Harmony Week 2026 — Tips and resources for delivering culturally responsive care
Harmony Week 2026, held from Monday 16 to Sunday 22 March, is a time to come together and celebrate multicultural Australia, and an important reminder of the ways in which local healthcare providers can make healthcare safer and more accessible for their patients from diverse backgrounds.
With over 240 languages spoken across the 1.2 million people living in our region, our team provides dedicated support to help improve equitable access to healthcare for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
—Matt Statham | Brisbane South PHN | General Manager, Priority Communities,
Brisbane South PHN provides dedicated support to the local primary health care sector through our Cultural Diversity team. Our team works closely with primary care providers, offering resources and free training, referral pathways to health services, and more.
Read on to learn about the available training and resources available to guide your practice in support of building a more inclusive primary healthcare system for our communities.
Join the free webinar ‘Settlement stories: The challenges of migrating as a health professional’
The Centre for Culture, Equity & Health’s upcoming lunchtime webinar will look at the lived experiences of people who have migrated to Australia as health professionals.
Date: Tuesday 24 March 2026
Time: 11 am to 11:30 am (Brisbane time)
Location: This is an online webinar (via Microsoft Teams)
Communicating across cultures: Enrol in the free Introduction to Cultural Competence training
You and your team can participate in this free, online training course on building cultural competency, provided by Brisbane South PHN. The course is made up of a series of online video modules that give participants the key skills and knowledge to work with people from different cultures. The training covers strategies for reducing misunderstandings caused by culture or language, both with clients and internally with colleagues in the workplace. It sets a clear organisational agenda for cross-cultural practices and creates an opportunity for participants to make these practices routine (2 hours 15 minutes).
Access the training by logging on or registering for the free DiscoverPHN learning portal and selecting the course from the library of available training. Register for or access DiscoverPHN from our webpage.
Find more education and training resources on the topic of multicultural health listed on our website.
Free, peer-to-peer support for GPs caring for patients from refugee backgrounds with Dr Margaret Kay, our GP Clinical Lead for multicultural health and advocate for culturally responsive care
Dr Margaret Kay, a local GP and our Multicultural Health Clinical Lead, has been advocating for culturally responsive care for over 30 years.
Dr Kay can support practices in providing culturally responsive care and becoming ‘refugee health ready’. To request free in-clinic training with Dr Kay, contact [email protected].
Guide to working with interpreters for patient care
Working with interpreters is an important skill and responsibility for all primary care providers.
Working with a qualified interpreter is essential to ensure all patients can access health care regardless of their English language skills. Engaging an interpreter helps you to communicate effectively with your non-English speaking patients, can protect you from professional risk and is consistent with best practice ethical and professional standards.
General practitioners (GPs), pharmacists and many allied health practitioners can engage interpreters for free via TIS National.
Guides for GPs and pharmacists are available to support working with interpreters.
Some privately employed allied health professionals have access to the Australian Government’s Free Interpreting Services (FIS). The FIS aims to provide equitable access to key services for people with limited or no English language proficiency.
If allied health professionals are not eligible for the FIS, Brisbane South PHN has an Interpreting for Allied Health Professionals Program to ensure private allied health services can access interpreting services at no cost across our whole region. Express your interest in this program online.
Be supported to collect cultural data in your practice to enable quality patient care
A culturally responsive medical practice collects demographic information from their patients. This information enables better planning for patient care, can improve safety for patients, and enables services to be appropriately tailored.
The 5 indicators that are recommended for collection include, a patient’s:
country of birth
language used at home
ethnicity
need for an interpreter
year of arrival in Australia.
Some medical software, including Best Practice and Medical Director, can assist practices to record this cultural information. Learn how simple it is to record this data.
You can also help your patients to understand about why your practice collects this data by displaying our Culture Counts poster in your reception area.
More support for primary care professionals
For more information on how we support primary health care providers, including further training and resources not listed in this article, visit our Multicultural Health page or email [email protected].