Abstract
In Australia's multicultural ageing context, older immigrants’ community participation is shaped by institutional arrangements that value inclusion yet struggle to accommodate cultural difference. This article examines how CASS Care Ltd, a long-standing community organisation, supported culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) older adults to become volunteers. Drawing on qualitative analysis of group activities and interviews, the study finds that the defining feature of the CASS Model is assisted self-governance, composed of three interdependent elements: empowerment, institutional support, and cultural sensitivity. Together, these elements explain how older immigrants transition from passive service recipients to active community volunteers. We argue that assisted self-governance is a practical model of culturally responsive governance through which volunteering becomes both community-led and institutionally supported and sustained. By theorising this model, the article advances understandings of ageing, migration, and multicultural governance, illustrating how inclusion can be achieved through relational and culturally grounded forms of organisation.
Introduction
The community participation of older immigrants raises fundamental questions about inclusion, governance, and the conditions under which social belonging is enacted. The issue is not just whether older immigrants integrate, but how their participation is mediated through institutional and cultural arrangements that structure opportunity, recognition, and constraint. While considerable attention has been paid to migrants’ access to health, welfare, and intergenerational support systems (Liu et al., 2023; Treas, 2014; Victor et al., 2012), far less is known about the organisational forms through which their social participation is made possible. This article focuses on volunteering, often idealised as a vehicle for active ageing and social connection (Wilson, 2012), to examine how participation can be nurtured and sustained among older immigrants from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds.
Volunteering is often viewed as an individual act driven by altruism or wellbeing motives (Hank & Erlinghagen, 2010; Vannier et al., 2021). Yet participation is never purely individual: it depends on the infrastructures, cultural expectations, and governance arrangements that shape who is included, how activities are organised, and whose norms prevail. In the Australian context, older immigrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds remain under-represented in formal volunteering, despite constituting a growing segment of the ageing population (ABS, 2023; Handy & Greenspan, 2009; Ooi & Young, 2021). Linguistic marginalisation, cultural misalignment, and bureaucratic complexity continue to limit their engagement. These are not incidental barriers but structural features of the civic field that reveal how integration is institutionally mediated rather than merely chosen.
Volunteering has also long been recognised as a mechanism of social integration, contributing to networks, belonging, and intergenerational exchange for older people (Li et al., 2025; Warburton & Winterton, 2017). For CALD immigrants, it can also be a pathway to visibility and self-worth (Leong, 2008). Yet mainstream volunteer programs are commonly designed around Anglo-liberal norms of citizenship and individual agency, which privilege standardised procedures and English-language governance, rendering older migrants dependent on intermediaries or excluding them altogether (Kerr et al., 2001; Tamasese et al., 2010). Understanding how participation becomes possible therefore requires attention not only to motivations and benefits but also to the institutional and cultural architectures that support or constrain it.
Organisational Structure of CASS Community Volunteering. Source: Figure Drawn by Authors Based on Interviews with CASS Management Staff.
This article examines one such architecture through a qualitative case study of CASS Care Ltd, a major social-service organisation initially serving Chinese-Australian and later other CALD communities. Over four decades, CASS has cultivated an extensive network of Senior Activity Groups run largely by older volunteers. These groups are neither fully autonomous nor tightly managed; rather, they operate through layered relationships of leadership, coordination, and support that enable participation across linguistic and cultural boundaries. The analysis explores how this hybrid form of governance evolved, how volunteers and staff negotiate authority and responsibility, and what forms of belonging it produces.
Three questions guide the study:
How do older CALD immigrants engage in volunteering through the CASS system? What organisational and cultural processes enable their participation? What tensions or contradictions arise in practice, and how are they negotiated?
By addressing these questions, the article contributes to sociological understandings of volunteering, ageing, and migration. It shows that inclusion is not achieved through outreach or assimilation but through layered arrangements that link community agency with institutional mediation. When institutions act as enablers rather than directors, providing scaffolding while preserving local autonomy, volunteering can become both culturally grounded and structurally sustained, generating ripple effects that extend beyond organisational boundaries into volunteers’ broader civic lives.
The following sections situate these issues within the wider literature on social integration and volunteer governance and introduce the CASS context and methodology, and then present the findings. The discussion theorises these dynamics as a distinctive mode of governance, what we term ‘assisted self-governance’, in which empowerment, institutional support and cultural sensitivity emerge as interdependent conditions for volunteering in culturally diverse ageing communities.
