In this November 2025 P2P Conference session presenters explored how recent Canadian and American migration policy changes, including immigration caps, are impacting Canada’s ethnically diverse settlement services sector. The workshop discusses a study the explored inter-ethnic relationships between service providers and users throughout 2023-2024, a critical period in migration policy.
The study analyzes the formation of service delivery principles in the context of a diverse settlement sector impacted by recent migration policies, as understood through the lived experiences of service providers. The findings highlight how service delivery principles can strengthen inter-ethnic service provider-user relationships in response to policy changes through holistic, equity-driven, and human-centred approaches.
Presenters:
AI-generated transcript:
all right so uh maybe we should start and um I just want to first like introduce myself like my name is Kart Sang uh I'm a professor at the factory invent faculty of social work at the University of Toronto and I have been there for a long time uh over three decades uh and uh over the last long while I have been involved in uh working with um ethnocultural communities uh although I am not selfidentifying as a full-time immigration researcher uh I do other things uh but like immigration research settlement service uh have been a key part of my uh research and community service program and I emphasize that because I think I spend um equal time if not more time uh in like working with communities like going out to settlement organizations uh developing programs uh working with immigrant communities uh as much as I spend uh on research uh so uh my primary passion is actually about uh making a difference through direct service uh to immigrants uh help them uh develop uh strategies uh and skills uh when they're adapting to the new country but also at the same time building communities and building capacity uh so uh some of my team members that you're seeing here today uh have actually been involved with my other projects as well i just want to tell you about like uh u something about this project and then there's an another almost parallel project uh that uh we just completed uh and uh so I just want to like uh openly acknowledge that this uh particular uh study that we're reporting on uh is funded by the social sciences and humanities research council of Canada uh this project uh is funded uh between 2022 and 2026 uh and uh this study uh explores primarily the interthnic group dynamics uh and this is like a continuation actually of my decades of work in this area together with my colleagues uh who have been uh looking at different aspects of immigration in Canada and some of the global trends and one of the things that we have uh noticed is that the uh traditional paradigm about immigration uh has become uh increasingly uh irrelevant and inac accurate uh the general assumption uh in the traditional paradigm is that like uh people from countries uh belonging to the global south will move to countries in the global north and then there is supposedly a mainstream culture uh primarily dominated by Euroamerican uh structures and contents and then like this new immigrants will have to uh adjust and and integrate uh to that mainstream uh in huge uh metropolitan or cosmopolitan centers like Toronto uh we find that uh it is no longer an accurate uh description of what is happening uh over half of the people who are now living in Toronto for instance are not born here so uh we're dealing with a new situation and that has been happening for quite a while so this is why we want to uh approach the whole immigration issue from an expanded perspective which like takes into uh global realities and we believe that uh it is like uh instead of like looking at how minority groups have to fit in with the mainstream we may want to be looking at like what is actually happening when like a lot of people coming from diverse backgrounds are coming together another key feature that I want to emphasize is that like in a lot of the uh traditional immigration research we have like uh neglected or eclipsed uh the indigenous reality uh from uh the um conceptualization and our discourse uh in places like Canada or the United States if you want to uh Australia New Zealand and other uh immigrant receiving countries there is a an indigenous reality which has uh traditionally be neglected uh and we do not think that is like the best way to uh approach this so in our study uh we have like uh actively sought out to connect and interface with our indigenous communities and their leaders uh and we got very uh inspired uh through our conversation uh with them like starting about two and a half years ago uh indigenous communities and leaders we we we having a conversation with them uh and they raised uh an interesting perspective about how indigenous people and immigrants uh routinely uh marginalized or even outright excluded uh from the exercise of nation building uh and we do not get to participate uh to define what our country is and where it should be heading uh and um we're actually quite encouraged that over the last while at least in Canada uh that voice uh is gaining a wider audience uh so people were recognizing that we are uh uh in involving and in engaging uh our indigenous people and uh as well as like the immigrant communities uh to uh participate not just like uh by looking like because you know the whole idea of like immigrant and immigration uh will take on a completely different meaning you would take the indigenous perspective right so uh and and I think uh on that note what we we are hoping uh to accomplish is not just like share some data which we will uh but we are also hopefully contributing to modifying this cause uh in this line of research and scholarship so I have already said enough so uh like I just want to like uh quickly uh uh uh complement um like what I said earlier i said I have another project that is like uh almost parallel in terms of timing uh is that I have also received funding from the social sciences and humanities research council of Canada uh to lead a partnership development uh project uh focusing on Muslim communities uh in Ontario uh and that has just been completed in August and as a result of that project we have actually expanded our um partnership with Muslim communities not only in Ontario but like in other provinces as well including Alberta and British Columbia uh and in the northwestern uh uh territories and the maritime provinces so we are in the process of like thinking of moving on to the next stage so that sort of like uh gives you a better idea of who I am and what I stand for and what are some of the things that I'm doing the um uh the Muslim project again uh is hopefully uh getting uh uh public awareness and also producing knowledge and information regarding the social service needs of Muslim communities uh in Canada and hopefully that will lead to uh appropriate uh responses like service programs and community development so I've like I've given you like maybe too long an introduction but I hope that it's helpful uh in uh contextualizing the work that we're doing in this particular project that you're about to hear about uh is uh we actually cover four provinces in Canada including Quebec which uh as you know has a very special franophhone reality of its own uh and Ontario uh and Alberta you're going to be hearing