World Refugee Week 2026: Resources to enhance care for patients of refugee backgrounds
Primary healthcare professionals in partnership with PHNs play a critical role in improving refugee health outcomes. Migrant and refugee communities have historically faced persistent language barriers, as well as limited access to interpreters and culturally responsive services, which can weaken their engagement with the healthcare system. With your help, we are working to coordinate more accessible, culturally appropriate care for all peoples in our region, aiming to reduce inequities and prevent avoidable hospitalisations.
As we wrap up Refugee Week 2026, we invite you to read on and access resources designed to enhance the culturally safe care you provide your patients.
We can support your practice to provide care for people of refugee backgrounds
The Brisbane South PHN region has some of the highest refugee resettlement rates in Queensland. While people from refugee backgrounds share common health concerns with the general population, many face additional, complex health challenges from having survived conflict, persecution and displacement from their loved ones and communities.
Our Cultural Diversity team can support primary care providers with resources and training around:
referral pathways
capturing important cultural data and more.
Help provide culturally safe care — Enrol in the free Introduction to Cultural Competence training
Clinicians and practice teams are invited to participate in a free, online training course on building cultural competency, provided by Brisbane South PHN.
The course is a series of online video modules that give participants the key skills and knowledge to work with peoples 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.
Course duration is 2 hours 15 minutes. The course is self-paced, and progress can be saved to return to later.
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.
More information for practitioners
Find local resources listed on our Multicultural Health webpages.
Primary care clinicians can access locally relevant information to make the right decisions, together with patients, at the point of care on Brisbane South HealthPathways:
Visit the Refugee Health Network Queensland website for a comprehensive range of information and resources about refugee health, including translated resources.
See how easy and beneficial it is to record the cultural background on your patients.