
GROWING ROOTS FINDING WINGS
Welcome to the Multicultural Women's
Health & Well-being Convention
“Growing Roots Finding Wings”. As the
first of its kind this convention is an exciting
partnership between community women nongovernment organisations and government
agencies.
Leena Bakshi
(Ethnic Communities Council Women Sub-Committee)
Kerry Bastian &
Paulina Turrientes
(Multicultural Access Unit)
Letty Durkin
(Ethnic Communities Council Women Sub-Committee)
Susan Lee
(Women's Health Care House)
Erica Lewin
(Office for Women's Policy)
Ruth Lopez
(Disability Services Commission)
Patsy Molloy
(Midland Women's Health Care Place)
Vilma Palacios
(East Metropolitan Population Health Unit)
Anne Rida
(Office of Multicultural Interests)
Kriss Sprigg
(Department of Immigration Multicultural and
Indigenous Affairs)
Bernadette Wright &
Bruce Willett
(WA Transcultural Mental Health Centre)
“Growing Roots
Finding Wings”.
Brings
together women from all walks of life to discuss,
debate, and develop plans to improve all aspects of
health and well-being for women from culturally and
linguistically diverse communities.
This registration booklet provides you with all the
information that you require to register for the
convention. The format and content of the
convention are detailed in the following pages.
The program
Three main themes will be discussed during the
convention.
These themes have emerged
through focus group discussions with community
women in Perth. They are:
Understanding what a social model of health
mean for women from culturally and
linguistically diverse communities.
Exploring the strengths of women from
culturally and linguistically diverse
communities and ways in which those
strengths can be supported
Discussing family
relationships issues
and
Multicultural Women’s Health and Well-being Convention
GROWING ROOTS FINDING WINGS
The convention brings
together women from all
walks of life to discuss,
debate and develop plans
that will improve all aspects
of health for migrant and
refugee women.
Multicultural Women’s Health and Well-being Convention
Keynote Speakers
Dr Carmen Lawrence
(Federal Member for Fremantle)
Dr Carmen Lawrence's parliamentary career began in State politics when in
1986 she won for the Australian Labor Party the Western Australian
Legislative Assembly seat of Subiaco, held by the Liberal Party for the
previous 27 years. She was promoted to the State Government Ministry in
1988. As Minister for Education she helped steer Western Australia's
education system through a major overhaul in a leadership change on 12
February 1990, Dr Lawrence made history by becoming Premier of Western
Australia and Australia's first woman Premier. She also held the positions of
Shadow Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Employment and Federal
Affairs.
Dr Lawrence entered Federal politics by winning the Federal seat of
Fremantle. She was appointed Minister for Human Services and Health and
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women on 25 March
1994.
Dr Lawrence also held the Reconciliation, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander
Affairs; the Arts, and Status of Women Portfolios until December 2002.
Dr Lawrence was born Carmen Mary Lawrence on 2 March 1948, one of a
family of seven children raised in the small Wheatbelt town of Morawa, 365
km north of Perth. She graduated from the University of Western Australia as
a Bachelor of Psychology with First Class Honours in 1968. Dr Lawrence
won two scholarships for Ph.D. studies in psychology and continued with
post-graduate research, achieving the Doctorate of Philosophy in 1983.
Maria Harries
Maria is a Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Social Work and Social Policy
in the School of Social and Cultural Studies at the University of Western
Australia. She was previously an Elected Councillor with the City of Subiaco,
immediate past President of the Schizophrenia Fellowship of WA,
Chairperson of the Christian Brothers' Ex-Resident Services and
Chairperson of MercyCare. She also sits on a number of other boards of
health and welfare agencies.
Maria has a long-term interest in working with people with a mental illness
and has worked in a number of psychiatric clinics and hospitals as well as in
community based and crisis settings.
Maria's interest in ethics developed when she was studying philosophy for
her first degree in the 1960s. In 1978, when she became a member of an
AASW committee that reviewed and developed the Code of Ethics for that
association, she developed a particular interest in professional ethics. Since
that time her interest in applied ethics has grown with her involvement in
research committees, supervising research students and being a member of
an ethics consortium that was, until recently, based at the University of Notre
Dame and which developed the Code of Ethics for the WA Public Sector.
Moira Reiner
Angela Ebert
Angela Ebert brings two distinct but complimentary interests to her work and
to her life, social justice and the enhancement of the well-being of others.
This is expressed in her qualifications in social-work as well as in clinical
psychology.
She is currently undertaking her doctorate investigating how people recover
from torture and refugee related trauma.
Angela Ebert has worked in the area of migrants and refugees for 17 years
and was the founding staff member of the Association to Services to Torture
and Trauma Survivors.
Moira Rayner is a barrister, social commentator and best-selling writer. She
has written a number of successful books including The Women's Power
Handbook, with Joan Kirner (former Premier of Victoria) and Rooting
Democracy -Growing the Society We Want with Jenny Lee.
Moira has written widely on human rights, and is particularly concerned
about Australia's failure to respect the human rights and basic needs of
asylum-seeking children. Moira has recently returned to Australia from
London where she established the Office of the Children's Rights
Commissioner for London and helped write the first strategy for children for a
world city to be based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Her involvement has taken place across all domains, from assisting people
at grassroots level, to serving on a host of committees advocating policy
development and change, and to supporting specific ethnic communities
with their needs.
Moira was the first woman to chair Western Australia's Law Reform
Commission in 1988, then became Victoria's Commissioner for Equal
Opportunity until 1994, was a hearings Commissioner of the Human Rights
and Equal Opportunity Commission until 1997, Deputy Director of the
Australian Institute of Family Studies. In 2002, Moira became WA's acting
Equal Opportunity Commissioner and is for now one of the members of WA's
Anti-Corruption Commission.