Volunteering and Migrant Social Integration in Later Life
Volunteering and Social Integration
Volunteering promotes social engagement and integration in ageing, multicultural societies by building social networks, strengthening belonging, and fostering intergenerational ties (Cappelletti & Valtolina, 2015). Increasingly, research attention has turned to the role of volunteering in supporting the integration of older migrants. For older adults from CALD backgrounds, volunteering can provide a transformative means of engagement, enhance wellbeing. and support inclusion (Handy & Greenspan, 2009; Warburton & McLaughlin, 2017). According to Berry (1997), integration involves active participation in social, cultural, and economic systems, underpinned by mutual trust and collective identification. A growing body of literature has highlighted the benefits and motivations of later-life volunteering (Vannier et al., 2021; Wilson, 2012). Within this literature, valuable insights have emerged regarding individual and interpersonal experiences of participation, as well as the challenges of cultural differences and structural disadvantage.
Migrant and CALD Older Adults in Volunteering
Empirical studies have identified a range of barriers to participation in formal volunteering among CALD older adults. These include linguistic and communicative challenges, such as limited English proficiency or lack of translated materials; cultural incongruities, where expectations about hierarchy, reciprocity, and recognition may differ from dominant volunteer norms; and institutional complexity, where unfamiliar systems and bureaucratic requirements may discourage engagement (Handy & Greenspan, 2009; Kerr et al., 2001; Tamasese et al., 2010). In addition, care responsibilities and intergenerational obligations within families may limit time and capacity for civic involvement (Patel et al., 2022). These constraints suggest that formal volunteering must be adapted to serve as inclusive platforms for older immigrants.
Governance and Organisational Mediation
Volunteer governance models are typically categorised as organised, self-governed, or hybrid (Fenger et al., 2023). Organised models are professionally managed and highly structured, often offering consistency and institutional legitimacy, but may lack the flexibility needed to accommodate cultural diversity (Hager & Brudney, 2016). Self-governed models, by contrast, are community-led and promote local autonomy, though they may face challenges of sustainability and resource constraints (Cornwall et al., 2000). Hybrid approaches seek to combine the strengths of both, blending institutional support with grassroots initiative (Rochester et al., 2020). While these models offer valuable frameworks, relatively less emphasis has been placed on how cultural responsiveness and institutional familiarity intersect to shape governance outcomes for older CALD volunteers.
Taken together, these literatures show that volunteering among older immigrants cannot be understood without attention to the organisational and cultural infrastructures that mediate participation. What remains underexplored is how these infrastructures are governed, how institutions enable, shape, or sometimes limit community agency. This article addresses this gap through an in-depth case study of CASS Care Ltd, tracing how a hybrid form of community-based volunteering allows older CALD adults to act collectively within supportive institutional frameworks.
Empirical Context: CASS and the Assisted Self-Governance Framework
The Chinese Australian Services Society (CASS) is one of Australia's largest CALD community organisations, supporting over 7,000 families weekly across metropolitan and regional New South Wales and Victoria. Since its establishment in 1981, CASS has delivered services in aged care, settlement support, and volunteering. While formal programs are delivered by trained staff and regulated volunteers, many non-core activities, such as language classes, health talks, and social outings, are initiated and led by older volunteers through decentralised Senior Activity Groups.
To support these groups, CASS has developed a governance model that balances local autonomy with institutional coordination. As shown in , each group is led by a volunteer coordinator and supported by other volunteers and members. These groups operate under local management committees (LMCs), which provide oversight and ensure alignment with organisational goals. A Volunteer Affairs Coordination Committee connects the groups to the CASS Board. Informal leadership roles, such as respected elders and elected group representatives, further reinforce legitimacy and cultural continuity. This layered system fosters decentralised, culturally responsive governance within an institutional framework.
This organisational structure provides an empirical example of what we conceptualise as assisted self-governance, a hybrid arrangement in which older CALD volunteers organise and lead group activities with partial autonomy, supported by institutional scaffolding, that provides training, logistics, and resources. It differs from co-governance, where authority is formally shared, and from managerial models focused on compliance and control. Instead, it enhances civic agency while addressing structural barriers such as language, complex bureaucracy, and uneven access to formal systems.