it from Kala herself and British Columbia which is on Oh what happened uh Tad you're on mute i'm sorry i just got logged out so uh I Yeah I think happened to everyone oh I see okay okay so welcome back everyone uh I'm I'm about to finish my introduction uh I was I was talking about uh how this is like a multicight study uh covering different jurisdictions uh in Canada which also shows you uh the uh diversity that we have uh as a country uh in terms of like uh the the dynamics that you actually observe on the ground and there are also like different policies and service programs uh in the different jurisdictions so I'm going to like uh stop my presentation my introduction here and hand over to my uh team members so Jamaima are you going to be convening the Ontario path yes uh thank you Tad thank you for the introduction and hello everyone my name is Jima i'm the research coordinator for this project so for today uh we're going to talk more on Toronto sites and uh and Alberta from Carla so from Toronto specifically um I just wanted to quickly share if people can see the slide deck yet um I think I need host access if possible okay um if I can also share if if Yeah if anybody from our team is able to Can you share screen okay I have access now i can I can share it it's okay that's okay that's okay thank you so we're going to see the slide but the title of our presentation today for Toronto site is service delivery principles and Toronto shifting multicultural settlement service sector as that as mentioned uh we are funded from shark and it is a multi-sight project in Canada we have Vancouver Calgary um Toronto and Montreal and we have a inter international uh collaborator as well from Thai New York and Taiwan and Hong Uh but today uh in this uh first section we'll focus on the GTA area on our findings as we work um nationwide to understand the issue from both service user and provider but for this today context we're going to talk about the service delivery principles can everybody see the slides or are they not showing uh yes I can see the slide i think people have put in their time so um we can go to the next slide just to give an overview we're going to talk about the reasoning of our presentation today and the research questions that we would like to answer and discuss throughout this presentation and the findings from both lens from the service provider and service user and the summary and recommendations so if you can go next what is service deliver principle so we define it as the core value guidelines that shapes how service uh services are provided not only what service are uh delivered so uh service delivery principles offer a framework to ensure that service delivery is consistent ethical effective and centered on the needs for client and the communities and in settlement sector which supports newcomer refugee immigrant service delivery principles guides how service provider and community organizations interact with clients service users how to design programs and collaborates across sector and when practice this effect effectively these principles not only uh improve the service quality but also nurture a strong sense of belongingness helping newcomer feel valued included and connected within their communities so uh from our definitions of service providers and from our uh research so far uh we can go next the questions that we would like to address for today's presentation the first one would be to understand how service delivery principles operates in the settlement spaces uh by both service providers and service users in the context of interthnic relationships and the second one is to explore and examine how policy changes and institutional shifts shape the implementation and experience of service delivery principles across the settlement sector and last is to explore how service delivery principles can foster a stronger interthnic relationships and promote a shared prosperity and enhance newcomer sense of belongingness within the communities i'll pass it to my colleague Julie for the next part yeah hi everyone um I'm D or Julie so um so basically um just want to give a background of uh our research setting so over the past two years we've seen like significant turbulence in Canada's immigration and settlement policy landscape immigration CS have not only reshaped with coming to Canada but also change the scale and timing of service demand across regions at the same time funding reduction and shifting policy priorities have placed increasing strain on the settlement sector what we observe is a recurring pattern of funding spike gates so funding often rise sharply in response to moments of political attention for example during high-profile humanitarian crisis and then drops just as quickly as priorities move elsewhere this pattern makes it very difficult for organization to plan sustainable or maintain consistent relationship with clients i'll go next um so like just a case example of um Ukrainian refugee as we know in 20123 service provider described how the strong government response and funding for Ukrainian refugee create tension across the sector afghan settlement worker for example felt that their clients were being left behind but just one years later in 2024 the same provider found themsself in the opposite situation finding for uh funding for um Ukrainian gym was abruptly cut leaving thousand of client without support the key point here is that policy does more than allocate resources it shapes interacting relationship building of fairness and trust within the settlement environment these shifts at the policy level ripple into everyday interaction between service provider and the community stage serve and we'll go next and importantly when funding is reduced it not only limits program but also dabilize the relationship that hold the system together um go next please so we can see here the first provider speaks for a place of relational frustration this shows how instability in funding directly translates into instability in trust clients who have come to rely on this programs are left confused and disappointed the second provider highlights the emotional cause on the other side of the relationship many describe this as an ethical tension the weight of wanting to care fully for clients while being constrained by limited funding fewer programs and increasing case loads so we can see the combination of uncertainty ethical strain and emotional fatigue shows that funding cuts reshape the very conditions of care and trust in interthnic relationship we'll go next so in contrast to the volatility of the past two years the newly released 2026 to 2028 um immigration level plans by IRCC represents an efforts to restore balance it focuses on sustainability reducing temporal uh temporary arrivals while stabilizing permanent resident emissions the plan re-emphasize economy and regional needs through the provinical nominee program while still maintaining human and family reunification priorities importantly it reach kind of like introduced one-time measure to transition thousand of protected person and temporary workers into permanent resident signaling an attempt to bring stability and predict predictability back to the system i will go next um so here we can see service delivery principle as a kind of bridge that helps translate big policy directives into everyday relational ethics even when funding is tied or program goals change this principle helps