Welcoming Newcomers with Disabilities to Manitoba

Welcoming Newcomers with Disabilities to Manitoba

1:30 to 4:00 p.m., Thursday, June 2, 2011

Room 2B, 2nd Floor, Union Centre

275 Broadway, Winnipeg

Newcomers Summary Report on the Forum

On June 2, 2011, sixty (60) participants gathered at the Union Centre for a forum entitled: “Welcoming Newcomers with Disabilities to Manitoba.” This event was held in conjunction with Manitoba Access Awareness Week (MAAW) 2011 and was convened by the Disabilities Issues Office (DIO).

The forum provided an opportunity to learn more about newcomers with disabilities and the services and supports available to assist their integration. Participants included a mix of newcomers, ethno-cultural and disability organizations and service providing agencies, who were all enthusiastic about the opportunity to meet one another.

Yutta Fricke, Acting Executive Director, DIO began the afternoon with an overview of the DIO mandate and activities. For more information, please see Yutta outlined the purpose and goals of the forum, as per above.

The forum was divided into two parts: (1) presentations; and, (2) working groups.

Part 1, Presentations

Manitoba’s Newcomers with Disabilities: Services and Supports

Liz Robinson, Director of Integration Services, Manitoba Labour and Immigration

Liz provided an overview of Immigration to Manitoba, including source countries,immigration streams and numbers. There is no statistical data available on immigrants with disabilities. Some health information may be shared with refugee settlement agencies pre-arrival, though often,conditions are not known until after arrival.

Lizalso presented information on the services and supports for newcomers funded through Manitoba Labour and Immigration. For more information, please seehttp://www.gov.mb.ca/labour/immigration/index.html,Attachment 1.

Under Canada Immigration persons may be deemed inadmissible on health grounds if their condition is likely to cause excessive demands on health or social services*. *Note: Some groups of permanent resident applicants are exempt from the excessive demands assessment:

Program of the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities (SMD), Jennifer Perron, Director of Services, SMD

Jennifer reviewed the services and supports available to newcomers with disabilities through SMD’s Ethno-Cultural Program. She outlined some of the challenges experienced by this population. These include language barriers and insufficient information about where and how to access services and supports, please see Attachment 2.

A Personal Perspective

Zephania Matanga, Director, Canadian Multi-Cultural Disability Centre, Inc. (CMDCI)

Zephania described his journey as a post graduate student with vision impairment from Zimbabwe to Canada. He described the challenges of accessing personal support and assistive technology, such as screen reader software, to pursue his education in Canada. He emphasized the importance of meeting other individuals with disabilities as key to learning how to navigate the university and to access supports. The multi-cultural and newcomer experience lived by persons with disabilities is unique in its challenges. This led to the creation of the Canadian Multi-Cultural Disability Centre Inc. For more information about CMDCI, please see Attachment 3.

Following the formal presentations, some participants from the audience also outlined the supports they provide to newcomers with disabilities and the challenges experienced by their organizations. Participants expressed frustration in their gaps of knowledge related either to disability-specific supports and resource, or to ethnocultural supports. Among these organizations were Welcome Place, the Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities, the Independent Living Resource Centre,Reaching Equality Employment Services, Community Living Manitoba, Manitoba Families for Effective Autism Treatment, Canadian Paraplegic Association, Mount Carmel Clinic, Family Centre, Global Welcome, New Journey Housing, Movement Centre of Manitoba,Immigrant Women’s Association of Manitoba, William Whyte Residents Association, Newcomers Employment and Education Development Services Inc., Canadian Union of Public Employees, Spence Neighbourhood Association and Family and Childhood Resources.

Part 2, Working Groups

The four working groups were provided the following questions to guide discussion:

What are you currently doing to meet the needs of newcomers with

disabilities, and what is working well?

What are some of the unmet needs?
What can we do to strengthen connections among newcomer, ethno-

cultural, disability and service providing organizations?

Identify three priority actions.

