Clinicians will be better equipped to overcome the challenges of treating people from multicultural backgrounds living with a mental illness with a new e-learning tool launched today by the NSW Government.

The Connecting with Carers from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds in Mental Health Settings e-learning tool would help break down the barriers many people from non-English speaking backgrounds face in accessing proper treatment.

Most Australians will be directly or indirectly touched by mental illness at some point in their lives, and for families and carers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds this can involve many extra challenges.

Language and communication barriers can often mean some people have more difficulties in accessing services and negotiating the health care system successfully.

Through the new e-learning tool the NSW Government is enhancing the development of skills for mental health clinicians to increase support for families and patients from multicultural backgrounds.

Connecting with Carers from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds in Mental Health Settings provides clinicians with a case study that looks 'through a one way mirror' into the life of a fictitious Macedonian family, and displays the challenges such families face in connecting with treatment.

The e-learning tool helps unpack the elements of the situation the family finds itself in and assists clinicians to understand and respond to the family’s circumstances.

The more skills and understanding clinicians have about families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, the more likely they will have a successful outcome.