AASW National Webinar: Supporting CALD Men’s Mental Health with Michael Elwan

There are moments in our professional journey that feel deeply personal - where lived experience, cultural identity, and social work practice meet at the heart of transformation. Delivering a national webinar through the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) is one such moment; an opportunity to explore CALD men’s mental health in Australia and strengthen how social workers engage with culture, masculinity, and wellbeing.

From Silence to Strength: Supporting Mental Health in Men from CaLD Backgrounds

📅 Tuesday 17 March 2026🕐 2:00–3:30pm AEDT

📍 Live via AASW | [Register here]🎓 Earn 1.5 CPD hours (AASW Category 2: Skills & Knowledge)🎥 Includes 2-week recording access + downloadable slides

“If I can’t provide, I’m not a man” A client once said this to me during a moment of deep crisis. His voice was calm, but what lay underneath was grief, shame, and fear - shaped by culture, gender, and systems that rarely made room for his full humanity.

Despite experiencing high levels of distress, men from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds remain underrepresented in mental health support - often presenting only at crisis points, through emergency services, or via involuntary pathways.

This webinar is more than professional development. It’s an invitation to pause, reflect, and reimagine how we connect with the CALD men in our communities - and how we transform silence into strength.

What We'll Explore Together

At this AASW National Webinar on CALD men’s mental health, we’ll explore:

🔹The unspoken weight of cultural masculinity, role expectations, and shame

🔹 Intersections of migration, language, trauma, spirituality, and family roles

🔹 Why “hard to reach” is often code for “easy to overlook”

🔹 Practical tools for culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and identity-sensitive engagement

🔹 How to adapt assessments using metaphor, narrative, and non-Western frameworks

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session, you’ll be able to:

• Identify cultural constructions of masculinity and stigma that shape help-seeking

• Apply strategies using metaphor, body cues, and indirect language

• Analyse the impact of systemic factors like visa precarity, underemployment, and service distrust

• Demonstrate culturally embedded adaptations to mental health assessment

• Reflect on your own lens and articulate one intentional shift in future cross-cultural practice

Who Should Attend?

This session is ideal for:

✔ Established social workers working in mental health, community, or multicultural contexts

✔ Evolving practitioners building confidence in cross-cultural engagement

✔ Counsellors, therapists, case workers, educators, and peer workers looking to enhance their responsiveness with CALD men

✔ Anyone ready to deepen their capacity for culturally safe, masculinity-sensitive, and system-aware care

Whether you work in hospitals, community outreach, justice, education, or refugee services - this AASW National Webinar on CALD men’s mental health is for you.

Why This Matters

I carry this work in honour of my father and all those who have been told - explicitly or implicitly - that strength means silence.

As a social worker, a CALD man, and someone shaped by both grief and renewal, I believe we are being called to do more than raise awareness. We are being called to listen differently, to act bravely, and to lead systems toward healing and equity.

Together, let’s move from cultural checklists to cultural connection. From silence, to strength.

I’d be honoured to have you join me.

Based in Perth, WA, LEXs provides telehealth counselling across Australia for individuals, couples, and NDIS participants. Services extend to Social Work supervision, Peer Work supervision, training, and keynote speaking on men’s mental health, CaLD community wellbeing, and culturally responsive suicide prevention; helping people and organisations make mental-health care more compassionate, inclusive, and effective. LEXs provides services across Australia, supporting clients in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and beyond. To learn more about our work across Australia, visit LEXs' services.