provider maintain trust and inclusion they make interethnic relation possible because shared values like respect and equity can often connect and transcend cultural and systemic divides and we'll go next okay so basically our um uh kind of presentation will have two sides so a service provider and service user and I'll also um be uh presenting on the service provider lens so can we go next yeah and I think we should also note that we're focusing specifically on data from our focus group discussions so not individual interviews um so yes we have we're working with like a more limited pool of data this time around exactly thank you um so yeah um let me start the resource section from the service provider slide uh before I move to what we hear from service user in the service provider the focus group discussion we were basically asking three uh important question what seems to be working well in their day-to-day practice and second what are the seeing tension or challenges especially around interic relationships and settlements and finally what kinds of changes or suggestion do they think will actually help um so across the focus group our big message keep coming up first uh relationship building is really at the heart of their work and is strongly shaped by staff positionality and interathlete dynamics workers are very aware of who they are their ethnicity migration history gender language all of that shapes how relationship unfolds second language barriers and information gaps came up as the most constant draining challenge it's not just lack of interp interpreters it's also misinformation moving through a networks and social media third service provider points to structural disparity between different groups of newcomers and migrants for instance migrant workers in rural area versus refugee or um families in big city and how this differences intersect with ethnicity status and geography and finally they describe how organization are trying to respond through training cross- sector collaboration and emerging indigenous newcomer initiative that aims to make service more collaborative and incl and inclusive um okay I think yeah so let's start with the first finding relationship building um service provider talks about it as an intention process that start right at intake and keeps going through every interaction the standardized intake questions help them map out someone's migration history current challenges and goals but what really builds trust is how they position themselves in relation to clients one participant in the quotes on um on this slide says that uh I think I think it's the previous slide the previous Oh sorry yeah yeah no worries no worries um so yeah sorry so the intake question helped me map their situation but trust only grows when they slow down and really listen to the story so interacting relationship don't just happen because people share a language or a country of origin they're built through go ongoing work positioning listening and addressing interaction after interaction and we go next yeah um so here service provider describe client as multi-layered people whose ethnic gendered and migration identities intersect in complex way labels like Syrian refugee or Filipino caregiver might be a starting point but they're never enough to capture what's going on in someone's life that has two implications for interthnic work so first staff try not to essententralize based on ethnicity share language or background can be an entry point but they don't treat it as the whole story and second when there is a clear distance for example a worker knows they have more privilege or hasn't lived through war or extreme uh procarity they try to lean into empathy and humanity instead of pretending sameness so overall relationship building is about constantly negotiating difference and connection at the same time we'll go next the second finding is language and information and service providers are very clear that this is a foundation for everything else across all groups they said language barriers are the most frequent challenge many clients have limited English skill but funding for professional interpretation and translation just doesn't match the need as a result communication often gets mediated through co-ethnic or multilingual intermediaries bilingual co colleague volunteers um and and or family and community members these uh intermediaries are vital but they're also quite a hook and uneven on top of that service writers spend a lot of time untangling misinformation coming from ethnic networks unregulated organization or relatives aboard clients arrive with strong expectation based on a cousin a WhatsApp group or a lawyer back home even among service provider there's can be confusion when immigration policy or rules shift quickly so you get frequent misunderstandings and miscommunication in service encounters for them language isn't just a technical issue it's a central site of negotiation and power of interatholic relations and we can go next yeah the third finding take us to the structural disparities service provider access to notice how different groups of newcomers and migrants occupy very unequal position in terms of resources and risks for example migrants workers in rural or semi-ural areas face multiple constraint many speak Spanish Thai Vietnamese or other languages with little local interpretation they work extremely long hours um people describe it as sun up to sun down so they have very little time or energy to seek help and unlike in big cities they often have limited local legal service or settlement counselors the quote at the bottom of the slides here gives a sense of scale one worker talks about essentially no legal or settlement support for around 21,000 migrants worker in their region uh the trust building during co is now turning into visible frustration as service strength so service provider migrant worker relationship here are happening in a landscape where labor regimes geography and funding decision heavily structure what's even possible we'll go next okay and then structures disparity also showed up for other groups service provider describe refugee and people from war torn or highly precarious context as arriving with significant trauma and heightened mental health needs but the support available are often limited especially those that are culturally and linguistically matched they also face severe housing precarity for example long wait list strict um rules shelter times limits the spills over into kids schooling and family stability one service provider talk about children changing school repeatedly because the family has to keep moving so the key takeaway here is that the interthnic relation are not happening on a level playing field they're shaped by migration status racialization local housing and labor markets and the urban rural divide so when we talk about interethnic relations we can't just focus on cultural or communication we also have to ask who is carrying this risk and under what structural condition with that in mind the fourth theme look at how organization are trying to responds yes so the fourth theme looks at organizational strategies what service providers say their agency are actually doing to navigate this dynamics one piece is training and professional development staff at uh are attending sectoral training on settlement employment support trauma infor practice and so many other that they think might be helpful