This guide was developed by the Hamilton Immigration Partnership Council (HIPC). It is based on a report conducted in partnership with McMaster University Research Shop. This Good Idea complements and is related to Ethical Considerations in Research with People in Situations of Forced Migration.
Why it was needed
From the report: "HIPC and its members are regularly approached by researchers from local and regional post-secondary institutions to assist with recruiting newcomers for their studies. Research, when done well, can lead to policy changes, new programs or services, and other opportunities to improve settlement and integration for Hamilton’s newcomer communities. However, when approached with limited cultural awareness, insensitivity to lived experiences, or unrealistic expectations, research with newcomers can unintentionally be harmful to or unpleasant for those involved. Many newcomers face barriers in their settlement experiences, often in the form of limited work experience, unrecognized job credentials and poor language proficiency. Therefore, it is important the research community works to remove these as opposed to reinforces them.
To help prepare prospective researchers for their interactions with the newcomer community and service providers, HIPC has collaborated with the McMaster Research Shop to create this guide. We draw inspiration from similar guides created for communities experiencing frequent researcher-newcomer interactions, such as Vancouver’s “Research 101: A Manifesto for Ethical Research in the Downtown Eastside.” Our goal was to gather local perspectives on how researchers can treat newcomer communities with the respect and decency they deserve, and how the
research process be improved for those involved."
Defining meaningful and inclusive
Meaningful research focuses on what’s important to the community. The goal is for the research to have a positive impact.
Inclusive research is when all members of the target population are given a chance to participate. Researchers put supports in place to make sure this happens.
Doing Research with Newcomers created three guides:
For Newcomers - provides them with information about common practices and your their if they decide to participate in research. Sections include:
For Researchers - a guide to inclusive and meaningful research with newcomers. Sections include:
For Service Providers - A Guide to Inclusive and Meaningful Research with Newcomers: Intake Form. This intake form was designed to assist community and service provider organizations when approached by researchers wanting to build partnerships or to recruit newcomer participants for their studies. It is a fillable PDF form you can ask researchers to complete when they approach you about a potential research project. You could also extract the questions and put them into a Word or other document.
Download the HIPC Newcomers Guide.
Since the pandemic started, many organizations have pivoted possibilities and options to create digital specialist roles. These new positions were filled by admin staff or settlement practitioners whose roles changed to incorporate digital support and orientation for both clients and colleagues. Digital Navigators are emerging as an essential role in the Immigrant and Refugee-serving sector and in the future of a hybrid service delivery model.
What does it take to be a Digital Navigator? Flip through this activity to learn more!
The National Digital Inclusion Alliance defines Digital Navigators as “individuals who address the whole digital inclusion process — home connectivity, devices, and digital skills — with community members through repeated interaction”. Their site provides practical tools and documents that SPOs can use to collect information about technology needs of the community and clients, assess community members’ digital skills, conduct follow-up surveys.
The Digital Literacy Alliance describes digital navigators as an adaptation of traditional digital inclusion roles that will specifically provide remote one-to-one dedicated support to the community. Digital Navigators help citizens identify their internet, device, and training needs, walk them through their options, support them in filling out required paperwork or online forms if necessary, and provide “warm handoffs” (a handoff that is conducted in person (virtual, f2f, or via phone), between two practitioners (within the same organization, or between organizations) with the client directly involved) for additional training or technical support as needed.
In the context of supporting digital skills for the adult workforce, DigitalUS (2020) described digital navigators as “trained staff or volunteers who help learner-workers secure internet access and/or devices and start to use them to help them meet their goals. Those goals can include using an online learning program to reskill, access services, apply for a job, support their children in school, and more. The navigators coach participants in- person at drop-in locations or virtually (through phone hotlines or online chats/meetings) using techniques intentionally designed to develop the confidence and abilities needed to become agile, lifelong learners of new technologies, an essential component for digital resilience”. NDIA's Digital Navigator Model, Digital US's, Digital Navigator Resource Hub & Digital Navigator Toolkit provide useful and practical tips and steps about the digital navigator model.
In the healthcare context, digital navigators are regarded as "new team members" in clinical teams in the digital care setting, where they provide app assessment and recommendation, application setup and troubleshooting, and app data preview and analysis for clinicians to support clinical care.
Researchers created a “10-hour curriculum designed to train digital navigators across 5 domains: (1) core smartphone skills, (2) basic technology trouble-shooting, (3) app evaluation, (4) clinical terminology and data, and (5) engagement techniques.”
