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Background: What is the Framework and how was it developed?

Project and Framework Background

The Embrace Project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing to provide a national focus on mental health and suicide prevention for people from multicultural backgrounds.

The Embrace Project is delivered through an alliance between Mental Health Australia, the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA) and the National Ethnic Disability Alliance (NEDA).

The project is informed by two key advisory groups - the Embrace Lived Experience Group and the Embrace Stakeholder Group.

The Embrace Project works to improve the cultural responsiveness of mental health and suicide prevention services to meet the needs of the diverse Australian population. This is being achieved through further development and implementation of the Framework.

Framework for Mental Health in Multicultural Australia

The Framework was developed to help mental health and suicide prevention services and workforces to evaluate and enhance their cultural responsiveness. It is a free national resource and available to any mental health and suicide prevention service provider.

It is designed to build capacity amongst mental health and suicide prevention services to improve how they work with people and communities from multicultural backgrounds. It plays a key role in addressing some of the issues and barriers faced by multicultural individuals, families and communities accessing mental health services and information.

The Framework builds upon a valuable legacy of work in the field of multicultural mental health in Australia.

This legacy began in 2008, with the creation of the Cultural Competency Standards – The Audit Tool in Western Australia. In 2010, Multicultural Mental Health Australia (MMHA) in partnership with the Western Australian Mental Health Commission built upon this original tool, with the development of the National Cultural Competency Tool (NCCT) for Mental Health Services.

The Framework was originally developed, launched and piloted by the Mental Health in Multicultural Australia (MHiMA) Project in 2014. In 2019, the current iteration, of the Framework was relaunched as part of the Embrace Project at Mental Health Australia.

We would like to extend our respect and gratitude to all people and organisations who have contributed to this legacy, and more broadly to improving mental health and wellbeing for Australia’s multicultural population.

Many people and organisations have made considerable contributions to this iteration of the Framework, for which we are sincerely grateful. We would particularly like to thank the following organisations for their expert advice:

  • The Embrace Lived Experience Group, which includes lived experience representatives from each state and territory of Australia
  • The Embrace Stakeholder Group, which includes, or has included, representatives of the Forum of Australian Services for Survivors of Torture and Trauma (FASSTT), the Transcultural Mental Health Centre NSW, Victorian Transcultural Mental Health (VTMH), the Queensland Transcultural Mental Health Centre (QTMHC), Brisbane South Primary Health Network (BSPHN), Primary Health Tasmania, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP), the Harmony Alliance, Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Council (AGMC), the Centre for Cultural, Equity & Health (CEH), Centre for Multicultural Youth (CMY), the Refugee Health Network of Australia (RHeaNA), the Settlement Council of Australia (SCOA), the Centre for Rural & Remote Mental Health
  • The Embrace Alliance Partnership, which includes Mental Health Australia, FECCA and NEDA.
  • The Australian Health Services Research Institute, who conducted the Review of the Framework in 2016

Sharing and Attribution

The Embrace Project encourages the sharing and dissemination of the Framework. In doing this, please ensure the material is unaltered and the source is acknowledged as Embrace Multicultural Mental Health.