to their clients these aren't magic bullets but service provider generally feel they give them more tools and language to work with racialized power trauma and gender dynamics in interathlete encounters another piece is partnership and internal collaboration we could talk about strong referral pathway across programs connecting clients to employment services mental health support food banks housing help center violence against women services and so on you can think of this as a kind of linking work so staff are constantly uh stitching together different parts of the system for clients that helps counter the fragmentation of services which otherwise tends to land hardest on marginalized ethnic and status groups so we'll go next a really interesting finding from this study is the indigenous newcomer relationship building um sorry yeah um some service provider describe initiative connected to the truth and reconciliation calls to action honoring with friendship center inviting indigenous knowledge keepers or artists and holding session where participant learn about both Canada's colonial dark history and indigenous culture and teachings for many newcomers and even for some staff this is the first time they encounter this histories in a sustained way one participant said that it has really been a lesson for us as well this initiative created kind of triangular relationship among indigenous people settlers and racialized newcomer they move us beyond a simple post newcomer story and situate settlement within broader processes of decolonization and reconciliation so organization are not only managing diversity is on cases they are actively trying to reframe interatholic relation in relation to colonial history and indigenous sovereignty so we'll go next please okay up to now I focus mostly on challenges but service provider were also very clear that there are things working well and they really wanted those to be visible firstly they highlight relational client center practice service providers spend a lot of time at intake and beyond getting to know people's history identities and goals they deliberately draw on different points of connection share language gender migration trajectory even hobbies while also naming differences and privilege the combination is what they feel builds more nuance respectful inter uh respectful interactive relationships and second they point to early structured orientation multi-day newcomer workshops that cover housing health employment family laws and violence against women are seen as very effective those session reduce confusion tackle information upfront and make the initial settlement process feel less overwhelming link linked to this point are community building space and activities so you know like festivals seasonal events language exchange groups and homelike family rooms function as everyday infrastructures of belonging they create low barriers ch uh chances for cross interathnic uh cross ethnic interaction informal networking and peer support across different language groups and fourth service provider are proud of their cross sector collaboration and referrals they describe strong pathways within and across organization to food banks housing health centers mental health support employment services and VAW service those linkage help counter service fragmentation and allows for more holistic responses to complex situation finally they talk about a growing commitment to equity informed and decolonial practices ongoing training like in trauma informed care and gender identity has given staff more tools for navigating racialized power gender violence and trauma in interthnic encounters an emerging indigenous newcomer engagement through partnership with indigenous organization and knowledge keepers is seen as a promising way to broaden newcomers understanding of Canada and move beyond a simple post newcomer binary so for service provider perspective these are the pieces that are already working and worth protecting so we'll go next and to close the service provider piece I want to quickly pull out four cluster of recommendation that came through across the groups first language and information service say that service providers say that if we don't fix language assets nothing else works they're asking for stable funding for interpreters and translation formal support for bilingual peers and volunteer roles and clear multilingual orientations and policy information so clients and staff aren't constantly fighting confusion and misinformation second is the structural support they emphasize tackling housing and legal gaps especially for migrants worker outside major cities some providers put in bluntly if we're addressing housing and legal support we solve a large share for newcomers everyday crisis third is the mental health and worker well-being service providers see big gaps in uh traumainformed culturally and linguistically appropriate mental health services and they'd also highlight their own needs for supervision debriefing spaces and manageable case loads to sustain this emotional and advocacy work finally anti-racism and decolonial practice they call for ongoing anti-racism training and stronger indigenous newcomer initiatives so interethnic work is grounded in an broader commitment to equity and decolonization not just one of workshops taken together this findings and recommendation show that inter relationships are shaped not only in individual conversation but through the system resources and history that surround them okay go next okay so yeah I'll pass on to my uh colleague for the service user thanks Julie can everybody hear me okay i'm going to go with yes because I can't hear i mean I can't see anything else um so I'm going to begin by going over some of the key findings that we found in the service user focus group discussions and I'm also just going to be looking at my phone that's where I have all my notes so in general we found that structural issues strongly and consistently impacted service user engagements with settlement services and service providers because it was on the basis of these structural issues that service users relied on the support of service providers and on settlement service organizations so even though our study is based on interethnic relations service users consistently and without being asked contextualized their answers when talking about these relations in the structural issues that they experienced relaying how service providers were able to support them or maybe struggle to support them um as they navigated these structural issues so these issues as I'm sure a lot of you are aware of if you know anything about settlement um include uh access to housing navigating the job market as migrants dealing with barriers related to their legal status as migrants um which often uh concerns difficulties accessing uh certain settlement services and jobs and struggles with the bureaucratization of the migration process so when asked about their experiences with settlement services and service providers service users often spoke about the structural issues and how the physical spaces of settlement organizations and specific programs supported them so over here you can find a few quotes um excerpts from our transcripts that demonstrate these key findings so for example in the top left quote they're talking about the bureaucratization of the migration process and how migrants can be prone to making mistakes