Volunteers within this framework take on a range of roles that reflect varying degrees of responsibility. Group leaders coordinate activities, manage logistics, adapt programs to cultural preferences, and serve as liaisons with LMCs. Supporting volunteers assist with practical tasks such as venue set-up, communications, and event planning. All members have some informal roles to play during the day-to-day activities, fostering a participatory environment and shared ownership of group life.
A defining strength of the model lies in its balance between autonomy and oversight. Volunteers are empowered to tailor activities, such as Tai Chi, calligraphy, or traditional music, to the interests and identities of their members, while relying on CASS for infrastructure, funding, and administrative guidance. This flexible yet supportive structure allows volunteer groups to operate with a high degree of self-direction, while ensuring alignment with organisational values such as inclusion, safety, and sustainability.
Methodology
This study employs a case study methodology to explore the operationalisation of the assisted self-governance model practised within CASS. A case study approach is particularly suited for examining complex governance models within specific cultural and organisational contexts, offering in-depth insights into how volunteering fosters social integration among older adults from CALD backgrounds. As Simons (2009) suggests, case studies allow for the holistic examination of phenomena within their real-life context, providing a nuanced understanding of the interplay between structure and agency in governance models.
This study focuses on a single organisation, CASS Care Ltd, but one that operates across more than ten locations in New South Wales and Victoria, including both metropolitan suburbs and regional towns. This geographic spread offers the opportunity to observe how assisted self-governance is implemented across diverse demographic and spatial contexts. While this study does not conduct a systematic comparison across sites, it includes examples from both high-density areas and more dispersed communities, allowing for reflection on the model's adaptability to local conditions.
Research Design
This study adopted a qualitative design to examine CASS’s practices and their impact on social integration. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and organisational document analysis to capture both individual and institutional perspectives.
To capture the geographic diversity of CASS’s operations and the nuanced experiences of its volunteers, the study selected participants from both metropolitan and regional contexts. Sydney council areas such as Burwood where 32.8 per cent of residents have Chinese ancestry (ABS, 2021a) and Campsie where 34.5 per cent of residents have Chinese ancestry (ABS, 2021b) represent the well-resourced hubs of CASS, with structured activities and centralised support. In contrast, regional centres like Wollongong with one per cent of residents speaking Mandarin (ABS, 2021c) at home, 80 kilometres south of Sydney, operate in resource-constrained environments, highlighting the adaptability of the CASS service delivery model.
Participants were purposefully selected to reflect the diverse settings in which CASS operates. Interviews included leaders and volunteers from ten Senior Activity Groups spread across Greater Sydney and regional New South Wales. These groups engaged in varied activities, including fitness classes, language learning, and social events, tailored to local needs. An analysis of institutional documents provided an understanding of how variations in the make-up of an area's population influence volunteering practices and community engagement.
In-depth interviews were conducted with 48 participants, including 15 group leaders, 33 supporting volunteers, and 5 staff members. The sample was designed to represent diverse roles within CASS, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of its governance model from both leadership and grassroots perspectives. Interview questions explored motivations for volunteering and the impacts thereof, the role of empowerment and leadership development, and the influence of institutional support on overcoming cultural barriers. Interviews were semi-structured and lasted between one and one-and-a-half hours, allowing for flexible, in-depth discussions guided by a thematic framework centred on empowerment, cultural appropriateness, and institutional support.
In addition to individual interviews, a focus group was conducted with the honorary executive director, managers working on Community Services and three social workers employed by CASS. The focus group provided an understanding of CASS’s historical evolution, governance practices, and strategies for addressing challenges faced by older CALD adults. The three-hour session was facilitated to encourage open and reflective dialogue, uncovering key organisational-level insights into the assisted self-governance framework. A summary of the interviewed volunteers is shown in Table 1. The participants’ substantial commitment to volunteering, with an average of 10 or more hours per week and an average tenure of 11.6 years, highlights their ability to provide valuable information and insights into the CASS Model.
Profile of the Older Volunteers That Were Interviewed (2022 & 2023).
Source: Data collected by the research team.
NB: * Several interviewees spoke more than one language; therefore, the sum of language speakers can be larger than the total number of interviewees.
** Some interviewees work in multiple positions; hence, it is very difficult for them to estimate the time devoted to volunteering.
