Community program and service design with bicultural workers

How bicultural workers support program and service design

Bicultural workers can help the government design and deliver programs and services that work well for everyone.

They can help you:

• build trust and make it easier for everyone to work together
• engage with people with low English proficiency to share knowledge
• make things more inclusive and accessible.

They can also support the co-design process.

Co-design is when citizens, stakeholders and government come together to design new products, services and policies.

It involves collaboration and shared decision-making with the people who use or are affected by what you’re designing.

How community organisations can help

Community organisations work with bicultural workers who have knowledge, experience and trust built within the community.

By working together, you can develop programs that are targeted, inclusive and effective.

Community organisations can:

• provide cultural expertise and knowledge
• consult with the community and do research
• conduct needs assessments and advocate for the community
• facilitate engagement and outreach
• offer language support and translation services
• attract, recruit, onboard, train and support bicultural workers
• provide cultural capability training for your organisation
• assist with program implementation and delivery
• gather feedback and evaluate programs.

Example design process with bicultural workers

This is an example design process.

It shows you how you bicultural workers can help at each stage.

This will help you identify where you may want to:

• hire a bicultural worker
• partner with a community organisation

Step 1: define the purpose and scope of your program or service

Bicultural workers have community connections and cultural knowledge.

They can connect you with the right people to find out a culture’s needs. And can help identify risks, concerns or issues that may come up.

You can define your program in these stages:

Research and collect data about your target community

Get information about things such as:

• age
• gender
• education level
• income
• household size
• country of birth
• cultural background and ethnicity
• primary languages spoken
• proficiency in English
• interpreter required.

Find out more about data collection standards and languages spoken in Victoria.

Identify your key stakeholders

Map out all the people who will have an interest in your work.

For example:

• community members
• local leaders
• community organisations
• government departments.

Identify the needs, challenges and priorities of the community

Do some early research on the community you want to engage.

Work with a bicultural worker or organisation to connect you with the right people to test your ideas.

Set your program goals and objectives

Align your goals and objectives with the needs of the people you’re trying to help.

They should be:

• specific
• time-bound
• measurable
• realistic
• achievable.

Step 2: develop your design strategy and activities

Develop a strategy with a list of activities that will help you achieve your goals.

For each activity, you’ll need to decide who’s involved, who’s running it and what, how and when things need to be done by.

A bicultural worker can help you collaborate with stakeholders and community to:

• build trust with people in the community
• help you plan your activities
• encourage people to take part
• make things more accessible, such as checking materials are translated
• give your program more credibility and authenticity.

Step 3: allocate resources and roles

You have options with how you can engage a bicultural worker in your design process.

For example, you can:

• hire a bicultural worker directly to your organisation
• recruit a bicultural worker through a community organisation
• engage a community organisation with bicultural workers to do parts of your design.

Here are some roles that a bicultural worker can work in or support:

Policymakers and program steering committee members

Policymakers and program steering committee members guide and shape the direction of an organisation or group.

Strategic leaders make big decisions and set goals.

Policymakers create rules and guidelines to make things fair and consistent.

Program manager

The project manager’s job is to:

• organise and coordinate tasks
• listen to the ideas and needs of the team and come up with ways to help
• make sure everyone knows what to do and has the tools to do it
• bring people together so they feel valued and included.

Cultural advisor

The cultural advisor helps everyone understand and respect different cultures.

They give advice on how to interact with people and know a lot about:

• traditions
• languages
• values and beliefs.

Community liaison

The community liaison connects the team with people in the community.

They help the community and government:

• build relationships
• communicate
• understand everyone’s needs and concerns.

Program designer

The program designer works to understand the community to design a program for them.

They lead the planning and creation of the activities, content and materials.

Evaluator

An evaluator helps create a plan to:

• measure the success of your program
• find ways to make your program better
• share ideas for future programs.

Service designer

A service designer works to:

• understand the culture to create an inclusive experience
• understand user needs
• gather feedback and test ideas
• provide feedback to program team
• design program features, content and structure
• make things accessible.

Communications specialist

A communications specialist can help to:

• write and edit information so it’s easy to understand
• share program information with the right people
• check that program materials are sensitive and inclusive
• collaborate with the team and community to align communications with program goals
• develop training materials for employees, volunteers and partners.

Read more

How to recruit bicultural workers.

Step 4: Evaluate and keep improving

Implement your evaluation plan.

An evaluation plan is a set of steps you can use to measure success. For example, you may want to run a survey, focus group or interview.

It helps you answer questions like:

• are we reaching the right people?
• is it making a positive impact?
• how can it be improved?

Bicultural workers can help you make your evaluation accessible and look at the right things. This will help you better understand if you’re responding to the needs of the community.

They can advise on how best to collect data. For example, online surveys may not work for people who have limited digital skills or English proficiency.

Their community connections can help you collect information and identify where to improve.