Role of a Cultural Liaison within the NSW Health Promotion Health Service

This article discusses the role of a cultural liaison within the NSW Health Promotion Health Service and the importance of cultural competence in healthcare. It also explores the relationship between social determinants, human rights, cultural competence, and health outcomes.

Running head: HEALTH
Health
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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Role of a cultural liaison within the NSW Health promotion health service:
I am the best candidate for the role a cultural liaison within the NSW Health Promotion
Health Service. This is because cultural liaisons have the responsibility to provide flexible and
responsive support to people and ensure to meet individual needs by being proactive in service
and maintaining positive and professional therapeutic relation with client. This role and
responsibilities is similar to what I do in practice as health promotion practitioners. Health
promotion specialist plays a role in empowering people to make healthy choices and develop
local partnership with people to eliminate health inequalities (Australian Health Promotion
Association, 2009). Therefore, this professional responsibility is similar to the cultural liaison’s
role of delivering responsive support that aims to promote choices and self-determination for
clients.
My experience and skills as health promotion worker makes me suitable for the job role
of cultural liaison because I lobby for recognition of preventative and promotional health service.
I also work to collaborate with health care professionals and different organizations to promote
implementation of appropriate policy to influence health outcomes. This role is in relevance with
the cultural liaison’s role of working in partnership with various services providers and agencies
to assist indigenous and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Australians in identifying
health disparities in their life and implementing flexible support for them. Hence, my job roles
and it similarity with the cultural liaison’s role makes me the best candidate to for the role a
cultural liaison within the NSW Health Promotion Health Service.
The theoretical relevance and relationship between social determinants, human
rights, cultural competence and health outcomes:

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Social determinants, human rights, cultural competence and health outcomes are some
interlinked factor that are similar in terms of theoretical constructs and concept. Cultural
competence in health care is the ability of providers to deliver cultural safe care and take
effective steps to meet social, cultural and linguistic needs of patients (Jongen, McCalman &
Bainbridge, 2018). Cultural competence is a skill that will not only help to enhance the health
outcome but also reduce or eliminate ethnic disparities in health care. Good understanding about
social determinants of health is one factor that can support health workers to identify disparities
and take proper steps to address and meet basic human rights and needs of patient in care (Adler
et al., 2016). This discussion demonstrates how theoretical concept of cultural competence is
linked to health outcomes and health disparity and how health disparity is linked to social
determinants of health and human rights.
Social determinant is also linked better health outcome. By reviewing the social
determinant of health factors that influence health of the population group, it has been found that
health promotion staffs are able to identify factors leading to health equity and implement
constructive strategies to implement appropriate health service and modify people’s attitude
towards health.
Five constructs of cultural competency within the NSW Health Promotion Service:
Five constructs of cultural
competency
Strategies Links to health promotion
guidelines
Cultural awareness Cultural awareness is a process
of self-assessment done to
This is relevant with the health
promotion competency for

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identify biases and explore in
depth about cultural background
and values of different client in
practice. During my work as a
health promotion worker, I will
use reflective skills to interpret
whether the interventions that I
have delivered are in alliance
with cultural values and
preferences of client or not. I will
assess my cultural sensitivity in
care by use of questions like ‘Am
I aware of possible biases for
client during care delivering?’
Olson et al. (2016) defines that
reflection improves cultural
competence learning activities
and support health professionals
to service diverse population.
planning evidence based
strategies. Health promotion
staffs engage in applying
culturally relevant approaches
with people and understand how
diverse culture and educational
background influence patients
care (Australian Health
Promotion Association, 2009).
Cultural knowledge Cultural knowledge is the steps
taken to collect data about
culturally diverse group and
enhance cultural knowledge. I
will enact cultural knowledge
competence in the NSW health
promotion service by using
Cultural knowledge is in
relevance with health promotion
care competencies as it requires
development of knowledge and
skills to develop cultural
competence and effective
practice skills (Australian Health

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different cultural framework to
develop cultural knowledge and
collect data related to health
beliefs, cultural and health
outcomes of people in the
community.
Promotion Association, 2009).
Cultural skill Cultural skill is the ability to
conduct appropriate cultural
assessment with client and use
relevant data to engage in
culturally appropriate physical
assessment (Shen, 2015). During
my practice in NSW health
promotion service, I will engage
in cultural assessment of client
by monitoring physical
differences in people such as
body language and visible
physical characteristics.
This is linked to the principle of
identifying contributory factors
of health issues and determining
priorities for health promotion
action.
Cultural encounters Cultural encounters involve the
process used to engage in cross-
cultural communication with
clients coming from different
cultural background. While
engaging in such communication
process during my role as a NSW
This is linked to the skills of
performing better communication
process and accurately
interpreting information from
common audience (Australian
Health Promotion Association,

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health promotion staffs, I will use
the strategy of first assessing
whether client’s language is
congruent with my language or
not. If language barriers exist,
then I would use interpreters to
engage in culturally appropriate
encounter with patient. This will
involve adapting to cultural
differences and being sensitive to
align with cultural values of
client (Brooks,Manias &
Bloomer, 2018).
2009).
Cultural desire It is the personal desire and
commitment to develop
competence knowledge and use
cultural sensitivity concepts
during care delivery. To
demonstrate cultural desire, I will
use the strategy of engaging in
professional development
training in the area of cultural
awareness.
This is linked to the competency
5.7 of the Australian Health
Promotion Association (2009)
which states that health
promotion strategies for health
promotion should include health
education and advocacy.