Data Analysis
Data analysis followed an iterative and inductive approach, leveraging thematic analysis as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006) to identify key patterns and insights. Transcripts from interviews and focus groups were coded using NVivo software, ensuring a systematic and transparent coding process. Initial codes, including empowerment (volunteers’ ability to take initiative and lead activities), institutional support (forms of organisational assistance and coordination), and cultural sensitivity (adaptation to linguistic and cultural norms), were generated based on recurring patterns in the data and refined through iterative coding. These codes were not imposed a priori but emerged iteratively from participants’ accounts, later forming the analytical scaffolding for theorising assisted self-governance. This process facilitated the identification of nuanced themes, such as the interplay between cultural values and institutional support in shaping volunteer experiences.
Interviews conducted in Mandarin or Cantonese were translated into English by bilingual researchers with expertise in both languages and cultural contexts. Five interviews were conducted in English. To ensure accuracy translations were reviewed by bilingual speakers, preserving the nuances and context of participants’ responses. Triangulation was used to enhance the validity of the findings by comparing insights from the interviews, focus groups, and organisational documents. This approach allowed for cross-validation of data, ensuring complementarity between individual and institutional perspectives. By drawing on these diverse sources, the analysis provided a holistic understanding of how the governance of volunteer activities at CASS impacts social integration.
This case study approach enables close analysis of governance dynamics in real-world, community-based settings. The organisation's operations across more than 10 geographical locations and its long-term engagement with CALD populations offer a rich context for understanding how an assisted governance model in volunteering can be useful in addressing challenges in geographically dispersed, multicultural settings.
The study was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the authors’ institution (Approval Nos. HC220768 and HC21097).
Findings
This section presents the main themes emerging from interviews and organisational documents, illustrating how assisted self-governance operates in practice. The analysis focuses on three core dimensions: empowerment, institutional support, and cultural sensitivity, and two cross-cutting dynamics: the broader civic impacts of volunteering and the governance challenges encountered in diverse settings.
Empowerment: Leadership, Belonging, and Identity
Empowerment here refers to how older volunteers acquire the capacity to act, lead, and influence group life, not as isolated individuals but through relationships of trust and mutual responsibility. It captures the movement from participation to leadership that many volunteers described, and the sense of belonging and recognition that came with it. Empowerment, within the assisted self-governance model, was experienced by older CALD volunteers as the capacity to lead, contribute, and remain socially embedded. This empowerment was grounded in both structural opportunities and shared peer norms, allowing participants to assume responsibility and be recognised within their community groups.
Many volunteers took on organisational and leadership roles that allowed them to shape the direction of their groups. These responsibilities often drew upon participants’ prior skills and were assumed informally rather than formally appointed. As one group leader (female, 75) noted, ‘We have retired teachers running Mandarin classes, while others lead fitness or arts activities based on their expertise… I also contribute as much as I can.’ Participants framed these roles not in terms of hierarchy but as contributions within a collective.
Leadership was often tied to personal identity and life history. For one male volunteer (60s), leading a cultural activity was both a skill-sharing and meaning-making process: ‘I am a dough figurine artist… I started volunteering after my father passed away… Now I help plan the whole term's activities.’ Leadership in these accounts was not about status, but about using personal skills and enacting continuity and relevance through contribution.
Others described how assuming leadership altered how they saw themselves. One woman (68) explained, ‘I used to just attend. But when I became coordinator, I felt different… I was doing something for others.’ This shift in self-understanding, moving from being passive to active, was central to how empowerment was experienced and articulated.
For longer-serving volunteers, group involvement extended beyond participation into a form of stewardship. One participant (female, 76) recalled, ‘We established the group over 20 years ago… Being part of its growth is something I’m proud of.’ Volunteers spoke of their group as ‘ours,’ signalling a sense of collective ownership that was distinct from service receipt. The continuity of participation and peer affirmation appeared to reinforce this identity.
Recognition is an important element of the CASS Model. CASS regularly hosted large celebratory dinners where volunteers received certificates, prizes, and public appreciation for their contributions. These events were significant social rituals, featuring performances by volunteer teams, shared meals, and speeches acknowledging specific achievements. A long-serving coordinator (female, 84) commented, ‘Receiving certificates and awards from CASS makes me feel appreciated for what I do.’ The recognition could also be informal. Another volunteer (female, 82), who coordinated a community clean-up group, noted their experience on being thanked in public, ‘We walk in the neighbourhood in our CASS shirts… They smile at us. Some even say, “thank you”.’