The report Digital Navigators: Lynchpin in Equitable Reskilling & Recovery Efforts highlights the need for a long-term approach that makes digital navigation services central in any learning and working environment: “For the new learn and work ecosystem to be more equitable, we must figure out the long-term solution so that digital navigation services become a core, funded delivery model and that the systems are in place to ensure that they are effective and affordable at scale.”
Simply put:
Creating and building the Digital Navigators approach has been a multi-partner and multifaceted approach.
The Salt Lake City Public Library (SLCPL) partnered with the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to bridge the Digital Divide in Salt Lake City through the launch of a Digital Navigators pilot project in the Fall of 2020. The goal of the program model was to provide one-to-one basic digital inclusion services — connectivity assistance, device assistance, basic digital skills support — over the phone. The Digital Navigator program with SLCPL served as a pilot project to gather findings and best practices to strengthen a replicable open source model for other public libraries and community-based organizations.
World Education Inc works with Digital US Coalition partners to develop new models for offering “digital navigator” services; coordinate pilots that started in July to demonstrate impact and replicability; and develop training materials, an online resource hub, and a community of practice to facilitate national scaling. The project leadership continues to contribute to and learn from the Digital Navigator working group, coordinated by NDIA, and partially underwritten by Digital US.
The Digital Navigator services model offers flexibility not only in terms of where, how, and when services are offered but also in regards to who provides the service. Digital Navigators can be trained and dedicated staff, or people for whom it is just a component of their job as a part of their work (such as Settlement Practitioners or Language teachers), or volunteers that help learner-workers (whether through phone, hotlines, or at drop-in locations) secure affordable internet access, devices, and foundational training so learner-workers can meet their personal and career goals. Foundational digital skills can be offered directly or through referrals to learning programs that can help learner-workers upskill, access critical services, search for, or apply for a job.
In your work, you play a key role in systems navigation. Like general Settlement work, as a Digital Navigator you’re helping Newcomers navigate the digital system.
Instead of employment, health, housing, or community systems, here we’re focusing on digital literacy systems.
Digital navigators are trusted guides who assist community members in internet adoption and the use of computing devices.
Digital navigation services include ongoing assistance with accessing affordable internet access, device acquisition, technical skills, and application (app and software) support.
The Digital Navigator in our context helps provide digital literacy skills orientation or training for Newcomers. The Digital Navigator is an advocate and support person who educates and onboards Newcomers so they can make informed decisions about using technology.
This help is provided in person or over the telephone but can also include email, text/digital messaging, video chat, and other communication methods that work for the Newcomer.
Additionally, Digital Navigators play an important role finding and making referrals to programs and facilitating enrollment in digital literacy classes, workshops, upskilling opportunities, critical services, or helping people navigate community resources and services.
Digital Navigators follow up with Newcomers to track progress and to ensure goals have been met.
As I mentioned, it’s a new layer of systems navigation that we all must become more knowledgeable about. It is important that front line workers learn to be substantially knowledgeable about digital devices and platforms and prepare for digital transformation readiness.
Like the hybrid model, you were already a Digital Navigator before the pandemic. And many of you have become Digital Navigators now. Run a workshop on how to use LinkedIn for job search? Digital navigation. Support someone to download and complete a government form? Digital navigation. Over the past years has your organization provided support to Newcomers around devices, internet connections, or digital literacy training (whether you offered it or referred Newcomers to the community)? Digital navigation. Our question is whether the Digital Navigator model is something we want to formalize and integrate into our work with Newcomers.
My suggestion is yes. A 2022 report on Digital Navigators in the United States looked at how helpful digital navigators have been. They interviewed the leaders of more than 40 digital navigator programs and conducted a nationwide survey of over 1,500 digital navigator users. Researchers found some important outcomes for digital navigator users:
It’s a model that works. It can work for us.
The Digital Navigators' Toolkit provides a useful backgrounder as well as useful information about assessing the need for a Digital Navigator program, how to hire and train Digital Navigators, as well as evaluate their impact.
What is a "Digital Navigator"? provides an overview of how Digital Navigators have worked and their impact in Philadelphia.
Training Guide is for orienting new Digital Navigators to their role - It was developed for a digital navigator program.
Design and Implementation Resources from Digital US:
The Role of Digital Navigators in Promoting Clinical Care and Technology Integration into Practice - As the role of technology expands in healthcare, so does the need to support its implementation and integration into the clinic. The concept of a new team member, the digital navigator, able to assume this role is introduced as a solution. With a digital navigator, any clinic today can take advantage of digital health and smartphone tools to augment and expand existing telehealth and face to face care. The role of a digital navigator is suitable as an entry level healthcare role, additional training for an experienced clinician, and well suited to peer specialists. To facilitate the training of digital navigators, we draw upon our experience in creating the role and across health education to introduce a 10-h curriculum designed to train digital navigators across 5 domains: (1) core smartphone skills, (2) basic technology troubleshooting, (3) app evaluation, (4) clinical terminology and data, and (5) engagement techniques. This paper outlines the curricular content, skills, and modules for this training.
