
In today's weeknote, I'm being a bit more reflective. Thinking out loud about my work and place in the sector. A bit of stream of consciousness I wrote early this morning. Slightly edited. Definitely not polished. I hope that's OK.

Welcome to Episode 38 of the Technology in Human Services podcast. In this episode I speak with Bo Ning about his role as a Digital Navigator at Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia, or ISANS.

Welcome to episode 33 of the Technology in Human Services podcast. In this episode I speak with Miyuki Fukuma about sector technology development, the need for tech human resources in our sector and how we can actually afford those positions, technology sustainability that impacts how technology is funded, digital communication, and a good chunk of time on accessibility.

Welcome to episode 28 of the Technology in Human Services podcast. In this episode, I’m chatting with Whitney Loewen the manager of E learning and special projects at The Immigrant Education Society in Calgary. I reached out to Whitney after discovering their Newcomer Introduction to Classes Online project, or NICO.

Welcome to episode 27 of the Technology in Human Services podcast. In this episode, I’m chatting with a few folks from the Somerset West Community Health Centre in Ottawa about their experiences with digital equity and virtual care. On the line with me are Sue Merrill, Manager of Quality Improvement, Planning and Evaluation, Lisa Vadeboncoeur, Digital Equity and Virtual Progamming Project Assistant, Magda Osman, Community Health Promoter.

I'm chairing the Task Group and would love to connect about your experiences, challenges, successes, and ideas to move the sector forward toward digital and hybrid service delivery models. Let's connect so we can learn from your experiences.

I keep seeing new reports and research coming out, as well as platitudes from business leaders about how we don't harness newcomer talent enough in our labour market, and that we really need to especially given lower immigration numbers during COVID and our existing and coming economic economic crisis and if this sounds like a run-on sentence it is because I'm, like you I'm sure, so sick of hearing the same old same old about labour market barriers to full participation for newcomers and it's just so blah, blah, blah without action.

Earlier this Summer I learned that the New Brunswick Multicultural Council (NBMC) had been doing some innovative coordinating work with member agencies after everyone pivoted to remote work. I was curious about their work with member agencies to develop policies and tools and share best practices. In this conversation Abby David shares how NBMC worked together as a provincial sector and what the fruits of that work have been.

This afternoon I participated in a World Education Services (WES)-sponsored Twitter chat, with the hashtag #ImmigrantsThrive. I thought I'd share my answers to their questions, along with some resources others shared that I found interesting and useful.

Welcome to episode 20 of the Technology in Human Services Podcast. Be data driven. Make your decisions based on data. We've all heard the platitudes. And data is something that the immigrant and refugee-serving sector has huge amounts of, and does very little with. In 2017, the Toronto East Quadrant Local Immigration Partnership started looking into changing that.