In addition to recognition, volunteers emphasised the emotional and relational benefits of their involvement. A participant (female, 79) explained, ‘Participating in these activities helps me connect with society and adapt better… It's very uplifting.’ These moments of social contribution offered participants not just a role, but a sense of belonging.
Taken together, these accounts show that empowerment was enacted through daily practices of organising, leading, and being seen. It was relational, situated, and supported by an environment where volunteers could move from peripheral participation to central roles in shaping group life.
Institutional Support: Scaffolding for Sustaining Volunteer Activities
Institutional support denotes the organisational resources, training, and coordination that enable groups to function while preserving their autonomy. It describes how CASS provides scaffolding, venues, guidance, and problem-solving so volunteers can focus on community life rather than administration. Institutional support enabled older CALD volunteers to engage in group coordination while navigating structural barriers such as language, bureaucracy, and leadership turnover. Rather than replacing volunteer initiative, support took the form of scaffolding, providing infrastructure, training, and assistance while preserving local autonomy.
Volunteers often relied on institutional support for tasks that required formal procedures or external communication. While the groups operated autonomously, background support from staff lessened the administrative burden and allowed participants to focus on group functioning. One volunteer (female, 71) described, ‘CASS helped rent the venue, and the group fee can be used for the party… Sometimes we forget things like cutlery, and they will deliver it to us.’ Such logistical assistance was not the centre of group life but a condition that enabled its smooth functioning. Another volunteer (female, 76) commented, ‘CASS is now responsible for shopping and running errands for the group, which really eases our workload.’ These forms of assistance were especially valued when health, language, or digital barriers made coordination difficult.
Beyond logistics, volunteers described training as key to their ability to manage group responsibilities. Training sessions covered both practical and interpersonal topics and were experienced as capacity-building. A participant (female, 80) noted, ‘Volunteer training included first aid, safety, and communication with the elderly… It was very useful and helped us know how to handle situations better.’ Another participant (female, 81), who became a group leader, reflected on how institutional guidance supported her transition: ‘The coordinator guided me on how to organise things… That gave me the confidence to become a leader later on.’ Training, in these accounts, supported more than technical competency, it enabled participation by building confidence in navigating unfamiliar systems.
Support was not limited to task-based assistance. Some volunteers described the importance of having someone to consult when difficulties arose. This interpersonal backing contributed to group cohesion and reduced burnout among key organisers. A participant (female, 78) described the emotional dynamic: ‘The group feels like family. Adult children don’t care as much as group members do… It's a great support system.’ While this support was primarily peer-driven, staff presence offered additional reassurance when conflict or uncertainty emerged.
Despite these forms of support, some volunteers reported gaps, particularly around language access, digital skills, and bureaucratic complexity. A participant (female, 75) noted, ‘Some of our members don’t speak much English, and the online forms are confusing. It would help to have more support with translations or a helpline during registration periods.’ This feedback suggests that institutional scaffolding is only effective when it aligns with the needs of participants. The participation of some volunteers was more challenging due to linguistic and digital inequalities.
While both volunteers and staff described self-governance as cooperative, their emphases differed slightly in how they understood autonomy and organisational oversight. These contrasts are summarised in Table 2.
Comparing Volunteer and Staff Perspectives on Self-Governance in the CASS Model.
Source: Interview and focus group data, 2023.
These differences were not oppositional but reflected the distinct positions volunteers and staff occupied within the governance structure. Volunteers emphasised independence and recognition, whereas staff highlighted partnership and accountability as essential for sustainability.
Similar complementarities appeared in how volunteers and staff prioritised ongoing forms of support, as shown in Table 3.
Staff and Volunteer Perspectives on Institutional Support Needs.
Source: Interview and focus group data, 2023.
These parallel perspectives highlight that institutional support functions both as an enabling framework and as an accountability mechanism.
A group leader reflected on the broader relationship with CASS: ‘CASS provides us with the resources we need but doesn’t micromanage. This gives us the flexibility to run things our way while knowing we have their support if needed’ (female, 75).
Overall, institutional support played a facilitative but not directive role. It allowed volunteers to remain at the centre of group governance, while ensuring that structural or technical barriers did not exclude them from participating fully. The next section turns to the cultural dimension of this relationship, showing how volunteers and CASS negotiate inclusion and adaptation in practice.
