The Multicultural Peer Support Workers Workforce
Background Information
WWG actively engages the experience and expertise of Multicultural Peer Support Workers (MPSWs) who offer their multicultural lived experience – encompassing culture and language, to facilitate authentic client participation and genuine therapeutic engagement for better access and better health outcomes.
WWG recognises that many social and cultural factors impact on health access and service delivery. This unique model of care provides an integrated approach in healthcare delivery by working in partnership with health practitioners in co-therapy roles.
MPSWs build trust, connection, and relationship with clients through their shared lived and living experiences and offer culturally responsive guidance, support, and advice, as well as cultural and/or religious safety.
How does a Multicultural Peer Support Worker bring lived experience?
Watch our video to understand more.
Who is a Multicultural Peer Support Worker?
A Multicultural Peer Support Worker (MPSW) is an employee with lived experience of migration, settlement and acculturation who works in partnership with all other service delivery staff. MPSWs facilitate client participation and organisational engagement in a co-delivery model to help reduce health access barriers, e.g., cultural health beliefs and language.
The role of the MPSW
- Offer their own unique migratory lived experience (migration, settlement, and acculturation), build a bridge to service access through shared experiences, trust, and connection and to empower client recovery, healing, and hope.
- Provide migratory and cultural context on ethnicity, language, socio-economic, political, and historical aspects, apply their cultural and linguistic expertise and provide cultural and/or religious safety.
- Work in alliance with other service delivery staff in co-therapy and co-delivery roles to provide genuine and authentic participation and engagement while facilitating mutual understanding, and respect.
- Bring an element of community connection that provides on the ground access to support – community cultural support and religious elders, community leaders and representatives, community organizations and networks etc.
What are the benefits of working With MPSWs?
The MPSW team is a key element of WWG services and provide valuable insight into:
- Multicultural lived experience – unique migratory context.
- Cultural explanatory beliefs about health and mental health.
- Provide cultural and linguistic support, guidance and advice.
- Increasing health access and reducing barriers for people from multicultural backgrounds.
MPSWs come from a variety of countries
Where are the MPSWs working in our organisation?
Mental health and Wellbeing Services
Representation and Co-design
Covid Vaccination
Refugee and Asylum Health
Aged care Services
Health Justice
External Projects
What our MPSWs are saying...
“With having strong experience of working with Multicultural, migrant and refugees communities, and a lived experienced MPSW at WWG , I always loved to talk with clients in their language in a culturally and friendly way. They opened up easily and willing to share their personal health wellbeing issue and other help needed. This connection also helped me to understand their required support to avail WWG services.” (MPSW)
“Being a MPSW is challenging but satisfying. I felt like a person with many hats. At times, I am gap filler, sometimes a bridge builder between practitioner and clients, and other times I am just a good friend. Sometime we met clients who were hurt so badly that they had built up their own defensive shell, which very hard to get past. It can take a lot of patience and effort to be able to get the innermost thoughts and feeling/ emotion out of them. In a sense I was there to help empower the client to speak about and gain support in what’s really bothering them. Most of the time we (Clinicians and MPSWs) were able to pass through said defense and helped the clients. I felt very gratifying and fulfilling when this happened.” (MPSW)
“My lived experience as refugee, my first-hand account of refugee life challenges, and my language and cultural knowledge allowed me to bring a unique contribution to the role I played as MPSW. As a cultural and language support person, we should celebrate every small achievement, reflect on our progresses and lived experiences, and recognize our contribution to our client’s well-being.” (MPSW)
Multicultural Peer Support Workers (MPSWs) Brokerage Service
Providing culturally responsive services to organisations through our pool of MPSWs who are trained to offer their lived experience
Provision of information and context related to the lived experience of migration, settlement, acculturation, culture, ethnicity, language, religion, political and historical issues to improve service delivery.
Build a bridge between clients from multicultural backgrounds and services to offer guidance, support and advices.
Facilitate community engagement and participation.
Provide multicultural lived experience advice in co-design, monitoring, and evaluation of services, programs, research and other projects.
Representation in forums, conferences and advisory groups.
Get in touch to find out more
Interpreting Services
Multicultural Peer Support Workers are NOT interpreters, however, World Wellness Group provides free language support through the Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS) and Oncall Language Services when you access our services.
