Pommard Note Feb

RAP Conference - Breakout #11: Making Effective Referrals after RAP Wednesday, February 21, 2007

PRESENTERS: (Power Point available at www.settlement.org)  Elizabeth Gryte – Director, Settlement Programs, CIC Ontario Region  Mary Gallivan – Catholic Immigration Services, Edmonton AB  Ugur Ayman – YMCA of Greater Toronto

SESSION GOALS: Moderator: Chad Prowse CIC NHQ SRE  Address program and key policies  How to streamline services and programs  Harmonize RAP & ISAP  Link to other relevant settlement community services ______

Elizabeth Gryte – Director, Settlement Programs, CIC Ontario Region

 Toronto: RAP is delivered by COSTI  Ontario/Toronto – the people delivering the services are not Refugees  BAD NEW INDICATORS: drop-out rates of GARs from LINC  ATTEMPTS AT CORRECTIVE ACTION: referral training, conferences  JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: A case management Pilot  Find a solution that works locally  Called 6 RAP centres to Toronto and made money available to them to better the referrals service.  Didn’t want to fund individually but as ONE project  Meetings through the course of the Pilot Program  Each RAP service can approach with proposal for unique based services particular to each area  Money is an issue: transportation, rent

Ugur Ayman – YMCA of Greater Toronto (see Power Point – www.settlement.org)

Mary Gallivan – Catholic Immigration Services, Edmonton

 Catholic Social Services has Settlement Counsellors who cover both RAP & ISAP services so making referrals between the two service streams is a non- issue.  Need to make referrals from RAP to mainstream services are more of a challenge.  What is an effective referral: the client getting the help they require  Requires relationship building between service providers - leads to better success for the client  Settlement Counsellors need to have knowledge about the systems and services they are referring clients to  Helping other service providers understand the client group (GAR) assists in making good referrals  “We need to sit with our feet under the same table” – RAP & ISAP with mainstream service providers as well.

National RAP Conference (Feb.19-23, 2007 – Vancouver B.C.) 1 RAP Conference - Breakout #11: Making Effective Referrals after RAP (cont’d) Wednesday, February 21, 2007

 Mainstream service providers along with members of the Sudanese community were invited to come together / over 3 hours they heard stories of pre-migration / pre- refugee / Canadian struggle / mainstream service providers shared their frustration that they have a service to provide but knowing there is a disconnection between the service and the client group/ The service providers realized they need these meetings to be available to other front line and management level staff. The SUDANESE COLLABORATION resulted from these initial meetings. It was a collaboration of community members, immigrant-serving and mainstream service providers working collectively to name and address issues of settlement and integration in that community. Relationships were forged that resulted in greater understanding on both sides (community and service providers) and a number of initiatives resulted from these meetings.

QUESTION AND DISCUSSION PERIOD

 Saint John NB YMCA: Re: GARs receiving RAP assistance and transport - in NB they lost the right to give LINC transport assistance – why is there an unequal provision of services?

 Elizabeth Gryte: LINC schools provide the tickets but CIC fund LINC and should NOT be funded

 Regina Open Door Society: research shows that clients are not coming to LINC - clients MUST come to English / We have no money to translate like Ontario.

Elizabeth Gryte: One of the problems in Ontario / they see a CIC settlement counsellor once / cheques are mailed and there is no-follow-up / they move far / they don’t go to LINC / no way to enforce in Toronto /no carrot and stick / can’t cut back allowance in mail-in programs / hard to monitor / in smaller communities you can monitor / Toronto had the lowest per immigrant for many months / for a long time settlement allocation in Ontario had the least per immigrant

KW Reception Centre: Sometimes service providers treat clients badly / they are smart people who want to recover dignity / they should be encouraged to save and buy computers

Settlement and integration Services Organization - Pradeep Navaratna SISO: In Hamilton, Case Management is called ‘Life coaching and Development’ – our approach is home-visits / not carrot dangling / all of the clients in the pilot are very eager to attend LINC classes.

Immigrant Service Society BC: Came to get the experience of referral to other programs / made changes recently – ISS – would like to hear from other service providers where RAP is different from ISAP when RAP is only 6 weeks

People who work with the GARs must be open and willing / Overloaded but don’t want to leave/ Personality is important – we have to change our habits. If it’s not working then it’s us / there were a lot of referrals being done

National RAP Conference (Feb.19-23, 2007 – Vancouver B.C.) 2