Cultural Sensitivity: Volunteer Practices and Organisational Reponses
Cultural sensitivity concerns the reciprocal adjustments through which volunteers and the organisation align participation with community norms, languages, and expectations of care and hierarchy. It highlights how cultural practices are negotiated in everyday group activities and institutional procedures. Cultural sensitivity within the assisted self-governance model was not a fixed attribute but a continuing process of mutual adaptation between volunteers and the organisation. It unfolded simultaneously at two levels: through volunteers’ everyday negotiation of cultural practices and diversity within their groups and through CASS’s institutional responses to the tensions, inequalities, and procedural barriers that arose in practices. Together, these dynamics reveal that cultural adaptation was both a grassroots process of inclusion and an institutional process of responsive adjustment, each shaping the other within the assisted self-governance model.
Volunteer-Led Adaptation
Language use strongly influenced group accessibility and participation. Volunteers described how meetings were conducted in community languages, which reduced barriers for many, but also required informal translation roles. One participant (female, 77) stated, ‘We speak Cantonese or Mandarin during meetings. It's easier to organise things when everyone understands, and we don’t have to translate everything. It feels natural.’ These bilingual practices allowed for smoother internal communication, but also led to reliance on certain members for interpretation or clarification, particularly when dealing with government agencies or when filling forms is necessary. Many participants expressed appreciation for activities that reflected familiar customs and traditions. These helped structure the group calendar and made participation feel relevant. As one volunteer (female, 81) shared: ‘We do calligraphy, Chinese painting, and sometimes celebrate Lunar New Year together. These things are important. They make me feel like I belong, like I haven’t lost everything from home.’
Cultural familiarity facilitated planning, engagement, and informal leadership. However, it did not always accommodate the diversity within groups. For example, the leader of a dancing group observed, ‘It is not easy to choose the music that everyone loves to dance to. Older people from different parts of China grew up with very different songs!’ This internal diversity occasionally led to challenges. One volunteer (female, 74) explained: ‘Even within the Chinese group, people don’t always get along. Some speak Mandarin, some Cantonese. Sometimes people don’t understand each other, or feel left out.’ While CASS staff sometimes assisted, conflict management was usually informal and volunteer-led, with long-serving leaders stepping in to mediate or re-align expectations. In summary, cultural sensitivity was embedded in how groups communicated, organised activities, and responded to internal complexity. While this enhanced accessibility for many, it also required ongoing negotiation among volunteers to balance cultural cohesion with diversity.
Several volunteers also described difficulties with administrative or digital processes such as English-only forms and online registration. A participant (female, 75) noted: ‘Some of our members don’t speak much English, and the online forms are confusing. It would help to have more support with translations or a helpline during registration periods.’ These obstacles were experienced not merely as technical problems but as culturally inflected encounters with unfamiliar bureaucratic expectations. As one staff member observed: ‘Many potential volunteers are discouraged by the legal paperwork required… The government website is entirely in English.’ CASS’s translation and mediation work therefore represented not only logistical assistance, but a form of cultural bridging between relational volunteer practices and procedural governance systems.
Organisational Adaptation
At the institutional level, staff acknowledged the importance of balancing organisational responsibilities with the lived realities of culturally diverse volunteer groups. Volunteers typically conducted meetings in their own languages, which was not only culturally appropriate but essential for ensuring comprehension and participation. At the same time, staff were responsible for maintaining compliance with formal requirements such as risk protocols or insurance coverage. As one staff member explained: ‘We want to respect their cultural preferences, but we also have to ensure that activities follow safety guidelines.’ This reflects the practical tension between enabling accessible, community-led participation and meeting institutional accountability standards, not a critique of the volunteers themselves.
Some regional groups experienced limited access to organisational resources or centralised events. A volunteer (female, 71) remarked: ‘We sometimes feel left out because we can’t attend major events or get the same level of support as groups closer to the city.’ Although staff attempted to remain available, logistical constraints remained. One staff member commented: ‘I make myself available… Although the help may be limited, at least they can call me.’