(click to open larger view)
Digital Navigator Training Appendix - This supplementary Appendix to the to above document provides step by step instructions and resources for each module.
It's just an idea right now, but it's definitely a good idea to watch.
The CIO Strategy Council, Tamarack Institute, and NTEN, alongside numerous collaborators, have been working on the possible creation of a Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience. The goal is to equip nonprofits with the talent, tools, and processes to thrive in a digital and data-driven world.
I don't know a great deal more than what is in the presentation embedded below (which you can download here) except that they are looking for more input and partners (as discussed at the recent Future of Good’s Dismantling Digital Barriers Summit). But their Working Principles align well with the Task Group findings and recommendations. I also quite like that they reference NetHope’s Centre for the Digital Nonprofit Digital Nonprofit Ability model, which I use in many presentations and find very relevant as a model for us to adapt and use. You can view their information deck below (you can also download it here).
The nonprofit sector organizations that have been consulted are wide ranging, including at least 4 from the immigrant and refugee-serving sector, which is great to see. As they move forward it will be important to work with government funders and other actors outside the nonprofit sector to make everything happen. I'm not sure what all of their next steps are, but they are interested in working with organizations in more sectors, like ours. Seems like a useful opportunity to work with a broader coalition to build the hybrid/digital services vision for our sector and beyond.
This April 2022 webinar recording provides a useful introduction and overview:
Working Principles
How we work
How we approach technology
Original slide deck
Updated slide deck November 19, 2021
In almost every report about innovation, technology, and capacity building in the Canadian immigrant and refugee-serving sector, building knowledge transfer, mobilization, and sharing capacity in the sector comes up. This Pathways to Prosperity project seeks to share innovative sector approaches to client service delivery and sector capacity:
"Promising practices are innovative practices that have an objective basis for claiming effectiveness in achieving their stated aims and have the potential for replication. Thus, promising practices are defined in terms of their innovation and effectiveness, which can be empirically measured as successful outcomes of the practices. Our approach focuses not only on identifying truly promising practices, but on analyzing and sharing key features that can be replicated. Promising practices may have faced challenges in their initial implementation, and these challenges are also considered and analyzed so that others can learn from these experiences."
Each practice has a video featured practice leads outlining their work and is summarized in a document with the following template:
Overview of the program
Key features that contribute to this being a promising practice
Performance measurement and evaluation strategy
Links to more information
Find out more on the Sharing Settlement and Integration Practices that Work site.
The pandemic meant that everyone had to move services online. For New Canadians, that move was probably easier than many. Already adept at online content sharing, as well as an OMNI TV show that's run for a number of years, it made sense that they would create something like Café New Canadians, a virtual event series.
Each episode focuses on conversations related to immigration, settlement, employment, education, small businesses, and related topics. The audience is broad, ranging from potential immigrants to Canada, refugees, international students, and new Canadians anywhere on their settlement journey.
Broadcast on Zoom, as well as on YouTube, their channel has dozens of useful videos, generally providing a subject matter as well as newcomer perspective. There is tremendous value here for newcomers. They've made the conversations public, accessible, and the Cafe has continued for over a year.
Frontline workers can use these videos to share with your clients, to complement your own services, webinars, and content. They're a rich repository for you to use and share.
The other thing to learn from this Good Idea is that immigrant and refugee-serving organizations should be doing the same thing. Over the past year, during the pandemic, you've all been offering webinars, Facebook Live sessions, etc., and they're all likely recorded and stored away somewhere, probably less accessible than they could be. Don't hide your amazing content and useful information, share it widely, is another lesson from this Good Idea!
Below are just a few examples:
Created by Ottawa-based Capital Rainbow Refuge, the Queer Refugee Hearings Program (QRHP) Toolkit aims to "assist individuals claiming refugee protection based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and/or sex characteristics (SOGIESC) by:
The QRHP Toolkit is available in Word format. You can download the complete Toolkit, or specific sections. Capital Rainbow Refuge has also created an online version. The Interactive Online QRHP Toolkit is available on a safe and secure online platform. Some of the features in the online version include:
The QRHP Toolkit provides legal information on the refugee claim process for individuals with different sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics in Canada. However, it should not be considered legal advice. Capital Rainbow Refuge suggests "It is always important to hire a good lawyer to advise you on the strong and weak parts of your refugee claim, to review your questionnaire answers, to prepare and review your evidence and Basis of Claim, and to prepare you to answer questions at your eventual hearing, among other responsibilities."
