Language and culture
Asking for support in your own language is not a special request
Half of what makes support work is being understood. If English is not the language spoken at home, that is worth saying out loud early.
I speak Arabic. It comes up in almost every first phone call from an Arabic-speaking family, and the relief in somebody's voice when they hear it is hard to describe to people who have never needed it.
It is not really about vocabulary. Most families I speak to have enough English to get through a shopping trip. It is about the harder conversations: explaining a diagnosis, describing what personal care actually involves, saying that you are not coping. Those are difficult in a first language. In a second one they are close to impossible.
What gets lost when the language is wrong
- People agree to supports they have not understood, because agreeing is easier than asking again.
- Goals in a plan end up being the planner's words, not the family's.
- Nobody mentions what the family actually needs, because it takes too long to explain.
- Plans go unused. The funding sits there, and everyone assumes the family is fine.
What you can ask for
You can ask for an interpreter at NDIS planning meetings, and it does not cost you anything. You can ask your provider to match you with a worker who speaks your language. You can ask for documents to be explained rather than handed over.
You can also ask for the thing people rarely ask for: more time. A meeting that runs longer because it is happening in two languages is a meeting that worked.
A support plan that sits in a drawer helps nobody. A plan someone actually understood gets used.
Culture is part of it too
Language is the obvious half. The rest is knowing that a support worker will take their shoes off at the door, understand why the whole family is at the meeting, or know what Ramadan does to a mealtime routine.
We will not always get this right, and we do not claim to speak every language spoken in Melbourne's north. What we can promise is that if we cannot support you in your language ourselves, we will say so, and we will help you find someone who can.
نتحدث العربية
General information only. For advice about your own plan, talk to your planner, your support coordinator, or ring us on 0435 785 828.
