Knowledge Mobilization for Settlement

At a workshop a couple of years ago, I asked a group of participants to break into groups and identify the top four things settlement workers need to know, top four skills that they must possess, and the top four work-related attitudes and behaviours in the era of digital service delivery. Interestingly, there wasn't much overlap between groups. This suggests the richness of human service work, as well as its complexity.

Many thanks to AMSSA in British Columbia for having me present this workshop to settlement and language workers across the province. I'm definitely not a marketing expert. But, like making technology, or any service choices, it all comes down to being strategic and knowing/understanding your client.

It's useful to understand how your clients look for, find, assess and act on information. In this video, Professor Nadia Caidi provides an overview of newcomer information seeking behaviour and practice.

This report focuses on the work undertaken by the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Committee of the Agency of the Future (AoF) Project. The AoF Project is a national initiative being developed collaboratively by the Pathways to Prosperity research consortium, settlement service providers and settlement umbrella associations.

In this Research Snapshot, a couple of University of Victoria students looked at the use of mobile technology in Canadian social work.

World Education Services (WES) conducted a survey-based study to examine predictors of skilled immigrants’ career success. They examined the demographic characteristics of skilled immigrants as well as their experience and education, and studied how these factors affect their labour market outcomes.

The project involved free in-person and webinar based 45 minute training sessions on how to use the Google Translate application, for community stakeholders, organizations, business and institutions. Participating businesses were provided with training and We Speak Translate decals and stickers to display. The symbol on the decals and stickers was used as to identify a place of business where Google Translate was being used and as a sign of welcome for non-English speakers.

I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to meet weekly with a small student advisory group and they have provided valuable feedback on our program and our various projects. The students are forthright in their assessments of how our organization is using social media and their insight has provided valuable information regarding their day-to-day use of technology.

In this presentation, ISSofBC's Kathy Sherrel outlined the journey her 350 person, 17 location, and 60 active program organization has been on that started in their settlement department around this concept of outcomes measurement about two years ago.