Our
background is in community health. CEH grew out of North Richmond
Community Health Limited, which provides medical, dentistry, counselling,
cultural and allied health services to the communities of the City of Yarra.
Since its
inception in 1974, North Richmond Community Health Limited has constantly
tailored its services to meet the changing needs of a very culturally diverse
location.
Staff at North Richmond soon came to understand how culture and ethnicity impact on the way
people understand health and wellbeing, and the way they access health
services. As a result, North Richmond has
maintained an outstanding reputation for delivering culturally competent
service.
In 1994, North Richmond received funding from the Victorian
Department of Human Services to share its learnings across the state, and the
Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health was formed.
With an
initial focus on health, CEH provided cultural competence training to
healthcare professionals and began to amass a library of resources on
multiculturalism and health.
Further
statewide programs followed: in 2004 the Multicultural Health and Support
Service was formed to work with migrant and refugee communities around
sexually-transmissible infections and blood-borne viruses; and in 2005 the
Department of Justice funded the Multicultural Gambler's Help Program to
assist problem gambling services to meet the needs of migrant and refugee
clients. A new program, Health Sector Development, was formed in 2007 to
work exclusively with health and community service providers.
The work of
these three programs has given CEH expertise in health and wellbeing, human rights, cultural
competence and cross-cultural communication.
We remain a
part of North Richmond Community Health Limited, but we are now based in Carlton and work across Australia.