1 Planning for Whole-of-Society ResettlementExploring Resettlement Agencies’ Experiences Planning for Syrian Refugee Resettlement Catherine Kenny Disaster and Emergency Management, York University June 1, 2017

2 Outline Introduction to researchPlanning for whole-of-society resettlement Federal government – resettlement agency relationship Impacts of neoliberal governance on resettlement agencies Findings Successes and challenges Conclusion

3 Introduction to ResearchCanada’s Syrian refugee resettlement initiative: First commitment: Over 26,000 Syrian refugees resettled between Nov. 4, and Feb. 29, 2016 Resettlement agencies provide the government- funded Resettlement Assistance Program to refugees The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Refugee Agency, defines resettlement as “the selection and transfer of refugees from a State in which they have sought protection to a third State which has agreed to admit them – as refugees – with permanent residence status.” The Canadian government brought over over 26,000 Syrian refugees between November 4th, 2015 and February 29, More Syrian refugees were resettled after this date also, but I focused on the first commitment of bringing over 25,000 Syrian refugees. In total, over 40,000 have been resettled in Canada to date. RAP – 4-6 week program after arrival – provides interpretation, temporary accommodations, assistance finding permanent accommodations, referral to longer-term settlement services, etc. 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.

4 Planning for ResettlementMain research questions: What was the role of resettlement agencies in planning for Canada’s Syrian refugee resettlement initiative? How did these planning processes affect resettlement agencies’ experiences resettling Syrian refugees? To answer these questions, I interviewed employees from 14 resettlement agencies across Canada (out of 27 agencies that held contracts for the Resettlement Assistance Program across Canada – except Quebec because it has its own system). These resettlement agencies are all non-profit organizations rooted in specific communities, who often gain a majority of their funding through government contracts. I also interviewed employees from NGOs that advocate on behalf of the settlement sector, and also interviewed some government officials from within IRCC. I had hoped to contact more government officials, but given my short timeline and that I was reaching out just as this initiative ended, I think a lot were on vacation or unavailable. Resettlement agencies are non-profit organizations who hold contracts with the Government of Canada to offer the Resettlement Assistance Program (RAP), which is a program that offers the resettlement services to refugees until 4-6 weeks after arrival. Services include port of entry services, translation and interpretation, temporary accommodations, general and financial orientations, assistance locating and moving to permanent accommodations and assessment and referral to longer-term, settlement services after exit from RAP.

5 Planning for ResettlementSyrian Refugee Resettlement Federal government (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada [IRCC]) Provincial and municipal governments Resettlement agencies Community partners (e.g., landlords, ethno-cultural groups, faith-based organizations, other NGOs, etc.) The public (e.g., volunteers, media, etc.) - Can see here the distinct levels of actors involved: national, provincial, municipal, governmental, non-governmental - The variety of actors demonstrates the whole-of-society nature of this resettlement initiative.

6 IRCC-Resettlement Agency RelationshipImpact 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 To understand the organizational contexts of resettlement agencies, I reviewed literature on non-profit organizations generally, resettlement agencies specifically, and then resettlement agencies within Canada. Neoliberal restructuring refers to the incorporation of market-based regulation into social policy, emphasizing management and performance measurement, a focus on fiscal constraint, an increase in competition within the public sector, among other things (Hood, 1990, as cited in Evans et al., 2005, p. 77) Quote from Bryan Evans, Ted Richmond, and John Shields “The imposition of neoliberal governance structures on nonprofit service providers has served to compromise their autonomy and advocacy function, while commercialising nonprofit operations and imposing burdens that have strained organisational capacity. […] In various forms, the state has introduced quasi-markets or at minimum required NPO’s to engage in more competitive practices, with negative consequences for nonprofit mission, culture and labour-management practices. The result is a growing level of instability within the sector.” (p. 74) These are some of the characteristics that became embedded within the relations between non-profit organizations and their government funders and research shows that resettlement agencies in Canada followed the same trends. Short-term, program-based contracts Previously, NPOs had been given core funding which allowed them to become stable entities embedded within communities. Under neoliberalism, we see a shift toward short-term and program-based funding, where only specific actions and programs are funded. This results in instability and precarity for these organizations. For resettlement agencies in Canada, their contracts are now for three years but they need to reapply every three years to maintain that funding. Increasing accountability mechanisms Government respondents in this study, by contrast, focused on the importance of accountability. Accountability measures refer to the tendency for funders to require detailed reports on how funds are being used, to ensure they are being used in the approved way. These detailed reports take up much staff time and NPO resources. In Meinhard et al.’s (2016) study, ISO respondents discussed feeling micromanaged by their government counterparts. “Limited” partnerships Agnes Meinhard, Lucia Lo, and Ilene Hyman (2016) examined concepts of partnership of both employees of Canadian immigrant-serving organizations and their government funders to determine is contractual relationships could be partnerships. They noted that most immigrant-serving organizational representatives questioned whether a true partnership occurred, describing the gov-ISO relationship as a “limited” partnership. ISO participants discussed the importance of having an appropriate amount of time, enough personnel and financial resources to ensure the sustainability of a long-term partnership with the government. Sector instability Neoliberalism broadly results in instability for many organizations within the non-profit world, and the resettlement and settlement communities are no exception. Competition for scarce resources and a proliferation of NPOs to compete with means these organizations are not guaranteed funding (and therefore employees are not guaranteed stable employment year after year). As well, as government reduces funding overall for social service provision, often the only place that NPOs can reduce their financial expenditures is through laying off staff. The result is unemployment for some and higher workloads and responsibilities for remaining employees. All of these characteristics are things that resettlement agencies have dealt with for years and continue to deal with. Before I kind of get into the challenges, I want to just highlight a report from the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI) in 2016, which outlined the 2015 budget cuts to Ontario’s settlement sector. The report highlighted that employee layoffs and funding cuts entrench precarity within the sector, and note that this was the organizational context within which approximately 10,000 Syrian refugees were then resettled in Ontario. This is important to keep in mind as we examine what actually happened throughout the implementation of the plan.

