SETTLEMENT SERVICES

The services available to refugees in each of the seven communities will be described in this chapter. In addition, factors affecting utilization rates will be explored. The information is taken from the interviews conducted with settlement providers (see Volume 2, Appendix II) and from the adult and youth surveys as well as the public opinion survey. A detailed account of the refugees’ experiences with regard to settlement and the environment of the destining community can be found in Chapter 7.

All of the service providers interviewed in this study reported that they offer a full range of settlement services; however, there are differences in the scope of provision. For instance, in Grande Prairie, there is one individual who is responsible for all refugee services, while a single agency in Calgary (Calgary Catholic Immigration Society) has 85 employees and 400 volunteers. To give a concrete example, the employment-related services available in each city can be seen in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1

* more than one agency involved in employment-related services for refugees

To get a sense of the utilization of agency services across communities in the first year of settlement, the adult refugees were asked to indicate from a list of 15 possibilities which services they had received. Overall, refugees in Calgary and Edmonton tended to rely less on services provided by agencies than did individuals in the smaller cities; this may be tied to the existence of larger compatriot communities. Table 6-2 shows that although language training was accessed more than any other service overall, there was a significant difference among cities, such that the individuals destined to smaller communities were more likely to study English in their first year than those who settled in Calgary and Edmonton. Help finding housing was also a very heavily accessed service, but again, the percentage of refugees who made use of this service was lower in Edmonton and Calgary than in the smaller cities. Interestingly, the number of refugees who received housing help in Calgary was only 52%. This figure is somewhat surprising, given the concerns expressed by CIC personnel and the other service providers regarding the severe shortage of housing in that city. Refugees in Calgary and Edmonton may have received help finding housing from friends or relatives, rather than agencies.

There were also significant differences in accessing orientation services across cities; both Lethbridge and Grande Prairie provided over 80% of the newcomers with orientation services, while in Edmonton, only 52% of refugees (10% fewer than in Calgary) received orientation. In terms of help with children’s schools, Red Deer and Calgary stand out from the rest: Red Deer by providing assistance to 92% and Calgary by assisting only 43%. Help with translation also varied among cities, from a low of 27% in Fort McMurray to a much higher level of use in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat. The two questions relating to work were also significantly different across communities: help finding a job was lowest in Grande Prairie and Calgary, while occupational/job training was accessed by the smallest percentage of refugees in Edmonton and Calgary. There were no other significant differences, but it should be noted that several of the services accessed most often were related to a need for help with language.

The differences in access to settlement services outlined above are counter to the perceptions of the service providers in the seven cities, most of whom believe that newcomers to Canada take advantage of the wider range of services in Calgary and Edmonton to a greater extent than is actually the case. When the settlement providers in each community were asked what the benefits would be to destining all refugees to Edmonton and Calgary, many cited the availability of services (see Appendix II, Volume 2).

Refugees were also asked to evaluate each of the 15 services on a scale of 1 - 5, where 1 represented ‘not at all helpful’ and 5 meant ‘very helpful’. The responses to this question are shown in Figure 6-3. Overall, the respondents appear to be quite satisfied with most of the services, but assistance with finding jobs and with job training opportunities were both rated much lower than the other categories. Clearly these services are somewhat distinct from some of the others in that job-finding and access to occupational training that results in a job can be interpreted on an all-or-nothing basis. That is to say, even though someone may not have become fully fluent in English through language training, there is still a recognition of the usefulness of any increase in proficiency. Assistance with job training or a job search that doesn’t lead to a job, or that results in a job in which the newcomer is severely underemployed, is bound to be viewed negatively (see Chapter 3 for a discussion of underemployment among refugees).

The usage rates of ESL programs by region of origin and by city of destination are shown in Table 6-4. Although there are significant differences (Africans are least likely to study English, for example, likely because, as shown in Chapter 3, 15% of African refugees use English as a home language) it is important to keep in mind different sub-sample sizes from one group to the next. Eighty-five percent of former Yugoslavians, who make up the majority of respondents, took ESL. Interestingly, when the cities of residence are examined, we note that the figures for people having studied ESL are higher than those found in Table 6-2, especially for Calgary and Edmonton. This suggests that a) some refugees are studying ESL after their first year in Canada, and b) that some of the individuals received their language training elsewhere (e.g., someone in Lethbridge who now lives in Calgary).

