Summary

Cultural Perspectives Group (CPG), of which CIRCA is part, was funded the Information, Advice and Referrals grant by the Commonwealth Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. This grant is a national initiative to improve how people with disability (and others) access and engage with vital information.

Research approach

As part of this grant, CIRCA developed and implemented two research activities:

Activity 2 – Research with unpaid carers of people with disability:

The goal of this activity was to understand carers’ needs for information, including long-term planning and supports available to carers for their own well-being. For this, CIRCA undertook five focus groups with unpaid carers of people with disability, from the following backgrounds: Mandarin-, Vietnamese-, Arabic-, Italian-, and Thai-speaking backgrounds.

The information collected under this activity will be used for CPG to inform the development of resources for unpaid carers. The focus groups found that carers want information relevant to their situation, with a variety of formats and provided in-language. A central hub for information was seen as particularly useful.

Activity 3 – Interviews with people with a disability and focus groups with people who care for people with a disability.

The purpose of this activity was to understand what information people need about disability, how access to information resources can be improved and how accessible the miaccess.com.au website is, and how it can be improved. To this end, CIRCA conducted 9 interviews with people with a disability (including Vietnamese-, Arabic-, Cantonese-, and Korean-speaking participants, as well as participants who spoke English from an Indian background)  and 3 focus groups with carers (including Arabic-speaking unpaid carers, Spanish-speaking paid carers, and English-speaking paid carers who support people who speak a language other than English and have low English language proficiency)

Research findings and outcomes

The results of this research will be used to improve the MiAccess website and develop more resources for people with disability and carers. The research found that carers and people with disability searched for a variety of information for themselves and those they care for. Disability organisations, support workers, and government websites are commonly used, but people face challenges such as language barriers and difficulty assessing reliable information. The focus groups and interviews also informed many recommendations for updates to the website, as well as topic areas for resource development.