7 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. One main finding I had was that the relationship between the federal government, including Immigrant, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), and the resettlement agencies was characterized by collaboration, openness, flexibility, and responsiveness. This historically hasn’t necessarily been the case, as has been demonstrated. However, challenges did remain at the local level for resettlement agencies and their employees. These challenges can be linked back to broad, systemic changes that occurred in the 1990s and throughout the early 2000s as neoliberalism impacted governmental policy more and more. Research has shown that Canada’s resettlement and settlement sectors have been weakened by neoliberal restructuring. Therefore, despite these positive characteristics within the federal government and resettlement agency relationship, this positive shift did not adequately address the structural weaknesses caused by neoliberal restructuring that had originated at the federal level previously.

8 Successes in Relationship with IRCCIRCC provided: Responsive, on-the- ground support Open and transparent flow of information Funding flexibility (for direct service provision) Responsive, on-the-ground support “You know, seeing the [regional director of IRCC] in a hotel talking to [Syrian] clients, not just in the office, but coming out working with us. “I know [IRCC employees] were working flat-out the same way we were. I really appreciate that because sometimes it’s the other way, right? Like, where the agency is doing – everything’s downloaded to the agency, but IRCC is sticking to their, you know, 7-3 schedule and 3 o’clock the office is closed. No, I could call people whenever; everyone was accessible.” Openness and transparency “I think it really highlighted the strength of IRCC, and really the change from the previous [Conservative] government. […] At every stage of [the project], from a RAP point of view, there was constant phone calls. The ability to ask questions and to engage with issues that were coming up in a national way. […] And really an openness in sharing that I don’t think we’ve seen in probably a decade.” Funding flexibility (for service provision) “In terms of the funding, I have to say they were extremely flexible, forthcoming. All of the normal bureaucracy around federal funding – which is huge – they were very accommodating of the amount and how to access. They were looking for every possible way to make that happens, so I gotta say that’s pretty astonishing.”

9 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.” In mid-December 2015, IRCC decided to increase the operational budget for the Resettlement Assistance Program by 25% to help resettlement agencies hire people to address the increase in arrivals they would see. However, most of my participants received their first arrivals for the Syrian initiative in late December or the very beginning of January. Therefore, most agencies received this additional funding either immediately before refugees began arriving or even after, which shows they often had to plan and prepare with what resources they did have. Going back to the impacts of neoliberal restructuring, however, we can see that most of these resettlement agencies had scarce human resource as it is, as demonstrated by the second quotation. Without resources to plan for this initiative, planning becomes difficult or impossible or employees are stretched to ensure all regular programming continues and this planning occurs also.

10 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.” These quotations highlight the difficulty associated with the timing of the funding increases, as employees now had to receive refugee arrivals and simultaneously train their new staff to ensure effective service provision. Because the resettlement agencies absolutely needed these staff increases, this experience highlights the stresses that are embedded within the organizational environment of resettlement agencies, as everyone must play different and multiple roles. While directors and managers may be best suited to focusing on strategy for refugee resettlement, at times they had to stop this to complete on the ground work. The second quotation highlights the short-term contracts that resettlement agencies often deal with. March 31, 2016 would have been the end of the fiscal year and all contracts would have ended at that point, so the initial ramping up of internal capacity through hiring additional employees would have only been done for a 3 or 4 month contract, from December 2015 to March 31, They would then have to hire again if they were given another contract for additional hirings to support this initiative. This resulted in having to let go people who were just beginning to become competent in their roles in the resettlement agencies and going through the hiring and training cycle again.

11 Challenges Difficulty with volunteer managementVolunteer 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.” Volunteer management and public engagement is crucial in a resettlement effort of this size, especially one that has been espoused as “whole of society” by the government. However, historically, volunteer management and engagement programs have been defunded. In the 1990, the Host Program became a permanent program in the refugee and immigrant settlement sector. This program was designed for one-on-one or family-to-family partnerships between established Canadians and newcomers. It was designed to build social supports and facilitate community participation and were often longer-term relations. However, in 2008, multiple settlement programs were amalgamated to make settlement leaner and cheaper, and Community Connections replaced this program. Community Connections is focused on group activities (as opposed to individual or family to family), and is relatively short-term in nature. Volunteering in refugee resettlement requires an extensive training process and background checks, and resettlement agencies often did not have the resources to process all applications, let alone train people in advance of refugees arriving. For some participants, the inability to kind of get ahead of this and effectively harness this community energy sometimes caused resettlement agencies to lose out on prospective volunteers. Ultimately, every participant highlighted the crucial role that community members played in facilitating this resettlement, but many agencies struggled with getting the adequate resources needed to proactively train volunteers.

12 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

13 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 Christensen, R. & Ebrahim, A. (2006). How does accountability affect mission? The case of a nonprofit serving immigrants and refugees. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 17(2), 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 since 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), 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 on 11 February 2017.

14 References Lippert, R. (1998). Rationalities and refugee resettlement. Economy and Society, 27(4), 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), 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 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), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR]. (2016). UNHCR Resettlement Handbook and Country Chapters. Retrieved from chapters.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

15 Questions?