which renders them more vulnerable and of course in relation to the policies discussed earlier as well the service user in the bottom right uh for example is talking about how a lot of the changes within um policies migration policies that we're seeing uh puts them in a very vulnerable position and it's not a very stable position either so their instability mimics the instability of migration policies that we see as well which makes it difficult for them to form a stable sense of legal identity as a migrant with pre-existing legal vulnerabilities as they're really trying to make Canada their home so you can really see through these examples the kinds of larger structural issues that service users are navigating and how the role of the service providers can be really integral in acting as a bridge between service users and the complexities and difficulties of Canadian migration processes so one thing that I really wanted to draw attention to is how is the conflation of service providers settlement service spaces and services and programs that are offered by settlement organizations so there's three things here that we found through our transcripts were sort of being like conflated or viewed in the same light by service users specifically so when we asked service users about settlement services more generally they spoke about uh service providers settlement organizations and programs altogether and they didn't really distinguish between the three so the quality of individual service provider care and the support found within the physical spaces of the organization is sometimes viewed by participants as a reflection of the quality of the organization as a whole so you might be wondering why is this important why does this matter and what are the implications of it so this conflation really highlights the interconnected relationship between individual service providers support and the helpfulness of different programs both of which exist within the physical space of the settlement service and this connection allows service users to meaningfully address their grievances as individuals who are systematically situated in vulnerable positions of varying legal status within larger structural migration processes and issues so as individual workers service providers are perceived by service users as a microcosm of the larger functioning of a space that centers the needs of service users as they navigate the feelings of overwhelm stress and confusion that comes with migration and so the spatiality of settlement service organizations provides a physical context through which Canada as a state and settlement as a process is continuously perceived and experienced by service users so settlement service organizations are an important accessible interactive physical quote unquote base of an otherwise baseless migration bureaucracy and I will move on there so to talk about some of the skills that service users found effective or helpful um I first wanted to talk about how service users n uh how service providers provided a lot of support to service users as they navigated the aforementioned structural issues so in this quote you can see the service user talking about how regardless of the issue that they faced as a migrant the service organization and the service provider by way of that was able to support them through it pointing to the vast capacity that organizations and providers have when it comes to supporting migrants and then we also found that service users value service providers having certifications and qualifications that help the um service users navigate these complex migration processes because it's a reflection of the service provider's expertise in the area so we found that like I think earlier in the service users section that a lot of times service users may rely on people within their co-ethnic networks to share and provide information to each other about the migration process but in this case we're actually seeing a service user prioritize the expertise of a service provider who would have quote unquote outsider status um that that they might not share an ethnicity with um when it comes to navigating these complex migration processes and then we also found that individual service provider qualities of kindness and attentiveness are appreciated by service users in the context of them facing these larger faceless bureaucratic structures that create difficult situations and emotional hardships for them so just showing like simply just showing acts of kindness and just listening to the service users was enough for them to feel humanized and develop a form of agency as they navigate these really tiresome processes and over here we can see in the quote that this service user is really emphasizing how warm the service provider that they worked with was and this brings me to the next finding which I think really echoes some of the findings that we just discussed in the service user uh in the service providers section um which was about how service providers really provide very important emotional support that's necessary to um helping the service users navigate again these very difficult complex processes so in this example you see that the service user talks about how the service provider demystified the process for them which really helped to calm them down so as we've been seeing so far with how overwhelming this process can be the demystification and the subsequent like tranquilization or the calming down effect that it has is clearly very significant for service users now quickly moving on to the challenges and critiques that were noted by the service users first uh I focus on some of the structural issues that they draw attention to so I want to note that some of the critiques or a lot of the critiques that they had about their experiences had more to do with the structural issues that they face and less to do with the individual experiences that they had with service providers and then we also found that service provider support is limited within the confines of migration and settlement organizational policies so addressing structural issues is limited to the structural confines that these issues exist within so for example in this quote we find that the service user did go to a settlement organization but they were limited in their ability to help due to the legal status of the service user as somebody who only held a work permit so this limitation is very clearly connected to a larger overarching structural confinement that exists through the organization's rule as the interactive quote unquote face of the state regulations regarding migration and then moving on to some of the more interpersonal challenges and critiques that we found through the service user lens first we found that service users consider and have concerns about the varying levels of knowledge and support that service providers bring and how this differently impacts their applications so the service user quoted here talks about how they're very clearly concerned about this because they noticed that service providers with different levels of knowledge and experience provided different levels of support to the service user although it's not clear if this occurred through ethnic lines so on the one hand although they val like I guess it goes hand inhand with the fact that they value the expertise of service providers but there's concerns that this expertise um exists at varying levels across service