I’m going to bring you ideas, initiatives and individuals doing interesting and unique things with technology in their human service work.
There are thousands of human and community service non profits that want and need to use technology, especially social media, in their service work. That’s what I’m interested in and am going to explore in this podcast.
In this interview, I surface conversations I’ve been having with Chris Friesen of ISSofBC. We talk at what settlement work looks like now, during a pandemic. What are the opportunities the sector needs to seize? What does the funder need to understand? What do we need to understand about the digital divide and digital literacy of the newcomers and communities we serve? And more.
It’s useful to understand how your clients look for, find, assess and act on information. In this interview, U of T Professor Nadia Caidi provides an overview of newcomer information seeking behaviour and practice.
You’ve likely been inundated with articles, tips, courses, webinars and more about working virtually. I’ve shared a lot of those materials.
Within my network, when I saw Roxana share that she’s been getting lots of requests for tips about how to work virtually, I thought we should chat.
In this interview, Jennifer Chan of North York Community House talks about how she quickly decided to move an upcoming design lab online with her team of facilitators and twenty youth researchers.
Welcome to season 2 of the Technology in Human Services podcast! This is a recording of a presentation I recently made at a technology/professional development day with CSAE Trillium.
In this episode, I spoke with Marc-André Séguin, an immigration lawyer with the firm Exeo, in Montreal. Earlier this year, Marc-André launched the first immigration chatbot in Canada. Immigration Virtual Assistant, or IVA, is a Facebook Messenger-based chatbot.
I asked Madison what it’s like to shift from a predominantly in-person service culture to an online-only service. She provides a refreshingly candid overview of some of the challenges they faced.
In March of this year, PeaceGeeks was one of the winners of the Google Impact Challenge. They took home $750,000 to bring their “Services Advisor” mobile app/system to Canada (previously used in Jordan with UNHCR) focused on connecting newcomers to Canada with services, including service tracking, etc.
In this episode, I talk with Heidi Fuentes, Online Services Program Manager at COSTI Immigrant Services. I learned a lot from Heidi about what it takes to move existing services online to meet the needs of clients who many never set foot in your offices. COSTI’s success is a great example for all human service organizations about what is possible, and desirable, when looking at online service. She shares many lessons and insights about what it took to make COSTI’s services successful.
In this episode, I’m talking with Joséphine Goube, Chief Executing Officer of Techfugees. In our conversation, I explore what Techfugees does and what they’re learned acting at the intersection of technology developers and human service providers. Joséphine shares a number of important insights for any civic techies or human service workers looking to collaborate to provide technology-based services or information solutions for refugees, and other vulnerable populations.