Intercultural Health
The broadening of diversity resulting from the rich mix of cultures within Ireland has significantly enriched the fabric of social, economic and cultural life in Ireland. At the same time, this emerging diversity presents challenges for health services when responding to the needs of people from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
The HSE National Intercultural Health Strategy 2007-2012 was very positive. The second National Intercultural Health Strategy 2018-2023 was launched by the National Social Inclusion office in Jan 2019. We have a valuable role to play. We can help put in place an intercultural approach to planning and delivering care and support services in an equal, accessible and effective way, acknowledging and valuing the diversity of all service users.
We fund a number of agencies to deliver services on our behalf to service users from diverse groups.
Other activity
Multilingual supports
It has been shown that providing information in other languages helps service users from diverse backgrounds to access and navigate health services more effectively and appropriately. We work in partnership with key stakeholders to develop a standardised approach to providing interpreting services and to making sure good practice is followed when translating essential health-related material into different languages.
Information in other languages
Intercultural Awareness eLearning programme
The Intercultural Awareness eLearning programme supports staff to be aware and respectful of ethnic, cultural and religious diversity of people who use our services. The main aim of this programme is to reduce the potential harm that unconscious bias may cause.
The Intercultural Awareness eLearning programme supports staff to be aware and respectful of ethnic, cultural and religious diversity of people who use our services. The main aim of this programme is to reduce the potential harm that unconscious bias may cause.
The programme contains four modules and is live on HSELand
- Inclusive Practices and Intercultural Awareness (30 minutes) will support you to be respectful of the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity of service users, in order to provide an effective, high quality responsive service.
- Working with Others (30 minutes) will enhance your ability to provide a culturally sensitive service by using techniques that have been shown to reduce the potential harm that unconscious bias may have on our service users.
- Refugees, Protection Applicants and Trauma (45 minutes) will support you to work with refugees and protection applicants so as to improve their health outcomes. It will also help you to recognise trauma reactions and take some steps to avoid triggering or re-traumatising service users.
- Understanding migrant mental health (30 minutes) will increase your awareness of what shapes mental health and wellbeing and to understand the unique challenges that people from migrant communities experience in relation to their mental health and wellbeing.
Modules 1-3 were developed by the HSE National Social Inclusion Office and Social Inclusion South East Community Healthcare (SECH) and is an adaptation of the classroom situated-train the trainer Intercultural Health programme. Module 4 was commissioned and developed through a partnership between the National Social Inclusion Office (HSE) and Health & Wellbeing (HSE). The eLearning programme was developed in line the HSE’s Second National Intercultural Health Strategy 2018-2023.
This eLearning Programme has been approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI) for Continuing Education Units (CEUs): Modules 1 , 2 and 4 (1 CEU each) and Module 3 (3.5 CEUs).
For queries please contact socialinclusion@hse.ie
Related Documents
Migrant Integration Strategy 2017 (PDF)
Second National Intercultural Health Strategy 2018-2023 (PDF)
Mental Health Reform’s “Cultural Competency Toolkit” - A practical guide for mental health professionals, services, and staff on working with ethnic minority communities in Ireland