provider knowledge um and then in terms of the ethnicity we found that there are interracial and interethnic dynamics within the service user service provider relations that impacted service user experiences in terms of receiving support from service providers of other racial and ethnic backgrounds so in this example we found that black service users struggle to be supported by a white service provider which also makes us think about the relationship between race and ethnicity and the role of whiteness and racial hierarchies in largely ethnicized migrant spaces spaces which are often used to serve racially minoritized and marginalized communities and so although our focus study spec uh our our study focuses specifically on ethnicity we can we can't really deny this sort of inherent interconnection between race and ethnicity that exists within Canada and I think that this focus on race is something that we're going to try to explore a little bit more in depth through our um through later parts of our study as well and over here I have some recommendations but be just being mindful of the time I'm not going to discuss them just because they're very similar to the recommendations that we just discussed um in the service providers se section so I think I'll just move on from here and I think this is the end of it from here i don't know if I should pass it on to Jamima or Tat to end things off i think we can proceed with Carla if okay because the Q&A would be later right well thank you so much uh to uh my colleagues uh from from Toronto uh please let me know if you have any trouble hearing me or if you need me to speak up i'll try to keep an eye on the chat here um as has been mentioned uh there are several sites involved in this national multicight study and I am serving as the Alberta site lead uh from the time when I was at the University of Alberta um I'm currently joining you today where I am instit institutionally housed at um University of British Columbia Okonogan so I'm joining from Okunaga Nation Territory um and I want to acknowledge that of the uh participants and the places uh from which this in the uh um the presentation that I'll be sharing today is um is coming from is um is uh treaty 6 and treaty 7 territories so of the creation blackfoot da um the sonina kuroda and dutina um nations um and we've already heard from some of the previous speakers today about some of the the the rich findings that have come from this um from this multi-year multi-sight project and so I'll just briefly build on some of what's been shared which there are parallels across the Alberta sites and the Toronto sites but focusing specifically on uh the experiences and perspectives of newcomers and of service providers in terms of relationship building um and how it is shaped by positionality and interethnic uh dynamics so in the Alberta um uh site we uh heard from service users so newcomers and service providers from uh mainly as you can see here and as predicted the the urban areas of Calgary and Edmonton so for both service resource and service providers that's the case but we also heard from some smaller um from some smaller areas including um Red Deer and Reduke which um are located um still within a couple of hours of those metropolitan areas so just to give you a sense of who is represented in these and so some of the preliminary findings as I mentioned um uh are really happening against the backdrop of um of uh immigration policies over these last couple of years and like the other sites our interviews and focus groups took place in 2024 mostly um and in 2023 in the later part of 2023 and so just to kind of situate where these experiences or perspectives um are coming from um are are unique to that moment and um and uh and and following the our focus groups we also know that there have been changes as mentioned by my colleagues earlier so um we're we're taking the current context and the context into in which people were speaking from at that time into consideration but also situating exactly when when these experiences happened as they might differ from what is currently happening now or when the the last couple of months in terms of discourses and so again inter ethnic relationships and this this critical piece of um um of the work in in uh in in in navigating settlement services um are established and play out in the context of providing and receiving these supports and uh and and being situated to need these supports by a system that is um is uh is is is is much broader and uh at times faceless as as my colleagues mentioned and so service providers provide a face provide faces to this this faceless system um in uh in in in interacting with service users and newcomers many of these interactions were considered transactional um and the support was often viewed as as described um as um mostly practical resources but some of them also offered beyond uh beyond offered u um um uh supports beyond what was practical addressing social and emotional needs again as as mentioned in the previous pres presentation and so this approach um was viewed by newcomers um not only in terms of logist navigating logistical challenges like housing and employment but also fostering a sense of belonging and emotional well-being and for many participants um this uh combination of practical help and emotional support was really really critical um in their process of of of moving and then adjusting challenges were also described uh by newcomers and service uh providers and so both reported uh weight lists and and overwhelmed services u many participants cited difficulty in not even knowing what kinds of help to ask for um and at the same time service providers were seen to try to play a proactive role in anticipating newcomers needs um while uh acknowledging that there are gaps in accessible information information asymmetries um and also the bureaucratization which was seen to be quite overwhelming uh by some newcomers many newcomers reported positive experiences however some also describe moments of distress and disempowerment and a key issue was the perceived power imbalance between service providers and and service users um which often stem from the authority of service providers and and being seen to determine access to essential resources again being the faces to this faceless system which sometimes was perceived by some of the newcomers we spoke to as um as being dismissive or as condescending or preventing and um and creating barriers to access and supports and one p participant um shared a a long account of an experience she had in English classes so again a language being one of those key barriers um and um and it's it's it's uh it's here on this slide on on the right here so somebody from Calgary um and highlighting here the tone and the approach of how service provision can affect people's sense of dignity and their sense of self-worth um they highlight the importance of ensuring that uh services are not only accessible but also delivered with empathy and respect again relationships uh were seen to really be needed to be built on trust and and and from the newcomers perspective they saw trust as being uh developed and and and co- uh created through reliability and followthrough so they were actually um that that was kind of the key thing that they look for is that um uh their first interactions would set the tone for the experience however what was really important for them was did that