When other formal education or training is examined (Table 6-4), we see that although there are significant differences across groups by region of origin, those groups reporting the greatest use are also the smallest in number. There were no significant differences in use of the formal education/training system across city of residence.

The adult refugees were asked to indicate which services they had received after their first year in Canada (see Table 6-5). Here there were many significant differences across cities, largely due to the fact that, other than language training, no service use was reported in Fort McMurray. The top three services were language training, help with translation and help filling in forms. The two items related to jobs -- help finding a job and occupational training -- differed across cities in that refugees in Edmonton had a very low access rate compared with the other cities. This is a particularly striking finding, given that Edmonton has the second highest unemployment rate of all the cities under consideration (see Chapter 4). Both Lethbridge and Red Deer were relatively high in providing help finding a job after the first year, and Red Deer provided occupational training assistance to twice as many individuals in that community as was observed in any other city.

When asked whether there were services that could have benefited the refugees but which were unavailable to them, almost half of the refugees answered ‘yes’. The largest number of responses were related to jobs, followed by a need for information and a need for more education and/or ESL (see Table 6-6). Given that a very large majority of respondents had received at least some ESL and/or formal education, and yet some still felt that they needed more, it is interesting to turn to responses in the public opinion survey. When asked what types of services are needed by refugees/immigrants, only 37% of the public felt that ESL was a necessary service (Table 6-7). An even greater disparity between the views of the refugees and the public occurred with regard to job training; only 10% of the public felt that there was a need for assistance to newcomers in this area. The public cited cultural orientation as an important need (35% of all respondents) but only 9% thought that refugees and immigrants needed help getting adjusted. In other words, they were most concerned that newcomers learn "Canadian ways."

The question which asked refugees to rate factors that are most important for settling in Canada elicited the highest ratings for ‘learning to speak English’ and ‘finding a job’, both in the adult and the youth populations (see Tables 6-8 and 6-9). There was a difference in responses by region with regard to the importance of accessibility to a settlement agency. Although the majority of the adult respondents in all groups felt that being able to go to a settlement agency was very important, the East Asians were significantly less likely to rate it so. Both the Central/South Americans and the former Yugoslavians rated the need for interpreters more highly than did the other groups, but this may be a recency effect (i.e., they arrived later) in the case of the latter group. Having relatives close by was considered to be very important by the groups with smaller overall ethnic communities, but although the East Asians and the former Yugoslavians valued having relatives nearby, it was not as important to them. Some other group differences emerged in responses to the question regarding the importance of having a place of worship. The people from the Middle East (primarily Muslim) and from Central/South America (primarily Roman Catholic) rated the need for their own place of worship more highly than the other groups.

The youth followed similar patterns to their parents in terms of order of importance with the exception of ‘having your own place of worship’ and ‘having friends from the same cultural background’ (Table 6-9). In both instances, the importance they placed on these activities was less than their parents had reported, but they valued a place of worship more than friends from the same background. This suggests that they are developing friendships with other youth at school from a variety of backgrounds.

Finally, refugees were asked to rate several issues for how much concern they cause when settling in a new country (see Tables 6-10 and 6-11). The adults’ principal concern was finding or keeping a job, but individuals from Central/South America and East Asia were more worried about employment than people from the other groups (Table 6-10). The Africans’ major concern was for relatives and friends back home. Although the majority of all adults were concerned for their children’s future, former Yugoslavians appeared to be less worried than the other groups. This may reflect an awareness that educated white immigrants are generally more successful in Canadian society. Learning English was a major concern for all groups, but the Central/South Americans stood out from the others; fully 96% of this group stated that they were very concerned about ESL. Africans and Central/South Americans were the two groups most concerned about "fitting in" in Canadian society.

The youth in the refugee sample were asked to react to a subset of the same issues that had been given to their parents (Table 6-11). They were generally less concerned than their elders about most issues, but the Central/South American group, like their parents, were more worried in general than their peers from other regions.

Summary

Contrary to the beliefs of many service providers, individuals who were destined to Calgary or Edmonton do not access programs to a greater extent in their first year than those who were destined to smaller cities. Indeed, fewer refugees are able to access ESL in the large cities, despite indications that they need language training at least as much as the people who are destined elsewhere. The service most utilized in the province is ESL, and the refugees felt that there is a need for more provisions in the area of employment, general information, and ESL/ education.