Good Ideas in Settlement & Inclusion

Shared Digital Guides is a Catalyst initiative, contributed by CAST in the UK. Organizations share guides to how they use digital tools to run their services and operations. Even better, you can to copy, replicate, and learn from what they've done.

International Student Connect provides International Students with an authoritative information source along with connections in their community where they can get needed help and support. That alone makes it useful. But it is its first steps towards seamless information delivery in our sector that makes it very promising.

The YMCA of the National Capital Region’s project, Wired: Evaluating Settlement Online (WESO), is a research-based program that addresses the challenges/barriers that service providers and newcomer clients face in delivering/using remote and hybrid services. The project is uncovering evidence-based practices that Settlement Service Provider Organizations (SPOs) find promising in delivering remote/hybrid services and engaging clients, creating a toolkit/framework and resources for SPOs to evaluate the effectiveness of your service delivery and adapt your models accordingly to improve services, and creating a network of knowledge and promising practice sharing.

In this project, Norquest College developed a series of self-assessment tools to streamline access to services in the settlement sector. The resources have also been designed to help measure digital literacy skills among newcomers, settlement service practitioners and LINC instructors.

The Arrival Advisor app, created by PeaceGeeks, provides information and services Newcomers need to settle, such as finding a job, learning English, connecting with local community, and more.

The principles in this document are intended to be used as a guide to support and strengthen research relationships between academic institutions, researchers, students, community members, residents and organizations in the Jane Finch community.

Six years in development, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Solferino Academy has launched the Data Playbook v1, "a social learning toolkit to help people along the data journey. There are 10 modules and 120 brief exercises, games, scenarios, slides, and checklists to help teams improve their data skills. We embedded data protection and responsible data use across all the contents."

Promising Practices in Accessing Virtual Mental Health: Supporting Refugees during COVID-19 is a project that started during the pandemic and is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Ontario Ministry of Health.

As part of the ACS-Metropolis Institute's Envisioning the Future of the Immigrant Serving Sector project the Digital Champions pilot will bring this Digital Inclusion and Equity initiative to the Canadian Settlement Sector. 

The Newcomer Research Network (NRN) at the University of Calgary is an interdisciplinary community of researchers from the Faculties of Education, Nursing, Arts, Social Work and Medicine who work to advance and advocate for research that will inform intercultural practices supporting newcomers across the University of Calgary and the surrounding communities, nationally and internationally, through interdisciplinary collaborative partnerships.

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.

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.

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.

This Pathways to Prosperity project seeks to share innovative sector approaches to client service delivery and sector capacity.

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.

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).

The Canadian Council for Refugees worked with others to develop 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.

Each month, the Immigrant and Refugee Mental Health Project (IRMHP) features 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.

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 Digital Messaging for Settlement and Integration (DMSI) project is all about connecting newcomers with the information they need to successfully settle in Canada, when and where they need it.

Refugee 613 has produced several multilingual videos to help ensure language is not a barrier to getting accurate, trustworthy information during COVID-19. These videos were produced in collaboration with Ottawa Public Health.

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.

In this episode, I’m talking with Jason Shim, described by TechSoup as a Nonprofit Technology Rockstar. I definitely share that opinion. I’m so excited to bring his insights, energy and experience to all of you.

Marc-André Séguin is an immigration lawyer with the firm Exeo, in Montreal. In 2017, Marc-André and his partner Francis Tourigny, launched the first immigration chatbot in Canada. Immigration Virtual Assistant, or IVA, is a Facebook Messenger-based chatbot.