Brave Conversations

This is a Zoom presentation from the Shama Sexual Violence Response service.  We have been running cultural safety training with mainstream sexual violence crisis response organisations wanting to work in more improved ways with ethnic communities.  Prior to doing training with us, workers in these mainstream organisations have answered surveys for us about their own levels of expertise, experience and levels of comfort working with various aspects of cultural difference.  This presentation provides an analysis of these survey results.  It is the first time we have been able to give a picture of the gaps in mainstream organisations based on their own perceptions rather than based on gaps reported by ethnic people.  This means we are starting to have a much fuller picture of what those gaps are.  For example, approximately 50% of mainstream workers have never used an interpreter - however, other research tells us that 30% of people who first arrived through refugee channels still need to use an interpreter in some situations more than 10 years after arrival.  Being able to pin down and describe these gaps much more clearly means we can address structural racism in our training.  This presentation will give people ideas about what structural factors can change in their own workplace to improve practice for people of ethnic minorities.