AMES and SDG 3 & 17
Health is at the forefront of everybody’s mind right now and it has never been more apparent that global cooperation is needed to overcome challenges.
Adopted in 2015, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an integrated set of 17 goals which seek to complete and enhance the previous Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) whilst making sure no one is left behind. This global effort requires not only governments, but organisations, such as AMES to contribute towards successfully achieve all the SDGs.
AMES work touches on a number of these 17 Goals, and over the past weeks, we’ve been sharing with you how some of our work connects to the global community while making impact here in Australia.
We take a holistic approach to migrants' social and economic participation, and so beyond our core program areas of education, employment, settlement, social participation, and gender and equity, we partner with a range of institutions to achieve health and wellbeing for our clients.
SDG 3 seeks to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. At first glance it seems beyond the scope of AMES’s functions. However, through the Settlement Health Coordinators (SHC) Project AMES have developed strong partnerships with health sector organisations which allows for AMES to play its part in meeting the targets set out in SDG 3.
By partnering for the Goals, AMES is also working on SDG 17, strengthening the means of implementation and revitalising the global partnership for sustainable development. SDG 17’s language focuses on larger scale cooperation between ‘national governments, the international community, civil society, the private sector and other actors’, however, AMES collaboration with state-level government and local organisations, contributes to progress towards this goal as well. But let’s take a look at how AMES works on SDGs 3 and 17 in more detail.
AMES & the Settlement Health Coordinators project
The Settlement Health Coordinators project directly contributes to the following targets:
- Target 3.8: Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all
- Target 3.d: Strengthen the capacity of all countries, in particular developing countries, for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks
The collaboration between AMES, Community Health Centres and the SHCs is an important one, in that it provides migrants with direct access to appropriate health-care services in a timely manner. The SHCs are employed as highly skilled refugee health nurses and have assisted the AMES Humanitarian Settlement Program in:
- capacity building education sessions for AMES staff
- providing training in refugee specific health concerns to hospital staff and up-skilling General Practitioners to undertake Refugee Health Assessments
- transitioning to the new Humanitarian Settlement Program
- evaluating and triaging new arrivals in order for them to receive appropriate care
- using a health database (HAPlite) for refugees to identify and attend to pre-arrival health concerns in a timely manner
- secondary consultations on health pathways of clients by liaising with local health services
Another uniquely collaborative aspect of the program is that the SHCs, who are employed by the Community Health Centres IPC Health and DPV Health, are co-located at AMES offices in the Northern and Western suburbs of Melbourne.
In working with AMES, SHCs are working towards achieving universally accessible health-care services for humanitarian entrants both on a financial and culturally welcoming level that is of a high quality (Target 3.8). With access to HAPlite, SHCs can assist in the correct triage of clients, ensuring they receive effective and timely care (Target 3.d).
And again, all this work takes place in partnership with a number of collaborators: IPC Health, DPV Health, the Department of Health & Human Services, Refugee Health Programs in Community Health Centres, hospitals, General Practitioners (GPs) and Disability Service Providers.
Key Highlights from the program:
- 4,598 New Arrivals Assisted *
- 2,260 Provided with Clinical-Care Contacts *
- 106 Additional Medical Issues Recognised by SHCs in Screening a Migrant Health Database *
*Within a reporting period of July 2017 to December 2018
CULTURALLY DIVERSE DISABILITY COMMUNITY CHAMPIONS
Another project contributes towards SDG 3 is the Disability Community Champions. AMES was supported by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) in bringing about this project which was designed by AMES to provide CALD people with disability with information in their first languages about how to access disability support services. AMES achieved this through the recruitment of 12 Community Champions from seven target communities. The Champions have to date delivered 60 capacity building information sessions in first language, reaching over 1050 people. Positively, there was a very high percentage of ‘Champions’ who gave favourable feedback on the attainment of knowledge for their communities.
The partnership between AMES and CALD communities, financially supported by the NDIA, has enabled greater knowledge on health and well-being for people with disability, effectively increasing CALD access to health-care services (Target 3.8).
ROYAL WOMEN’S HOSPITAL: REFUGEE FOCUS GROUP
AMES partnered with the Royal Women’s Hospital to organise a focus group of 15 women from refugee communities to assist in the development on an ‘Over 55 Women’s Health Strategy’. The session brought into light health concerns experienced by older women and fostered understanding of the lived experience as a health consumer. This partnership links to Target 3.8 in ensuring universal health-care to all.
Partnerships (SDG 17) with healthcare organisations are the cornerstone of achieving SDG 3 – improved health and well-being. Refugees and migrants have unique and complex health issues that need a wide range of actors to properly address them:
- Clinicians knowledgeable in refugee health to provide tailored support
- Case Managers who link the range of social and institutional supports available and
- Community members to explain health issues in plain language and break down barriers to accessing care.
The programs outlined here are only a few examples of how AMES partners with different actors to meaningfully contribute to the health and wellbeing of all clients. This is the spirit of the goals.
Written by Taahira Rajudin and edited by AMES Research and Policy team