Leadership succession also posed ongoing challenges. One participant (female, 70s) said: ‘I feel that once I quit, the group will disappear… I haven’t found anyone to take over.’ Others noted that leadership was time-consuming and emotionally taxing, particularly when conflict emerged. In such cases staff sometimes provided mediation. A volunteer (female, 78) recalled, ‘Social workers stepped in to explain… So the group finally had someone to take the lead.’ These examples show how CASS continuously adjusted its support systems through mentoring, communication, and mediation to sustain volunteer autonomy while ensuring organisational consistency.
Taken together, these volunteer-led and organisational responses show that cultural sensitivity within assisted self-governance is not static awareness but an adaptive relationship. Volunteers translate cultural norms into everyday practices that foster belonging, while CASS adapts its structures and procedures to these evolving realities. The process is iterative: community diversity continually generates new challenges, and the organisation's flexible responses re-embed those challenges within an inclusive governance framework. Cultural adaptation thus becomes both the mechanism and the measure of assisted self-governance, demonstrating how inclusion is achieved not through uniformity or harmony but through ongoing negotiation across cultural, linguistic, bureaucratic, and institutional boundaries.
The adaptive nature of CASS's model also produced ripple effects beyond the immediate volunteer groups, shaping community connections and influencing other organisations. These broader outcomes are discussed further in the following section.
Discussion
This article introduces assisted self-governance as a distinctive hybrid governance model that addresses a critical gap in how multicultural societies enable civic participation among marginalised older adults. Unlike co-production approaches that presume equal institutional–community partnerships, or managerial models that prioritise compliance and control (Fenger et al., 2023; Hager & Brudney, 2016), assisted self-governance supports grassroots leadership through light-touch, culturally attuned scaffolding that complements rather than replaces community initiative. Its strength lies not in avoiding tension but in how tensions are negotiated through relationships, informal support, and flexible institutional backing. This framework is particularly relevant in multicultural contexts such as Australia, where standardised volunteer governance models often fail to accommodate diverse expectations of leadership, reciprocity, and participation. Rather than offering a fixed template, assisted self-governance provides a context-sensitive principle that CALD communities can adapt to their own languages, traditions, and norms.
The findings show that the CASS Model operationalised these dynamics in practice, enabling older volunteers to coordinate, lead, and sustain groups within a supportive institutional environment. The CASS case therefore allows the identification and theorisation of assisted self-governance as a set of transferable principles rather than organisation-specific practices. While CASS developed these practices organically over four decades, our analysis reveals an underlying governance logic that extends beyond this single organisation. What distinguishes this contribution is not describing what CASS does but theorising how and why its approach works, building directly on the three recurring dimensions identified in the findings, empowerment, institutional support, and cultural sensitivity, as interdependent conditions for inclusion. This analytical move transforms a locally developed model into a conceptual tool that other organisations can adapt, provided they maintain fidelity to the relational principles rather than merely replicating structural features.
Empowerment refers to how individuals and groups gain the capacity to act, lead, and influence collective life. Within CASS, empowerment was evident when volunteers assumed leadership roles, organised activities, and experienced recognition from peers and the wider community. As sociological theories of agency remind us, empowerment is not the absence of constraint but the capacity to act within structured contexts (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998; Giddens, 1984; Hitlin & Elder, 2007). Institutional support denotes the organisational scaffolding: resources, training, logistics, and mediation, that sustains participation while preserving autonomy. It reflects what Rose (1999) described as ‘governing at a distance’, but, in this context, applied through relational rather than bureaucratic means. Cultural sensitivity captures how governance frameworks recognise and accommodate diverse norms, linguistic preferences, and customary forms of leadership. It functions as a mechanism of recognition (Fraser, 2000), affirming identity and belonging through culturally resonant activities that sustain participation (Kymlicka, 2012; Lamont et al., 2014).
These three dimensions are mutually reinforcing. Empowerment without support risks burnout; institutional backing without cultural sensitivity may reproduce exclusion; and cultural sensitivity without real empowerment can devolve into tokenism. Taken together, they define the operational logic of assisted self-governance, a hybrid model that achieves inclusion through the interdependence of agency, structure, and culture. This interdependence reflects the conditions necessary for meaningful civic participation among older immigrants (Warburton & McLaughlin, 2021) and extends existing frameworks by demonstrating how these conditions can be culturally grounded and relationally sustained in practice.
