CCIS Family Violence Specialist and Apartment 1310 Developmental Evaluation Report January 2019
Abstract
Calgary Catholic Immigration Society (CCIS) is a non-profit organization with expertise in providing settlement and integration services to immigrants and refugees. The Family and Children’s Services (FCS) Division of CCIS has specific expertise in facilitating the integration of families and children into the community, enhancing the provision of services to newcomers by community resources, and promoting the healthy development of children using a holistic strengths-based approach. The Cultural Brokerage Program designed and facilitated through the FCS Division of CCIS provides direct supports, services and referrals to newcomer families involved with Children’s Services with the aim of ensuring newcomer children are safe and families are able to flourish in Canada.
Since its inception, evaluation of the Cultural Brokerage Program has revealed that the most prevalent concern leading to Children’s Services involvement amongst newcomer families is family violence. At the same time, research and experience have shown that newcomer families experience significant barriers to accessing the mainstream family violence support services available in the community. In response to the specific challenges faced by newcomer families with family violence concerns and Children’s Services involvement, in 2017 and 2018 CCIS began implementing practice-based innovative programming as an extension of the proven Cultural Brokerage Program.
The Family Violence (FV) Specialist is a resource for the Cultural Brokerage Program team to access when families are facing issues related to family violence. This new team member supports families in understanding the impacts of family violence, responses to family violence, expectations around family violence in Canada, and community resources available.
Recognizing that families often face hardship when a period of family separation is needed to address family violence, and in an effort to decrease the burden placed on victims of family violence who are often encouraged to flee violent situations and stay in a women’s shelter, the Apartment 1310 Program offers temporary accommodation, counselling, referrals and supports for perpetrators of family violence from newcomer families involved with Children’s Services. This innovative approach to supporting newcomer families with family violence issues supports the unique goals and desires of newcomer families and provides an opportunity to work directly with perpetrators to create long-term behaviour change.
The addition of an FV Specialist to the Cultural Brokerage Program team in 2017 and the establishment of the Apartment 1310 Program in 2018 has advanced CCIS’ responsiveness to family violence concerns amongst newcomer families and is contributing to innovation in the family violence response sector. Given that the FV Specialist and the Apartment 1310 Program are new approaches to addressing family violence amongst newcomer families, CCIS has engaged external evaluation experts at Constellation Consulting Group to evaluate the implementation and impacts of this programming. Using a developmental evaluation approach to capture emergent learnings and provide a continuous feedback loop alongside program innovation, important learnings have been garnered.
Since the establishment of FV Specialist role in the spring of 2017, key output statistics have been tracked through the evaluation to ensure the mandate of supporting newcomer families with education, referrals and supports to address violence in the home is being met.
Notes
Key populations
NA
Key recommendations
1. Continue to provide specialized supports for newcomer families with Children’s Services involvement and family violence concerns.
2. Seek opportunities to build on learnings to expand the FV Specialist role and Apartment 1310 Program.
3. Continue to evaluate the FV Specialist role and Apartment 1310 Program to ensure ongoing effectiveness.
4. Work in partnership with Children’s Services to ensure there are clear protocols and specific access requirements for calling the FV Specialist as a witness for cases.
5. Seek opportunities to ensure the FV Specialist and Apartment 1310 Program have enough time with clients to support real change.
6. Continue to work with the CCIS Parent Link Centre to provide needed supports for families involved with the FV Specialist and the Apartment 1310 Program.
7. Continue to seek opportunities to work with mainstream family violence services in evolving towards more culturally responsive practice with fewer barriers for newcomer families.
Location
Calgary, Alberta
Key findings
The addition of an FV Specialist to the Cultural Brokerage Program team in 2017 and the establishment of the Apartment 1310 Program in 2018 has advanced CCIS’ responsiveness to family violence concerns amongst newcomer families and is contributing to innovation in the family violence response sector.
Since 2017:
The FV Specialist has supported 128 families referred to the Specialist through the Cultural Brokerage Program.
Families supported by the FV Specialist since 2017 have come from 35 different countries and have spoken 26 different languages at home.
Immigration status can be a key contributing factor in family violence cases amongst newcomer families as it can create additional stress within the family as well as unequal power dynamics. In particular, for individuals who have been sponsored as an immigrant to Canada by another family member, the implications of reporting abuse or leaving an abusive relationship can be unclear, with fears related to immigration status often compounding barriers to seeking help. Since 2017:
· 64% of individual FV Specialist clients have been permanent residents
· 30% of FV Specialist clients have had Canadian citizenship
· Sponsorship was an issue for 23 family members (18%) supported by the FV Specialist
Since 2017, the FV Specialist has provided clients with:
· Education on the concept of family violence and its impact on families (including the impacts on children of witnessing or experiencing violence).
· Education on Canadian norms and system expectations related to family violence in Canada (e.g. corporal punishment of children is not acceptable in Canada).
· Information on community resources and referrals to key supports in the community.
· Safety planning with victims of family violence.
· Gaining independence (e.g. supporting victims to leave and live on their own, supporting victims to have less reliance on perpetrators (e.g. getting their own bank account) etc.).
Integration timeline
At what point during the integration process the study was conducted?
NA
Gaps identified
NA
Community organizations
CCIS
Open-access – Yes
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