Practice Area 2 – Embedding cultural safety
Cultural safety is a core value in the Minimum Practice Standards to ensure that organisations and services are welcoming, respectful and safe for all individuals, regardless of their cultures.
Cultural safety is the positive recognition and celebration of cultures. It is more than just the absence of racism or discrimination, and more than ‘cultural awareness’ and ‘cultural sensitivity.’ It empowers people and enables them to contribute and feel safe to be themselves.
The concept of cultural safety recognises and values the unique cultural context of many different groups and communities in Australia. These include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse communities; refugees and displaced people; people with disability; LGBTQIA+ people; people from differing socioeconomic backgrounds; and those living in, or having lived in, care or institutional settings. Victims and survivors from these groups face additional barriers accessing services for the trauma of child sexual abuse and, where they identify with more than one group, can experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and marginalisation.
Engaging with victims and survivors in a culturally safe manner is at the heart of best-practice service provision and trauma-informed practice. All victims and survivors should feel safe to be themselves and request what they need. Culturally safe practice emphasises shared respect between workers and victims and survivors, which generates an experience of ongoing learning and working together with dignity. You need to engage in deep listening to the needs of those with lived and living experience of child sexual abuse.
Cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
Cultural safety is determined by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, families and communities. The concept of trauma-aware, healing-informed practice has been used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations like the Healing Foundation and The Seedling Group to emphasise the importance of understanding the ongoing and intergenerational impacts of historical, collective and cultural trauma, and the need to centre Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives to create safe healing spaces.
As a worker, being culturally aware and trauma-informed begins by critically reflecting on your own culture, power differentials and privilege. It requires recognition and understanding of:
- the harm caused by invasion, colonisation, the Stolen Generations, assimilation and institutional abuse and racism experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and that sexual abuse within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities cannot be understood in isolation of these impacts and traumas
- the long-standing denial and denigration of Aboriginal knowledge, kinship structures and cultural systems which protected and cared for children for tens of thousands of years, and the inappropriateness of individualised models of care and healing for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims and survivors
- the ongoing reality of child removal in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, which can mean families may not seek help after a disclosure for fear their child will be removed from the care of non-offending family members or kinship networks
- the immense barriers to disclosing sexual abuse and accessing culturally safe and meaningful services Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, particularly children and young people, face, including:
- fear of not being believed, especially if the perpetrator or young person who has displayed harmful sexual behaviours is non-Aboriginal/ Torres Strait Islander
- lack of trust and feelings of shame about their experience
- kinship breakdowns and disconnections
- over-policing and negative experiences of police intervention
- fear of incarceration of perpetrators or young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviours.
Creating cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims and survivors is an ongoing process of partnership built on accountability and trust. The process requires non-Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander workers to engage in deep listening to develop understanding of healing as both an individual and collective process which is inclusive of connections to community, family and kin, country, culture and spirituality.
Cultural safety for victims and survivors from culturally and linguistically diverse and faith-based communities
‘Culturally and linguistically diverse’ is a broad term used to describe communities with diverse languages, ethnic backgrounds, nationalities, traditions, societal structures and religions. Cultural safety for victims and survivors from culturally and linguistically diverse and faith-based communities involves respecting and valuing the breadth of diversity of communities living in Australia and recognising the diversity that exists within groups and communities. It requires an understanding of the additional barriers victims and survivors from culturally and linguistically diverse and faith-based communities often face in disclosing child sexual abuse and accessing appropriate services and help.
The needs of culturally, linguistically and religiously diverse victims and survivors can differ depending on the migration pathway and pre- and post-migration experiences. For refugee and asylum-seeking children, young people and families, the journey from their country of origin to Australia can vary from a planned trip to a journey that was unforeseen, sudden, dangerous, and exhausting. Resettlement is often also a very difficult process of establishing physical and emotional safety that takes considerable time. These effects can also be experienced by children of migrants and refugees.
Culturally and linguistically diverse and faith-based communities and networks are often valuable sources of support, refuge, resilience and hope for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. Where useful and appropriate, you may wish to engage with members of cultural and faith-based communities, including community and religious leaders, to support your understanding and work with victims and survivors.
Many victims and survivors have had their connection to religious and faith-based communities challenged following the findings of the Royal Commission. These findings were designed to change institutional leadership, governance and culture. It is important that regulation in this context provides a balance where criminal sanctions are appropriately implemented and redress processes are prioritised. These work together both to repair the harm suffered by victims and survivors and to renew community confidence in places of worship and faith-based institutions.
It is important to be mindful that attitudes towards the disclosure of and responses to child sexual abuse can vary markedly between and within different cultural, linguistic and faith-based communities. There may be different views about what constitutes child sexual abuse in their country of origin. Individuals and families may appear closed and more protective of the person responsible for the abuse than the victim or survivor, due to broader cultural or community isolation, rejection, fear or stigmatisation. There may be unfamiliarity with aspects of Australian legislation, including laws relating to child protection, particularly among newly arrived migrants. None of this is to say that the welfare and interests of the child or adult victim or survivor should not be paramount in all decisions. Rather, you should anticipate that you will encounter differing community understandings and responses to child sexual abuse in your work that will require culturally safe and appropriate responses.
Cultural safety for victims and survivors with disability
Victim and survivors with disability may be reluctant to disclose experiences of child sexual abuse because of dependence on others for care, fear of losing housing or financial support, or a lack of awareness of rights and access to reporting pathways. Children and young people with disability are at greater risk of child sexual abuse than those without disability and remain at greater risk of sexual violence across their lifespan. Not all children and young people may be able to name their experience as abuse. Children and young people with intellectual disability or cognitive impairment may have additional difficulties in discerning the experience as abuse. Some physical disabilities may prevent a child from easily disclosing the abuse for a range of reasons, including communication difficulties or being non-verbal. Providing cultural safety for children, young people and adults with disability means:
- anticipating the possibility of these concerns when engaging and providing reassurance about how information will be handled
- not making assumptions about what the disability might mean for the person and how disclosure might be managed
- assuming the person has some capacity to make decisions – it is rare for a person to have no capacity to make any decisions.
Cultural safety for victims and survivors from the LGBTQIA+ community
For victims and survivors from the LGBTQIA+ community, cultural safety means feeling safe and welcome, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or other aspects of their identity. It means ensuring that victims and survivors can be their true selves without fear of discrimination, harassment, or exclusion. Cultural safety also means recognising, celebrating, and valuing diversity within the LGBTQIA+ community and promoting visibility and connection.
Core components of culturally safe practice
- Cultural safety relies on building trust, openness and understanding. Finding out more from the victim or survivor about their cultural context and what is important to them will help you engage and provide support and referral.
- Embedding cultural safety in your practice involves more than simply understanding the background of the person you are working with; it requires you to reflect on your own identity, culture, beliefs and biases, to address power imbalances, and develop equal and mutually beneficial relationships with the victims and survivors you are working with. The Minimum Practice Standards refer to this as coming from a place of cultural humility.
- Creating cultural safety is both an individual and organisational responsibility that needs to be embedded in governance, policies, programs, service delivery and practice approaches including recruitment, professional development, training and supervision.
- Services and organisations responding to child sexual abuse often emphasise psychological responses, diagnostic systems and mental health models, which position other approaches, as alternative or ‘other’. Greater cultural safety for all victims and survivors is achieved when we also maintain an openness to a range of healing strategies valued by victims and survivors from diverse backgrounds.