By APSC CALD Strategy team
In the APS is a workforce of more than 185,000 people, we each have our own unique story.
Imagine then having to decide on just 12 of those stories for a project, ‘Many cultures, one APS’, is designed to showcase the lived experience of culturally diverse people from across the APS.
That’s the task the CALD Strategy team – which drives implementation of the APS Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Employment Strategy – has been grappling with this year for a project funded under round 2 of the APS Capability Reinvestment Fund.
‘Many cultures, one APS’ is designed to support the APS capability priority to ensure culturally and psychologically safe physical and virtual workplaces.
Consultation with APS staff ahead of the launch of the strategy in 2024 found a strong appetite for CALD stories to be shared across the APS workforce to support better cultural awareness.
Feedback during this process also showed the lived experience of some CALD staff could be very challenging but there was widespread concern that, in general, non-CALD staff could not see the barriers presented by systemic inequities, as well as the instances of racism and discrimination.
Drawing on evidence that storytelling and sharing experiences are powerful learning techniques, the project involves the production of 12 videos to be published on the APS Academy website and accessible to all agencies across the Commonwealth public sector as a learning resource.
Empathetic and ethical storytelling has been key to the delivery of the project and protecting the privacy of storytellers has informed both the execution and delivery of the videos.
So how did we choose the 12 storytellers in the end? All storytellers identify as CALD based on different elements of their identity, such as race, ethnicity, language, heritage and place of birth. For them, being culturally diverse has had both positive and negative impacts on their APS working lives.
We used stories shared during the consultation process to begin curating but ultimately, we needed more storytellers to choose from.
Full representation is difficult with a sample of 12 but we wanted gender balance and to represent a diverse range of cultures, job roles and religions.
We were lucky to be able to draw on a resourceful CALD network across the APS who have helped us source storytellers, filming locations and been valuable sounding boards through the life of the project.
It has been a fast-moving project since our creative collaborator came on board in February. Across the team, we have gained new expertise in procurement, privacy policy, scripting, as ‘extras’ during filming, and as location scouts.
Since April, staff at some agencies have seen us ‘on location’ in the thick of filming, we have been sourcing talent to represent our storytellers, and we thank APS colleagues who have been willing to deal with the disruption of a film crew to provide their workplace as a filming location.
The project itself has been a huge learning experience for our team – our advice for colleagues who may take part in a similar project is:
- Spruce up your stakeholder engagement skills and work with your networks, they’re an immense source of knowledge and resources.
- If you don’t have the skills required, ask someone – most people are willing to share their expertise.
- Reach out to your agency Legal team to explore issues around privacy and storytelling – it can be very complicated.
- Start as early as possible even if the deadline seems a long way away. Problems will come up, people will move on and you will appreciate all the work you have accomplished.
- Save important documentation in a safe, shared location as you go. If your team delivering the project changes, this is your ‘corporate knowledge’ and will be invaluable.
We’re nearly ready to launch the first videos of the series, so stay tuned to the MyAcademy newsletter for more details on where to watch ‘Many cultures, one APS’.
We hope it’s a valuable and engaging cultural learning resource for everyone in the APS.