Over recent years, Catholic Education SA has seen a significant increase in the number of students from diverse cultural backgrounds. This has led to a growing need to develop effective practices for engaging and communicating with students and families from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.
In 2018, CESA established the Cabrini Collective to enhance participation, learning and wellbeing for CALD students and their families, in response to concerns that some African-Australian families whose children are in Catholic schools were experiencing challenges in communicating with schools.
The Collective is a collaboration between the Archdiocese of Adelaide, Centacare, the Catholic Education Office of South Australia, Catholic school staff and members of the African Catholic Council.
A program was implemented by CESA through the Cabrini Collective in selected metropolitan schools to improve and increase engagement specifically with African-Australian students and their families.
A research project was then conducted throughout 2018 and 2019 within the participating schools, in conjunction with Uni SA. Online surveys were utilised and focus groups with staff, students and families of African-Australian heritage were held, to identify how schools currently engage with the African-Australian students and their families and their preferred methods of communication.
Strategies for improving engagement and communication were identified. The research findings were then collated into a series of 6 video resources.
Four of the videos are for use by school staff to support how they understand, develop and integrate core communication strategies for CALD students and their families to enhance learning and wellbeing.
Two videos were created to help families gain an understanding of how a Catholic education can benefit their child. One of these is narrated in the Dinka language, the main language of African-Australian families from Southern Sudan; the same video was created for English-speaking families.
While this research focused on the schools that participated in the Cabrini Collective and the African-Australian community, the strategies identified can be used by all Catholic schools working with families and students from many diverse backgrounds.
CESA works to ensure all students have access to an effective education and that all families can engage with our schools and their children’s learning.
Three Catholic Education SA teachers have been awarded by the Department of Education for achieving Highly Accomplished or Lead Teacher status.
