Celebrating culture is a priority at Tweddle. Because culture is such a powerful indicator of a child’s future well-being, it is important for staff to understand and embrace different cultural parenting practices, beliefs and preferences.

Harmony Week (20th-26th March), Cultural Diversity Week (11th – 21st March) and Harmony Day (21st March) are opportunities to celebrate, share and embrace cultural diversity. This includes celebrating the diversity of the staff at Tweddle and the families we care for.

During Cultural Diversity Week and Harmony Week, Tweddle will welcome families from Spain, Vietnam, Ireland, China, Italy, India, Iraq, Nepal and Indonesia.

Tweddle offers an interpreter service for a family’s assessment and intake call. Further support from an interpreter is offered onsite during the family’s Residential program in the mornings and afternoons.

Cultural diversity awareness and tradition play important roles in helping babies, toddlers and young children develop a positive sense of identity and build self-esteem. Harmony Day and Cultural Diversity week are about inclusiveness, respect and belonging regardless of cultural or linguistic background.

Tweddle believe in supporting babies, toddlers, children, and families to stay connected to cultures, communities and Countries.

The national Close The Gap day is a reminder of the role that Tweddle, a state-wide family health and early parenting organisation, plays in helping to improve and influence health outcomes for Aboriginal families, children and their communities.

For Tweddle, supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families means acknowledging the injustices of the past and how they cause trauma across generations.

Close the Gap started in 2005 with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Professor Tom Calma AO, in his Social Justice Report 2005, urged Australian governments to commit to achieving equality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in health and life expectancy within 25 years.

The Implementation Plan is about practical action. The gap is not closing fast enough, and, on some measures, it is going backwards.

Closing the Gap acknowledges the ongoing strength and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in sustaining the world’s oldest living cultures. It also recognises that structural change in the way governments work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is needed to close the gap.