Category: Digital Inclusion - digital literacy

I was honoured to be asked to participate in the recent MPI Europe conference Social Innovation for Refugee Inclusion (SI4RI): Sowing Innovation in the Cracks of Crisis.

This webinar kicked off the official launch of the Skills for the Post-Pandemic World research series by Diversity Institute, the Future Skills Centre, and the Government of Canada. The webinar shared findings, insights from industry leaders, and explored digital transformation, innovation and alternative pathways for digital skills.

Communication and information are an essential component of people’s lives. For migrants, the need to communicate and access information is essential to successfully complete their journeys, keep connected with family and friends back home, make new connections in their host country and access the right information to ease the transition into the host country.

In a hybrid service delivery model with baseline capabilities and competencies, each Frontline Practitioner, Manager, Director, Executive Director/CEO, and newcomer should have the same understanding of what a baseline hybrid service delivery model can offer. Consistency is key. SPOs can exceed this baseline, developing solutions beyond and above the baseline. They may have internal resources, or be connected to external resources (possibly shared among other agencies) to ensure that they have the capacity to provide an expected level of hybrid service delivery.

This section explores promising practices and models outside of the immigrant serving sector with a specific focus on innovation, solutions, and implications that other sectors have been implementing to enhance services in their organizations. In particular, we are interested in the evolution of Virtual Care practices in health care.

Sectors and organizations are increasingly being asked to create their own data ethics standards, practices, and procedures. Organizations require the skills to gain meaningful insights from data in order to unleash the strength of data. Measuring service delivery outcomes in a hybrid service model practice requires a different lens than simply the quantitative one.

This section explores new skill sets and roles that are emerging and will be important in a hybrid service delivery model. In many cases, these will not be entirely new roles in organizations. They will become part of someone’s role. It is important to explore these emerging roles not only to identify them, but to also explore the skills required and how hybrid professional roles (such as Frontline Practitioner/Digital Navigator) will emerge, be developed, and workers trained.

Technology access, literacy & infrastructure require investments in training and appropriate hardware as it evolves, and as client use of it changes. The sector uses technology and indeed has a rich history of being innovative with technology; however, there continue to be many challenges to technology implementation in agencies, particularly around service delivery and data, information, and feedback management. To achieve innovation and technology outcomes that will propel the sector forward, investments are needed to build the capacity of sector agencies and their staff.

Simply described, a hybrid service delivery model suggests a combination of in-person and online/remote (digital and non-digital) services for newcomers to Canada. It occurs when services are offered in-person as well as at a distance. It is both a tool and strategy that guides Settlement practitioners to determine how technology can be used effectively in service delivery, while ensuring support and room for in-person support.