service provider did that service uh follow through and did they circle back in in helping to in in whatever need was needing to be addressed and um how that contributed to a sense of trust kindness and patience this has already been mentioned where Zena is really critical in helping newcomers feel more comfortable and and in that trust building um and they made a significant difference in terms of uh their interactions with the rest of the services and feeling valued um and and feeling like they could speak without uh fear of judgment many newcomers also uh spoke about tending to form um initial bonds with their within their own ethnic groups um for practical support and comfort because this provides a sense of um shared experience and a sense of security while settling um an example or this was shared with us um telegram groups people joined in terms of again just navigating practical supports um and uh and are uh especially helpful in those initial change um uh in those initial stages and overcoming experiences they may potentially have um and so in in in this uh quotation here in Saskatoon newcomer shared how being connected to an employment counselor from the same country made it easier so again those um those initial shared experiences and shared identities providing a foundation um at the beginning um at at the beginning of their journey but also at the beginning of their interactions with each other it provided a sense of comfort and of course there is a lack of a language barrier that could be helpful again going back to language um uh newcomers we spoke to spoke about developing bonds um between different um interthnic uh groups within classes within training programs um and how participants really valued um guidance around things like cultural behaviors from service providers and from these classes in terms of being able to navigate this new environment they often relied on observation to learn non-cultural norms and this this process uh was uh seen to um um be akin to uh and and an example being like holding a door open for someone and and learning how to navigate these new social spaces and also be successful in in trying to um trying to uh address particular needs like getting housing um etc in trying to form interthnic relationships with other groups some of participants spoke about um being hindered by a fear of experiencing discrimination or racism um of reliving past trauma um uh in in terms of developing new relationships and they spoke about how these barriers can prevent them from fully engaging within their own communities but also engaging with um with other communities and in and and needing to to form these these relationships um this newcomer shared their experience of fear and skepticism about interacting with others and they were unsure about what to expect and worried about adding on to the challenges they already face to add on to some of the other challenges that have already been described um uh by my team members trauma and fears of racism often act acted as barriers to trust uh making it difficult for newcomers to fully engage with services u to explore and develop relationships um however when settlement agencies provided positive and culturally safe culturally sensitive experiences um participants found that this um helped them in in trying to overcome their fears and feeling safer uh in in in connecting with others a couple of last points here just to end um service providers emphasized the importance of recognizing um particular patterns and needs while also avoiding assumptions or stereotypes when uh working with newcomers so there was this tension in terms of trying to understand um the needs of uh a socially defined group of people um and their layered subjectivity in terms of their various identities and the various groups that they belong with and and unique needs and at the same time uh avoiding any assumptions or stereotypes um that would um would lead to culturally unsafe care service providers who practice strategies like humor and kindness and empathy those individual attributes were also seen as um as even more effective in building trust uh and reflexivity was really highlighted as a key factor uh by service providers in providing responsive care many uh newcomers had um just really briefly on this as this was already raised by the other groups so um many newcomers had limited uh knowledge about um uh histories and ongoing colonization colonial issues in Canada faced by indigenous populations um some of them who were aware often expressed uh sadness and a strong desire to learn more um and at the same time many of them described really needing to also unfortunately to focus on their own survival and to meet their own basic needs before they can really meaningfully engage and explore some of these more complex issues in their new home on the note of relation this final note um on relationship building and u multi-layered subjectivity um many service providers spoke about using their own identities and experience to be able to advocate for their clients particularly when their clients were facing um negative treatment from uh uh within systems such as schools and so they uh in a way leverage leverage their own subjectivity to try to support them um in ways in in sometimes that are beyond their role and so using uh leveraging their privilege to use aspects of our privilege that are more socially recognized to advocate for their clients and ensure that their um needs are met and this is uh an an excerpt um that highlights uh how advocacy is perceived by super service providers um to be a strategy that they use in their role uh and and how intersectionality helps to understand how these various identities can influence the effectiveness of advocacy efforts and so in service provider reflected on whether their success in getting things done was was it due to their position as a manager or their identity as a non-racialized Euro Canadian person and so this really highlights the complexities of navigating systems where power dynamics play a role and really looking forward to the discussion thank you thank you Ka okay so um we have till 4:30 in this um session and uh I just want to uh invite all the colleagues who are in the audience uh to now join us in an open discussion uh anyone with uh questions comments uh your own uh take on uh related issues you're most welcome to uh share them with us because this is a a virtual online platform I cannot be like looking at facial expressions and uh and use like eye contact and facial expression to uh encourage people to speak up so I'll just have to do it verbally so please uh if you have any um uh ideas questions comments uh please feel free to share uh I think you can just unmute yourself uh and speak up or if you want to uh you can also enter your questions and comments uh in the chat like given like immediate responses or things that you can think of like any ideas you think is worth sharing you can uh either speak up or just like uh enter into the chat okay thank you uh FA please uh Fay do you want to just like unmute yourself and speak up okay sorry I wasn't allowed to unmute myself so uh yeah thank you so much for the team for the great research and presentation because I just feel uh it's really practical and uh it's a reflects a lot of uh barriers in the reality uh our organization encountered uh we are OCA communities association uh the name was Okonagan Chinese Canadian