If you do not have a lawyer, you can find information about provincial Legal Aid offices, and other helpful community legal and support organizations in Section 6 of the Toolkit called Resources.
The QRHP Toolkit is free and available in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic."
Summary:
The Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), Centre for Refugee Studies, and Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS / ACERMF) developed ethical guidelines for research with people in situations of forced migration.
The guidelines include a checklist for organizations who are approached by researchers, to help evaluate whether the research will be conducted ethically, and taking into consideration the particular vulnerabilities of people who have been forcibly displaced.
Background:
"In situations of forced migration, the stakes are particularly high because of precarious legal status, unequal power relations, far-reaching anti-terrorism legislation, and the criminalization of migration. In response, the Canadian Council for Refugees, York’s Centre for Refugee Studies, and the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies collaborated to complement established ethical principles with specific ethical considerations for research with people in situations of forced migration. This executive summary highlights our guiding principles and applies the ethical concepts of voluntary, informed consent; respect for privacy; and cost-benefit analysis. It is of relevance to anyone involved in gathering information - whether in an academic or community setting - and those who are asked to take part in research."
Guiding Principles for Researchers:
Applying the Guiding Principles:
Downloads:
Download the Ethical Considerations: Research with People in Situations of Forced Migration
The document “Your Rights in Research" (see document in different languages below) provides an information sheet for people taking part in forced migration research. It discusses what voluntary, informed consent is, their right to privacy and confidentiality, and the researcher’s obligation to do no harm.
The document is available in these languages:
The Immigrant and Refugee Mental Health Project (IRMHP) is an IRCC-funded project that "offers online training, tools and resources to settlement, social and health service professionals working with immigrants and refugees." The "project builds on the former Refugee Mental Health Project, expanding to cover mental health problems and disorders in different groups of immigrants and refugees as well as evidence-based services, treatments and supports that have the capacity to effectively address the unique needs of different groups."
I think IRMHP is perhaps best known for its excellent courses, webinars, Community of Practice, and toolkits. But, each month, in their newsletter (which you should definitely subscribe to), they include a great look at a sector promising practice: "Across Canada, organizations are developing new practices to tackle today’s greatest challenges in the health, settlement and social service sectors. Each month, we feature a promising practice that highlights how an organization is addressing the mental health of immigrants and refugee and how you can use this information in your practice."
Each promising practice is organized into the same template, so you know what you're going to see each month.
There are some quick facts:
Below this section is a narrative providing more details and information about the practice.
I would love to see some deep links to more information about each practice or project documents (not every practice description has them), and even contact information, like Cities of Migration provides. But, the promising practices are rich and useful and there is a great repository that goes back to October 2019. The practices focus on immigrant and refugee mental health. If you're not an expert in this area, the IRMHP project is a great starting point to become more aware and knowledgeable.
Here are just a few:
Note: Since this Good Idea was originally published, the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration and Integration has retired the project and site and created a tribute page to it.
They have made some of the site resources available:
Summary of Cities of Migration
Best practice. Promising practice. There are many ways to name something that you think might be useful to know about in your work. Perhaps knowing about it might inspire you. It might even encourage you to replicate it. I've always liked the way the Cities of Migration project named the projects they kept an eye on as Good Ideas in Integration: "At its most basic, a Good Idea in integration is any program, activity or strategy that has made a difference in the successful integration of migrants in city-life. In this process, the city and all its residents have also benefited with increased social cohesion, greater urban prosperity and the richness that cultural diversity affords all communities."
The site has collected dozens, if not hundreds, of Good Ideas since 2009. The projects are mainly from the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, along with Australia and New Zealand. They're organized into five core themes:
Most recently, they've added a number of new portals to their Good Ideas in these areas:
Good Ideas are generally text write-ups with useful background and project information, along with contact info if you want to follow up to connect or learn more. But Cities of Migration has a vast archive of webinars presented by Good Idea projects in their Learning Exchange. The Learning Exchange is a great place to take an even deeper dive into themes and Good Ideas, presented by the people who created and work on them.
If you've never explored Cities of Migration I strongly encourage you to. Dive into the Good Ideas. Set up some lunch and learns with colleagues to view a Learning Exchange session. Here's one I recommend:
Immigrant Futures Forum: Designing a Welcoming Economy
Experts from Canada and the U.S will share research, local experience and great ideas for how cities can leverage the potential of immigrant talent and contribution to benefit both newcomers and receiving communities.
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