CEH is assisting the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) to improve its communication with parents of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds.
As part of its cultural diversity plan, DEECD commmissioned CEH to review the way in which government schools and early childhood services communicated with CALD parents and carers.
CEH's review included:
- current policy, literature and resources
- use of language services
- information needs of CALD and NESB parents
- parents' beliefs about education
- communication at transition stages
- the role of schools as community hubs
- access to early childhood services such as kindergarten
CEH has provided a completion report to DEECD with a number of recommendations for strengthening communications and improving access to existing resources. We have also developed a series of training modules on cross-cultural communication.