Group One Report

a)Current activities to integrate newcomers:

Participants indicated their organizations were involved in a number of activities to support newcomers with disabilities and that things were working well in the following areas:

referral to services in the community
settlement services and informationabout multi-cultural health and

wellness

building collaborative partnerships
beginning to address mental health (stigma, etc.)

counseling newcomers with disabilities and their families
providing advocacy support
providing information about newcomer expectationsof services fromother

community organizations

b)Participants identified the following unmet needs:

regular opportunities for dialogue
more services for adults related to disability diagnosis
more funding for clinicians for school aged children
access to computers
centralized services
data collection charting numbers of immigrants and refugees in Canada
‘spirit of willingness’ among some affected organizations to work together and stretch their services to include disabilities and/or newcomers

Many newcomers experience language barriers with respect to access to information. Newcomers with disabilities and their families need more culturally specific information. The families of newcomers with disabilities need to connect with other parents. Newcomers with disabilities are still reluctant to self-identify and seek out services.

c)What can we do to strengthen connections among newcomer, ethno

cultural, disability and service providing organizations?

Establish a web-based portal to share information about organizations, programs and services andservice navigation tools and supports.
Create a web-site to have questions answered.

Group Two

a)Current activities to integrate newcomers:

Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities recognizes the needs of newcomers with disabilities. It is reaching out to the newcomer community (both individuals and organizations), including through representation on its Provincial Council.
Family Services and Consumer Affairs (FSCA) is improving accessibility

through Integrated Service delivery.

Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) has the capacity to provide interpreter services, and its executive reflects Manitoba’s diversity.
CUPE has the capacity to provide interpreter services, and its executive reflects Manitoba’s diversity.
Le Collège Universitaire de St. Boniface is identifying international students with disabilities, and helping to develop services and supports for them.

b)Participants identified the following unmet needs:

plain language information
disability diagnosis (assessments are challenging, especially regarding

invisible disabilities)

flexible assessment tools that are not cost-prohibitive

Newcomers don’t know their rights. Some newcomers have a fear of government. Language skills create additional barriers for newcomers with disabilities and their families.

c)What can we do to strengthen connections among newcomer, ethno-

cultural, disability and service providing organizations?

Establish a web-based portal to share information about organizations, programs and services and to respond to question from the public.
Continue to hold forums on newcomer issues to enable the building of connections, networking and information sharing among disability, ethno-cultural and service providing organizations.

Build connections with ethno cultural/faith groups.
Set up interagency projects.
Coordinate resources/funding among organizations.
Collaborate to translate information about programs and services into

plain language.

Increase awareness among newcomers about disability services.
Increase cultural awareness among service providing organizations.

Group Three

a)Current activities to integrate newcomers:

Reaching Equality Employment Services (REES)

allows a support person to accompany a client to help with language and

provide moral support

provides wage subsidies and internships which are working well
assesses the accommodation needs of newcomers with disabilities
asks whether their program is a good fit for the newcomer with a disability

Global Welcome

helps newcomer students achieve academic goals
provides client-centered services and uses networks to meet needs
Issues are dealt with on a case by case basis and problems are solve

based on individual needs.

Neighbourhood Immigrant Settlement Workers

provide information to families about available services

assist families to connect to resources
create networks with other organizations

New Journey Housing

provides home visits and offers flexibility as to where to meet clients)
networks with other services to meet needs

Canadian Paraplegic Association (CPA)

provides a holistic approach and looks at health and wellness,

transportation, equipment, education and employment accommodation

provides support to consumers to reach employment goals and offers

education support

tailors programming to meet individual needs

Family Centre, Enhanced Settlement Service for High Needs Refugees

provides case management and assists newcomers to connect to

resources

uses a flexible approach, meeting clients where they feel most

comfortable

b)Participants identified the following unmet needs:

effective referral systems
adapting complex intake systems to accommodate specific newcomer

needs

lack of accessible housing, especially for large families
more collaborative practices across agencies
increased funding for supports, such as language services
education of sponsoring groups regarding the nature of disability and what

isrequired to support the individual

cultural brokering (for client and service provider)
increased awareness of services available to support people with

disabilities

services designed to meet the needs of seniors with disabilities who are

newcomers

Providing information to newcomers with disabilities is a challenge. We need to adapt our way of working to address language barriers.

There are also challenges working with differing cultural values, including how to respectfully respond to negative cultural beliefs around disability, for instance the belief among some families that they need to hide the presence of a disability. It is important to build trust among all involved.

REES noted a large number of newcomers, ages 16-29, encountering challenges around cultural differences.

