People born in a non-English speaking country have similar rates of disability as other Australians but are about half as likely to receive formal assistance.
Settlement Services International (SSI) has drawn on its expertise in working with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities to address the need for culturally competent entry points to the disability service system to help marginalised groups gain access.
The national Multilingual Disability Hub is a multilingual hotline and website providing relevant and easily accessible information on disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in 14 languages: Arabic, Assyrian, Bangla, Cantonese, Farsi, Greek, Italian, Macedonian, Mandarin, Nepali, Spanish, Tamil, Urdu and Vietnamese.
“Providing access to information is key to enabling people from CALD backgrounds to become active players in the disability space,” said Karen Bevan, SSI General Manager Service Delivery – Community.
“Whether it’s the friendly bilingual staff operating the hotline or the informative website, the Multilingual Disability Hub continues to help bridge this gap for many people with disability,” she said.
People wanting to access information in their language have the choice of calling the hotline, which is operated by trained bilingual staff, or visiting the website, which contains “in-language” information about disability and the NDIS.