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Knowledge of professional guidelines and relationship to cultural safety:
Cultural safety involves empowerment of client by providing an environment that is
socially, culturally, emotionally and physically safe for people. To successfully engage in
cultural safety during practice, it is necessary for health professionals to demonstrate certain
desirable professional value that promotes cultural safety for the client. The review of
professional guidelines related to competencies required by health care promotion staffs. The
professional guideline mentions about identifying behavioural and social risk for a particular
health issue and assist in the development of variety of health educational strategies and health
promotion programs. This guideline is linked to cultural safety as it Giles and Darroch (2014)
gives the evidence that accounting for social, historical and political structure is critical to detect
and assess cultural safety provisions for culturally diverse client and implementing ways to
address relations of power. Hence, it can be said that cultural safety encourages understanding
about inherent issues in people and taking useful steps to reduce harm for vulnerable client.
The health promotion professional guideline also discusses about partnership building
competencies. This involves the step to engage in effective partnership with key stakeholders and
facilitating collaborative action. This has relationship with cultural safety as shared decision
making, effective partnership, community ownership and empowering cultural identity are some
examples of culturally safe approaches in care (Schill & Caxaj, 2019).
Barriers and facilitators to culturally safe and competent practice:
Excellent communication skill is one of the facilitator of culturally safe and competent
care. This said because communication skill can help health promotion practitioners and
providers to engage in active interaction with client and understand cultural concerns and

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preferences during care. Communication competencies increase the likelihood of involving
clients in care and interpreting their unique cultural needs. This process can also help in
identification of mechanisms that lead to cross-cultural misunderstandings (Brown et al., 2016).
Apart from this, cultural awareness can be a facilitator for culturally safe practice as it will help
to use different methods to determine cultural differences in patient and collect data related to
cultural backgrounds. The advantage of cultural awareness skills for health care practitioner is
that it will help to address marginalization experiences of client (Grandpierre et al., 2018).
In addition, some of the barriers to culturally competent care includes language barrier,
cultural barrier and resource related barrier. Language barriers limit ability to interpret client’s
preferences and instruction and understand their cultural preferences in care. It delays the process
of rapport building and hinders compliance with proposed care plan. Limited resource like lack
of language support or access to interpreter service can be a barrier in culturally competent care.
This may affect delivery of culturally competent care (Grandpierre et al., 2018).
Understanding of theory and conclusion:
I think I am the best person for the role of cultural liaison in NSW Health Promotion
Service as through my experience of engaging in promotion measures for people at population
level, I have gained the knowledge regarding the key factors that lead to health inequity. I have
sound knowledge regarding social determinants of health and its impact on health outcome.
Hence, I can use this concept during culturally competent communication process to determine
how these factors differ for different cultural group. In addition, my strong communication and
interpersonal communication skill is also a strength that will help me to engage in cultural
awareness and cultural knowledge process. I will be able to self-reflect on data collected from

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patient and use those data to effectively interact with stakeholders to promote cultural safety of
patients. These attribute and experience in my professional practice makes be best candidate for
taking on the role of a cultural liaison.

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References:
Adler, N. E., Cutler, D. M., Jonathan, J. E., Galea, S., Glymour, M., Koh, H. K., & Satcher, D.
(2016). Addressing social determinants of health and health disparities. Vital Directions
for Health and Health Care Initiative: National Academy of Medicine Perspectives.
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Practitioners. Retrieved from
https://www.healthpromotion.org.au/.../core_competencies_for_hp_practitioners.pdf
Brooks, L. A., Manias, E., & Bloomer, M. J. (2018). Culturally sensitive communication in
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Brown, O., Ham-Baloyi, W. T., Rooyen, D. R. V., Aldous, C., & Marais, L. C. (2016).
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Giles, A. R., & Darroch, F. E. (2014). The need for culturally safe physical activity promotion
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Jongen, C., McCalman, J., & Bainbridge, R. (2018). Health workforce cultural competency
interventions: a systematic scoping review. BMC health services research, 18(1), 232.

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Olson, R., Bidewell, J., Dune, T., & Lessey, N. (2016). Developing cultural competence through
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