Strengthening Canada s Communities / Des communautés plus fortes au Canada

Transcription

1 Strengthening Canada s Communities / Des communautés plus fortes au Canada Immigrant CED Skills and Training Assessment April 2009 By: Nicole Chaland Introduction: This report is intended to be useful in shaping the BC CED Network s thinking and approach to supporting Community Economic Development as a strategy for new immigrant integration. The report is based on survey responses from individuals who have direct work experience in both the immigrant settlement sector and the community economic development sector. All respondents are current or past students in the SFU Certificate Program for CED Professionals. One of the goals of the survey was to develop an assessment of the skills and training needs and opportunities of immigrant CED practitioners. Key Research Question: What opportunities exist to promote CED, and in particular, market the SFU Certificate Program for CED Professionals to staff of immigrant settlement agencies? Key Highlights: 1. CED is an important strategy for immigrant settlement; however current funding and delivery programs make implementation and experimentation of CED strategies very difficult. 2. Immigrant Settlement agencies are not a good market for the SFU Certificate Program for CED Professionals. 3. There is an opportunity and interest in developing a project that would offer CED presentations to senior staff and directors of settlement agencies; start social enterprises in partnership with employment counseling departments of agencies and provide CED training to employment counselors.

2 Page 2 of 5 Survey Findings: The survey was comprised eight open-ended questions. The findings are presented below along with each question. 1. Is CED a realistic strategy to support new immigrant settlement into Canada? The majority of respondents stated that community economic development (CED) is a promising strategy to support immigrant settlement. Specifically CED is proposed as a revised immigrant settlement model that is better suited to current immigration legislation and policy. Simply, immigration policy and immigrant settlement models need to be harmonized. It was noted that the current immigrant settlement program model and goals were designed during the 1990 s. In 2002, positive changes were introduced to the Immigrant and Refugee Protection Act, effectively illuminating Canada s previous practice of discriminating refugees with serious health problems. However, the changes in the Act only went half-way in eliminating discrimination. The new Act allows, refugees with health problems from war affected countries to enter Canada, but insufficient programs deny refugees and other multi-barriered newcomers full participation in Canadian school systems, economic and political systems. Because community economic development is a holistic approach to community development, which seeks social, cultural, economic and environmental outcomes it is better suited to fulfill Canadian s promise of equality and multiculturalism to newcomers. It was also noted that newcomers, like all Canadians, are not guaranteed basic human rights for secure access to food, shelter and employment. 2. What CED strategies hold the most promise: a) co-operative housing, b) training enterprises, c) food-related enterprises, d) study groups, e) business start-up support, or f) micro-loans. Respondents generally thought all the strategies were important and that a particular strategy would be dependent on the needs and assets of a particular group. Participants identified the following characteristics that would need to be included in a strategy for it to be useful in terms of assisting with the immigrant settlement process. - Appropriate to the stage of settlement. I.e. newcomers might like to access on-the-job training opportunities in year 1 of settlement and newcomers might like to access self-employment training in year 2 of settlement. - Limited forms, policies and rules. Many Canadian community-based organizations have large numbers of policies, complicated governance structures and accompanying forms which can be a barrier to newcomers. - Training enterprises that give newcomers their first Canadian paid experience and were designed to be responsive to newcomers unique situations were identified as a priority CED strategy. - Service Co-operatives such as childcare, healthcare and housing. 3. What barriers exist within the funding and delivery framework of immigrant

3 Page 3 of 5 settlement agencies that make CED difficult to implement? Immigrant settlement programs provide services to individuals such as English as a second language training and resume writing and job coaching; whereas community economic development is a process that facilitates individuals to act as a community and create solutions to common economic problems in a way that respects the environment and nurtures positive social aspects such as trust and reciprocity. A typical community economic development program would include services to individuals such as language training, job training, financial literacy and more. In addition to human resource development, CED programs include access to financing, research and development and building collectively owned assets. It is the combination and linking of these four program areas that allow an agency to support an individual in a holistic way. CED is a long-term planning, action and reflection process. Immigrant settlement agencies due to their funding nature operate programs in silos and on a short-term basis. The difference between how a CED agency operates and how an immigrant settlement agency operates is immense. Respondents offered the following specific recommendations for changes that would enable immigrant settlement agencies to begin to explore CED through projects or departments. 1. A pre-designed CED program for settlement agencies, with CED training for staff and board and long-term funding that allows the agency to take risks (and possibly fail). 2. Repackage community economic development in accessible, meaningful language. 3. Encourage settlement agencies to create a non-government revenue stream that would provide some resources for them to experiment with more creative programming. 4. Change government funding and delivery frameworks to allow for long term planning with newcomers for their settlement path. The current system expects newcomers to become integrated in Canadian society within five years. 4. Do immigrant settlement agencies have professional development budgets for staff? The professional development budgets vary from agency to agency but range between $50 - $200 per year. Many agencies provide training in house. 5. Do you think the SFU Certificate Program for CED Professionals would be useful training for people who work in immigrant settlement agencies? Why or why not? Respondents to this question were perfectly mixed with 50% stating a unequivocal yes and 50% stating maybe or not sure. Additional responses fell under the following themes: 1. CED is a process to build inclusive, healthy communities and immigrants and refugees are essential to the overall well-being of Canadian communities. 2. Shorter workshops and presentations would be useful to garner support and interest from staff of settlement agencies. 3. Unless an agency is committed to investing organizational resources in CED, training settlement workers in CED is a waste of time. 4. It is imperative that immigrants and refugees are offered more options and different ways to settle. CED offers an alternative that is empowering to newcomers. The current programs are not empowering. 6. Do you have any ideas for bring together CED practitioners and immigrant

4 Page 4 of 5 settlement workers? This questions generated a wide range of ideas including: 1. An annual conference or gathering. 2. CED practitioners deliver workshops to settlement workers. Specifically training on alternative and local business development for employment councilors. 3. Allocation of a CED worker within each agency. 7. Are there any benefits to bringing a community of immigrant and CED practitioners together? All respondents agreed that there would be benefits to bringing a community of immigrant and CED practitioners together. Specifically, respondents thought that it would create the following benefits: 1. Increased appreciation, awareness and understanding of the skills, knowledge and networks each field contains leading to utilizing each others skills and networks. 2. Joint projects focusing on creation of social and environment enterprises where newcomers could engage in paid work and on-the-job training. 8. Are there any upcoming opportunities to bringing a community of immigrant and CED practitioners together? There are not many current opportunities, but a clear recommendation was that a natural starting point is within employment counselors and training enterprises. Conclusion There is a disconnect between immigrant settlement programs and immigration policy in Canada; therefore frontline settlement workers observe failures in Canada s ability to offer programs that result in positive settlement outcomes for newcomers to Canada. Some settlement workers have identified community economic development as holding promise and great potential to support newcomers in realizing and sharing their full potential in Canada. At this time, there isn t a robust market for the SFU Certificate Program for CED Professionals within staff of settlement agencies. As such an appropriate marketing strategy for the SFU Certificate Program for CED Professionals is a long term investment and involves raising awareness of the benefits of CED whilst providing solidarity and support to agency workers who are working towards ensuring Canadian privileges such as housing, healthcare and employment are extended to their clients. A long-term investment would be characterized by short, plain language CED workshops and presentations aimed at staff and directors of settlement agencies. Raising the profile of CED is a core mandate of the Canadian CED Network and an opportunity exists to create a special project designed in conjunction with the SFU Certificate Program of CED Professionals and alumni who are animators in specific ethno-cultural communities or staff at settlement agencies to increase interest and awareness of the benefits of CED.

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