Funders need to promotecollaboration among service providers to best support a client. Currently, some funders do not allow agencies to count a client among their client statistics, if the client is working with another agency for a similar service. For some agencies funding levels are contingent on stats. If they are contributing to provide support through collaborative practices between agencies, participants felt that both agencies should be allowed to account for the work they are carrying out for that client and receive related funding.

c)What can we do to strengthen connections among newcomer, ethno-

cultural, disability and service providing organizations?

Continue to hold forums on newcomer issues two or three times per year to enable the building of connections, networking and information sharing among disability, ethno-cultural and service providing organizations.
Conduct information sessions for ethno-cultural communities about services available from the disability community, government, etc.

Group Four

a)Current activities to integrate newcomers:

Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities

Trying to recruit Board members who are immigrants with disabilities or are involved with agencies who work with immigrants with disabilities.
Focusing more attention on involving youth with disabilities from the immigrant community and this is successful.
Efforts to involve more immigrants with disabilities and youth in MLPD are in progress.

Movement Centre

Does not have much involvement with immigrants with disabilities

Children’s Special Services

Provides services to anyone with a disability
Services to immigrants with disabilities are “hit and miss”
Existing services are not appropriate to bridge service gaps to support immigrants with disabilities

Welcome Place

Would like to see an inventory of the organizations providing services to immigrants with disabilities and the services they provide

Provides services in 43 languagesand links with agencies offering services to immigrants with disabilities

Bridge Care Clinic

Provides health care services to immigrants with disabilities
Has strong partnerships with SMD
Clinic is operated by the WRHA through the Manitoba Government

New Commerce Employment and Education Development Services (NEEDS)

Provides supports within a Multicultural, loving communityNEEDS is a government-sponsored agency that works with youth to provide after-school programs, particularly in the area of employment skills training

United Way of Winnipeg

Provides funding frameworks for services and programs and supports new initiativesincluding those that support newcomers.

Literacy Partners of Manitoba

Tries to develop new tools to support immigrants with disabilities

Immigrant Women’s Association of Manitoba

Wants to assist women who are new immigrants to integrate into community life
Networks with other agencies providing services to immigrants

Winnipeg School Trustees

Networks with service providers, studentsand families.

Independent Living Resource Centre

Consumer-focused organization. Some consumers are immigrants with disabilities.

b) Participants identified the following unmet needs:

Greater access to family doctors for immigrants with disabilities
Immediate need of increased settlement services and follow-up steps, once settlement services are met.
More staff training in organizations serving children with disabilities, as more children continue to come in
Increased support for immigrants injured on the job
More partnerships among organizations

Greater accountability among service providers to immigrants with disabilities. Current services and approaches are fragmented.
Services to immigrants with disabilities living in rural areas
Clear inventory of available services so that referrals are made to the appropriate organizations
Evaluation of services to immigrants with disabilities
Services that are provided within an empowerment philosophy rather than a charity model
Clear definition of disability which takes into account the following factors:

(1)Medical condition

(2)Age

(3)Developmental issues

(4)Some people labeled with disabilities when none exists

c) What can we do to strengthen connections among newcomer, ethno-

cultural, disability and service providing organizations?

Group Four had insufficient time to answer this question.

Closing Plenary

Summary ofPriority Actions

A representative from each group reported on their top priorities for action:

1)Create more networking opportunities: Persons with disabilities and their organizations should connect with ethno-cultural organizations, service providers and government.

2)Work with newcomers to increase awareness about disability and culture in Canada.

3)Increase cultural awareness of service providing organizations.

4)Raise awareness about available services among service providers and ethno-cultural communities, especially related to disability services and

settlement / newcomer services.

5)Develop service navigation tools, including a website portal for information exchange and questions from individuals.

6)Connect interagency / ethno-cultural communities and faith groups.

7)Build more bridges between ethno-cultural communities and service providers through representation among staff and volunteers.

8)Increase service accessibility, particularly related to housing and public spaces.

The DIO agreed to distribute the notes from the forum among participants, and to explore future opportunities to network. The DIO also agreed to distribute the contact information of willing participants. Please see Attachment 4.

The DIO will share these notes with the Manitoba Multiculturalism Secretariat (Tehani Jainarine). Tehani is on maternity leave. Her replacement is Vivian Aguilar.