Drawing on this experience and knowledge she will be presenting her
understanding of mobilising inner resources and building resiliency
Moira is also completing both the A-Z of Children's Rights for Amnesty (UK)
and a commissioned biography of Joan Kirner for Hodder Headline.
The Organisers
Ethnic Communities Council
of Western Australia
The Program
The Ethnic Communities Council of WA (ECCWA) is the
State's peak ethnic umbrella organisation. It is a non-government, non- profit, community
organisation that takes an active interest in all aspects of multiculturalism and ethnic affairs
and acts on behalf of all ethnic communities in WA.
The East Metropolitan Population Health Unit was established
in 1993. The core business and responsibilities of the Unit include disease control, health
protection and promotion, community based early detection and intervention programs,
community liaison, education and training, public health policy, epidemiology and research
and evaluation. The Unit works closely with health services, local government and a wide
range of other government and non-government agencies to enhance the health and
wellbeing of residents of Eastern Perth and Western Australia. The Unit's programs are
oriented to meet the population health needs of the Eastern Perth region, and in particular to
have a positive impact on the health of Aboriginal people, the socially disadvantaged,
families with young children and people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD)
backgrounds.
The Sponsors
The Office for Women's Policy (OWP) provides strategic policy
advice to the Western Australian Government on issues of concern to women. Equity and
diversity is the foundation of the work of the OWP, with a focus on women. Using a
community engagement approach to identify priority areas, OWP works in partnership with
government agencies, community groups and the business sector to develop policies and
strategies that promote the wellbeing of all women throughout Western Australia.
OWP recognises the diverse nature of all Western Australian women and places particular
emphasis on meeting the needs and aspirations of Indigenous women, women from
culturally and linguistically diverse communities, women with disabilities, senior women,
young women and women from rural, regional and remote communities.
DAY 1 - Thursday 23 October
08:30
Registration and Coffee
9:00 - 09:15
Welcome
09:30
Noongar Welcome
9:15 - 10:00
Keynote speaker : Maria Harries
09:45
Welcome by organisers
09:50
Launch : Health Minister Jim McGinty
10:00 - 10:45
Keynote speaker : Dr. Carmen Lawrence
“Social model of health setting the scene”
10:45 - 11:15
Morning Tea
11:15 to 12:30
Concurrent Sessions
WEST AUSTRALIAN TRANSCULTURAL
MENTAL HEALTH CENTRE
The Office of Multicultural Interests (OMI) works with local, State
and Commonwealth government to provide all Western Australians with the opportunity to
fulfill their aspirations. This means working specifically with minority ethnic communities to
ensure that they have equitable access to services that meet their needs. It also means
working with these community groups to empower them to assert their rights as Australian
citizens, including their right to be different, in other words to speak a different language or
practise a different religion. Above all, OMI is working to build a society where all Western
Australians, who are drawn from a rich heritage of cultural traditions and histories, enjoy
individual freedom, mutual respect, and equality of opportunity in all spheres of life.
The Multicultural Access Unit (MAU) aims to promote access and
equity principles enabling health professionals to form partnerships with culturally and
linguistically diverse clients so that the client can make informed health choices. The
Multicultural Access Unit (MAU) resides in the Population Health Directorate of the
Department of Health, with its work encompassing Policy /Advice to the Health
System/Publication/ research; Multicultural Access Contact Officers (MACO) Network;
Translations for Public /Private health Sector; Cross cultural Education; Resources/Stores
Pamphlets and Kits; Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Educational Program; Ethnic Radio
Program.
“Parenting and relationships”
10:00 to 10:30
Morning Tea
10:30 to 12:00
Concurrent Sessions
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Indicators of Health - How do we know that we
are well
Participating in community. How do I do it?
Juggling cultures
Beyond the exotic- Valuing our contributions
12:30 - 13:30
13:30 - 14:15
The West Australian Transcultural Mental Health
Centre is a statewide specialist service established to address the mental health needs
of culturally and linguistically diverse communities. The Centre undertakes a range of
activities including: mental health promotion among ethnic communities, clinical service
delivery, collaborative research, education and training, service development, and provision
of resources and consultancy on transcultural mental health issues.
DAY 2 - Friday 24 October
Lunch
Keynote speaker: Angela Ebert
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One head and eight arms - being a mother/
wife
Maintaining family harmony: Loyalty to two
cultures
Managing intergenerational differences at
home
Family & Domestic Violence
Building parent child good relations
Sexual Health and sexuality
12:00 to 13:00
Lunch
13:00 - 13:45
Keynote speaker: Moira Rayner
“Mobilising Inner resources: Building
resiliency”
“Building a Charter of culturally and
linguistically diverse Women’s
Well-being based on Human Rights”
14:15 - 14:30
Afternoon Tea
13:45 to 14:00
Afternoon Tea
14:30 to 15:40
Concurrent Sessions
14:00 to 15:30
Discussion Sessions
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Caring for a family member with a disability
Who are my friends...
Having a baby in Australia…
Culture and Grief
Being young - Is it all about me?
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15:45 to 16:30
Plenary Session: Recounting our day's
journey
Please feel free to stay and network
What changes can we make to improve
women's health?
What is strong and needs to be promoted and
supported?
What are the weaknesses and needs support
and improvement?
What opportunities multicultural women have to
improve her health?
15:30 to 16:15
Plenary Session: Recounting our day's
journey
16:15 to 16:30
Closing: Minister for Women’s Interest
Hon Sheila McHale
16:30 to 17:30
Light refreshments