Category: digital literacy

The Switchboard Confluence event in June 2025 brought together technology innovators and refugee resettlement professionals to reimagine newcomer support through emerging technologies. Participants shared practical tools, techniques, and examples of how ethical and affordable technologies can address current resettlement challenges, with an emphasis on reaching and serving clients who are not located in proximity to services and resources.

Are you asking your clients about their digital access, literacy, and comfort as part of your intake or assessment processes? You should be. Here are some questions you can and should add to your intake and assessment flow to help you understand your clients and make better technology decisions.

We don't talk a lot about the user experience in our sector. But we should. Especially as we know that Newcomers, like all of us, are looking for frictionless access to information and progress in their Settlement journey, and expect exceptional service from us all. And why wouldn't they? They, like all of us, experience frictionless digital and other service experiences elsewhere. They increasingly expect it from sector service providers. But what does it mean?

I originally presented this at the Arab Community Centre of Toronto's Josoor Project Conference in March 2024: "Digital Inclusion: From Research to Application - Opportunities, Challenges and Strategies." You can view the video as well as read my full remarks in text.

Your audiences are increasingly reading your reports and PDF documents on mobile devices. You should want them to be as readable and accessible as possible on smartphones as they are on devices with larger screens. I've posted a number of publications on my site recently that are not at all mobile-friendly. Don't make that mistake. So here are some tips to keep in mind to ensure that the people you want to read your documents can and will.

In this August 2021 Building Migrant Resilience in Cities webinar researchers presented a project that documents how access to information influenced collective resilience, settlement, and social inclusion among Yazidi refugees and Turkish-speaking refugee claimants in York Region.

Someone wrote that no technology project team is complete without a social worker, because "Social work excels at understanding the entire system while also understanding the needs of the individual." In our sector, no technology project should be considered complete without front line workers and Newcomers present, for the same reason. We must centre staff and Newcomers in all technology-related planning and decision-making.

This June 2023 webinar presented MTM's latest survey results about Newcomer media and tech habits, as well as how you can use data to reach newcomer communities.

This 2023 Peel Newcomer Strategy session outlines and provides suggestions on how settlement sector can better promote their services to newcomers arriving in their community.