Participation in group governance also generated wider social transformations, extending beyond the organisational setting into participants’ everyday social lives. While volunteering primarily centred on organising weekly activities, many described gradual changes that reshaped their confidence, public engagement, and understanding of later life. Experiences of empowerment and recognition built civic literacy: volunteers who once felt peripheral became comfortable liaising with government offices and coordinating independently. Group activities in public spaces enhanced visibility and affirmed social value. Knowledge and networks gained through volunteering often flowed outward, enabling participants to support peers during illness or bereavement and to sustain group continuity when others withdrew. Over time, volunteering came to represent a reimagined later life, not withdrawal, but renewed civic engagement. These ripple effects illustrate how assisted self-governance fosters transformations in confidence, recognition, and participation beyond immediate group settings.
The model's potential transferability is already visible in the emerging interest from other cultural communities within CASS, such as Korean groups that have begun piloting their own volunteer-led initiatives inspired by the Chinese program. Although these efforts remain at an early stage, they suggest that assisted self-governance holds promise across CALD populations, provided that each community adapts it to its own cultural norms, linguistic practices, and organisational contexts. By highlighting adaptation as a defining principle, the model underscores that effective governance in multicultural settings depends less on replication than on relational flexibility.
Conclusion
This article contributes to the literature on volunteering, multicultural ageing, and governance by introducing a practice-grounded framework of assisted self-governance. It shows that inclusion is not achieved through outreach alone, but through governing structures that enable CALD communities to lead, adapt, and define their own terms of engagement. While grounded in the experience of Chinese communities in Australia, the model's wider applicability depends on cultural interpretation: each community being able to reinterpret the framework according to its own cultural norms, practices, and languages. Growing interest in the CASS Model from Korean groups demonstrate the model's perceived relevance, but also underscores that the model's success elsewhere will depend on how effectively it is culturally adapted rather than replicated.
In this sense, assisted self-governance offers a flexible, inclusive, and sustainable approach to engaging older CALD immigrants in community life. It recognises them not as service users but as possible contributors. In an era of demographic and cultural transformation, assisted self-governance provides a pathway towards more responsive and resilient community governance, where participation is both supported and self-organised. Although this article focuses on older immigrants, the model may also have relevance for other groups, such as women or younger migrants, provided that the model is cultural adapted.
While this study focuses on a single organisation, CASS Care Ltd, its scale, geographic spread, and sustained engagement with CALD communities offer valuable insights into how assisted self-governance operates across diverse settings. Nonetheless, the findings should be interpreted with caution. As a case study, they reflect the particular institutional and cultural context of CASS and may not be directly generalisable to other organisations or populations. The sample also did not capture the full range of volunteer experiences: participants were primarily active and long-serving members, and those who disengaged or dropped out were not included and may hold different views. Moreover, the research represents a snapshot in time, and group dynamics, institutional practices, and individual motivations may shift in response to policy, demographic, or organisational change.
Future research may proceed along two complementary paths. First, longitudinal designs and broader sampling strategies, including volunteers who have exited their roles, would provide a more robust understanding of participation trajectories and the conditions that sustain or erode engagement. Second, comparative studies exploring how CASS's assisted self-governance model can be adapted in different cultural and organisational environments would help identify which elements require modification and what principles of cultural translation are necessary for successful implementation. Such work would clarify how culturally grounded governance can be scaled in ways that preserve diversity while deepening local empowerment, illuminating inclusion as a relational process embedded in both structure and culture.
Footnotes
Acknowledgement
The authors extend their sincere thanks to the staff and volunteers of CASS Care Ltd for their generous contribution of time and expertise, which was critical to the successful execution of this project.
Ethical Considerations
The study was approved by the UNSW Research Ethics Committee (Approval No. HC210979 on 7 November 2022; HC220768 on 31 October 2023).
Consent to Participate
Informed consent was obtained verbally before participation. The consent was audio-recorded in the presence of an independent witness. Confidentiality was maintained through anonymised data handling and secure storage of sensitive information.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article:
Australian Research Council (ARC Linkage LP210200671); NSW Government through the Project of “Supporting Volunteerism-A Research into A New Pathway to Combat Old Age Loneliness in CALD Communities”. As required by the ARC Linkage Scheme, CASS Care Ltd as the industry partner of this project has provided in-kind contribution to the project including field research venues, reaching out to participants and accommodate interviews with staff members. During the research CASS staff are not directly involved in the data collection or consent acquirement. All communications regarding consent and data collections are directed to the researchers of this project.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.