association established by Chinese Canadians and during the past 15 years we applied for funding again and again but we got rejected because we were considered as a single culture but actually we uh advocate for multicultural activities a lot and we have lots of different ethnic groups join us but that just create the barriers because all the racialized groups encounter the similar barriers including the founding system barriers so it's really uh meaningful project and I just wonder uh if there's any way uh for us to access the complete report or the research result yeah I think the the the short answer is yes like uh we have we are funded by SHK to do this research and our responsibility actually is to disseminate findings and knowledge to uh people who need it so the the short answer will be yes uh and but the most effective way for us to be sharing uh results and findings with you would probably be like a direct uh communication because like we have been preparing presentations at different conferences this is not the first time we presenting like I I remember we've been to quite a few conferences presenting uh aspects of our finding and different uh with different teams right so we are more than happy to share our findings with you so please uh just like reach out uh to us um I think um can can we just like give uh I'm just thinking of maybe um just like um entering my email uh or is there a project email that people um so we have a website however as we are still kind of doing more uh disseminations and preparing internally so we haven't updated the the public uh website yet but if you want to keep uh your email you can send it to me personally um I will keep you in the loop once we have the publications and the research report ready we will give you the updates Perfect can people send it privately to you so that Sure i just put my emails there and then if you want you can keep it and then just email me afterwards and then we'll keep you in our uh list of um people that we will share our publications later awesome thank you and I have another question so uh I I I have commented this research is really meaningful and uh very excellent high quality i just wonder where IRCC received the summary of this kind of research uh so how can this research uh result uh be uh be submitted to the government to all level of government funders i think that's very important yeah i I think we like it is like a it is routine for us to be uh preparing reports uh to the funders and also to uh uh policy bodies and uh different uh divisions in the government uh who would be uh looking after or funding um settlement services in particular because like uh settlement services is actually a a focus But as you're aware we uh we working in four jurisdictions and uh there are like uh regional variation in how the systems work uh so again the short answer is yes we will be doing that uh but like specifically uh on what topics and issues uh we may uh emphasize then it will be probably more contextualized uh uh to the respective jurisdictions but like we will be more than happy to talk to you FA if you are interested in the process or you want to be uh part of the process please uh uh get in touch with us and I want have an additional uh response to your earlier question uh because like I've been around maybe longer than than most people uh I can tell you something about the historic development of uh settlement services in Canada so we have like um some of my colleagues have already showed to you that like funding and um uh uh and policy very often changes we with the geopolitical reality so we just like showed you how like fundings for different for people from different countries have changed like Ukraine uh Afghanistan and uh actually based on my own experience I I um was also involved with the Syrian uh community in the earlier um uh Syrian crisis and back in the uh early 90s we have people in the former Soviet Union uh who uh also came into Canada uh in large numbers uh you mentioned about your organizations um uh not being restricted to the Chinese community which is great because before this project uh this the like uh the same team um was actually involved in looking at uh intragroup dynamics within the Chinese communities and we understand that the Chinese community is not a homogeneous uh community but it is like a diverse community uh in its own Right and we have people from like mainland and China Taiwan Hong Kong Vietnam even like uh Latin America uh so we we realize uh uh and uh we realize that like you know um this like the trouble or the difficulty that you are running up against can be structural or policy but it can also be uh you know um reflective of the current priorities uh with the funders so uh we are also happy to talk to you if it is like of any help to you uh and and see if like our research finding and our experience can inform uh your funding strategy as well um and we are happy to do that if anybody else also wants to share any of their own experiences as people who um work in the settlement service sector that would be really great um because FA like we were just um talking amongst ourselves right now when we were like we didn't know that you could face restrictions with funding if you're a single or um a single culture organization so I think this is a great way for us to learn more so that we could also like it helps to inform our research and um expand our understanding of these issues okay thank you so much sorry the system just didn't allow me to unmute myself uh so uh thank you for for your attention uh I would like to say in the past 16 years our organization has applied for four times of IRCC funding and each time uh the first two times we got a rejection reason because we were considered as a single culture even we have Indian not only Chinese not only mainland China Hong Kong Taiwan and Malaysia all the different diverse Chinese ethnic groups but also Indian Filipino Japanese Korean Vietnamese lots of Asian cultures we were also told we were considered a single culture although we demonstrated we were lots of Asian uh community members lead this community and also later we joined we were be joined uh black community so not only Asian even we were still got rejected so it's a kind of real systemic barriers not only for one certain period because 16 years four runs of every five years opening I couldn't imagine how frustrated because I'm just taking over the role for the past one and a half year before that our community older generation of leaders they got rejected again and again for different level of founders so I obviously would love to connect after this session and talk about how to make a change about systemic uh barriers I think it's very important thank you you're most welcome So I just like uh I want to thank FA for uh raising uh questions we are now getting to the end of our session so anyone wants to have the last word or the last question please feel free to do it right now or else we will have to uh conclude this session uh I want to thank everyone for showing up and uh joining us today uh even though we may not have a chance to talk to you directly but you're most welcome to get in touch with us if you are interested in our work uh and uh we we we do look forward to at least like uh uh continuing this conversation with some of you thank you thank you everyone thank you everyone the wine
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