Planning for Whole-ofSociety Resettlement
Exploring Resettlement Agencies’ Experiences Planning for
Syrian Refugee Resettlement
Catherine Kenny
Disaster and Emergency Management, York University
June 1, 2017
Outline
• Introduction to research
• Planning for whole-of-society resettlement
• Federal government – resettlement agency relationship
• Impacts of neoliberal governance on resettlement agencies
• Findings
• Successes and challenges
• Conclusion
Introduction to Research
• Canada’s Syrian refugee
resettlement initiative:
• First commitment: Over
26,000 Syrian refugees
resettled between Nov. 4,
2015 and Feb. 29, 2016
• Resettlement agencies
provide the governmentfunded Resettlement
Assistance Program to
refugees
John McCallum, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and Harjit Sajjan,
Minister of National Defence, announce Canada's plan to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees,
during a press conference at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa on Tuesday.
Planning for Resettlement
• Main research questions:
1. What was the role of resettlement agencies in planning for
Canada’s Syrian refugee resettlement initiative?
2. How did these planning processes affect resettlement
agencies’ experiences resettling Syrian refugees?
Planning for Resettlement
IRCC-Resettlement Agency
Relationship
Impact of Neoliberal Governance on Resettlement
Agencies
• Short-term, program-based, contracts (Richmond & Shields, 2004, 2005)
• Increasing accountability mechanisms (e.g. finance
reports) (Christensen & Ebrahim, 2006; Meinhard, Lo & Hyman, 2016)
• “Limited” partnerships (Meinhard, Lo & Hyman, 2016)
• Sector instability (OCASI, 2016)
• Employment precarity and employee stress
Findings
• Findings:
• Collaboration, openness, and flexibility characterized the
relationship between the federal government and resettlement
agencies.
• Many of the challenges that resettlement agencies experienced
were the result of long-term systemic neoliberal restructuring
of the resettlement sector.
Successes in Relationship with
IRCC
• IRCC provided:
• Responsive, on-theground support
• Open and transparent
flow of information
• Funding flexibility (for
direct service provision)
Challenges
• Untimely and inadequate funding for hiring
• “[B]ut it was difficult not to know the level of financial
support that we would get, so that we could plan. It’s
very hard to hire people and then not know if you can
keep them on and then have to lay them off and have to
rehire. There was a bit more of that than we would
have liked.”
Challenges
• Inadequate training and added employee stress
• “On our own staff, it’s very stressful because we had
senior staff with a lot of experience trying to support
newly hired staff with much less experience. […] So, it
definitely put a big strain on the core [Resettlement
Assistance Program] workers because they had to
orient and coordinate and support a lot of new people
who didn’t have experience.”
Challenges
• Difficulty with volunteer
management
• Volunteer management
relatively defunded
• One government official
noted, “[Resettlement
agencies] all did something
different [for volunteer
management] because at that
point, when they needed to
start working on it, we still
didn’t have the money.”
Conclusion
• Take-away points:
• High-level policy changes have real impacts on local
implementation of resettlement services
• Flexibility, innovation, and reducing bureaucratic
regulations are essential in large resettlement initiatives
References
•
Chartrand, F. (2015). John McCallum, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and Harjit Sajjan,
Minister of National Defence, announce Canada's plan to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees, during a press conference
at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa on Tuesday [photograph]. Times Colonist. Retrieved from
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/victoria-considered-as-government-assisted-refugee-destination1.2119064
•
Christensen, R. & Ebrahim, A. (2006). How does accountability affect mission? The case of a nonprofit serving
immigrants and refugees. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 17(2), 195-209.
•
Denette, N. (2015). Newly-arrived Syrian refugee Anjilik Jaghlassian, centre, and her family receive winter clothes
and other items at Pearson International airport, in Toronto, on Friday, Dec. 11, 2015 [photograph]. CTV News.
Retrieved from http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/record-number-of-refugees-admitted-to-canada-in-2016-highestsince-1980-1.3382444
•
Evans, B., Richmond, T. & Shields, J. (2005). Structuring neoliberal governance: The nonprofit sector, emerging
new modes of control and marketisation of service delivery. Policy and Society, 24(1), 73-97.
•
Hiebert, D. & Sherrell, K. (2009). The integration and inclusion of newcomers in British Columbia. Working paper
series. Vancouver, BC: Metropolis British Columbia.
•
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (2017). #WelcomeRefugees: Canada resettled Syrian refugees.
Refugees. Retrieved from http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/welcome on 11 February 2017.
References
•
Lippert, R. (1998). Rationalities and refugee resettlement. Economy and Society, 27(4), 380-406.
•
Meinhard, A., Lo, L., & Hyman, I. (2016). Cross-sector partnerships in the provision of services to new immigrants
in Canada: Characteristics, relevance and constraints. Human Services Organizations: Management, Leadership &
Governance, 40(3), 281-296.
•
Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants [OCASI]. (2016). Telling our stories from the frontline: Adverse institutional impacts
of cuts to immigrant settlement funding in Ontario. Toronto, ON: OCASI. Retrieved from
http://www.ocasi.org/sites/default/files/telling-our-stories-from-the-frontline_1.pdf on 17 February 2017.
•
Richmond, T. & Shields, J. (2004). Third sector restructuring and the new contracting regime: The case of immigrant serving
agencies in Ontario. Ryerson University Centre for Voluntary Studies Working Paper Series.
•
Richmond, T. & Shields, J. (2005). NGO-government relations and immigrant services: Contradictions and challenges. Journal
of International Migration and Integration, 6(3/4), 513-526.
•
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR]. (2016). UNHCR Resettlement Handbook and Country Chapters.
Retrieved from http://www.unhcr.org/protection/resettlement/4a2ccf4c6/unhcr-resettlement-handbook-countrychapters.html on 10 February 2017.
•
Volunteer Canada. (2016). Volunteer management handbook: A resource for service-providing organizations assisting
newcomers to Canada. Retrieved from
https://volunteer.ca/resources/Volunteer_Mgmt_Handbook/VMH_Eng_2016.pdf
Questions?