Welcome to Indian (sub-cont) crisis & support agency
ICSA is the 1st NGO for South Asian Community in Australia, dedicated to the welfare of people with heritage from the Indian Sub-Continent.
The Indian (Sub-Cont) Crisis & Support Agency – ICSA was formally launched by the Lord Mayor of Parramatta on 30 July 2014 at Deloitte Parramatta.
The creation of ICSA is in response to growing numbers of migrants from this region who are without specific support services or fall through gaps in the Australian systems.
ICSA is a professional organisation that:
- works with existing services to improve effectiveness
- works with the community to improve access
- develops bespoke services to close identified gaps
- translates community intelligence into evidence based training & reference material.
- uses real data to advocate for social policy change
This model came from approximately four years of research into what are the key issues affecting the Culturally & Linguistically Diverse (CALD) community of the Indian Sub-Continent. We found:
- Large numbers of arrivals over a short period of time means localised social groups are an inadequate means of support.
- ‘Asking your mates’ system commonly used was exacerbating problems, as one person’s mistaken belief carried over.
- Impact of cultural expectations not recognised in services, so everyone was in a one box fits all situation. Which means either people are left out, give up or are not eligible.
- Appropriate core services are not available such as culturally appropriate foster care, language specific professional mental health services, and contextually correct interpretation both in language and culture.
- Gaps in specific services are an unsustainable drain on other services which then start to solve problems at the local level giving inconsistent outcomes and the wider problem ignored.
- The academic teaching of multicultural community service provision is based largely on assumption, collectivisation and standardisation. There is a huge gap in the level of research and statistics that should be applied to academic content at all levels.
The first and fundamental purpose of ICSA is to provide crisis management services, which is in the form of client case management services.