Technology in Human Services

Technology in Human Services

Marco Campana: Communications & Digital Strategy Consulting for Immigrant and Refugee-serving Organizations

Episódios

  1. 18/08/2024

    TiHS Episode 46: Ibukun Abejirinde and Nancy Clark – compassion and virtual care for Newcomers and Refugees

    Welcome to Episode 46 of the Technology in Human Services podcast. In this episode I’m joined by Ibukun Abejirinde and Nancy Clark to talk about their work looking at how to re-imagine digital or virtual health care through a compassionate lens, focusing on Newcomers to Canada. In an article for Canadian Diversity Ibukun wrote that it is “relevant to explore if and how the digitization of health care impacts the experience of compassionate care for marginalized groups, including immigrants and refugees.” How do Newcomers experience virtual care? How do they experience compassionate health care in general? With a number of colleagues Ibukun and Nancy continue to work on this question as well as new lines of inquiry regarding the overall settlement experience and the role of digital technology in supporting the settlement experience and setting newcomers up for success. I think their research focuses on some essential questions that should impact the entire Newcomer-serving sector’s approach to digital transformation, hybrid service delivery, and how we can ensure that our virtual and hybrid services are equally compassionate, client centred, and ultimately focused on meeting the needs of our clients and communities. Some of the questions we discussed: Ibukun, in your article for Canadian Diversity, you wrote that it is “relevant to explore if and how the digitization of health care impacts the experience of compassionate care for marginalized groups, including immigrants and refugees.” How do Newcomers experience virtual care? How do they experience compassionate health care in general? What lessons have you learned in your study? What recommendations do you have for health care practitioners as well as settlement practitioners? What kind of investments are needed to ensure that virtual care is compassionate, appropriate, equitable, and accessible for Newcomers? Access is a huge issue in many areas, such as language, transportation, systems navigation, etc. But when it comes to virtual care, digital access is something we need to talk about. Where does digital inclusion fit into a vision for compassionate virtual care for Newcomers? What needs to be done or considered? Your work fits into an ongoing body of work and I’m curious where you see next steps for what you’ve learned and have been sharing. For example, recently Access Alliance with other partners published A qualitative study on the Virtual Emergency Department care experiences of equity-deserving populations. They found that “Patients from equity-deserving populations described negative past experiences with ED in-person care, which included recounts of discrimination or culturally insensitive care while waiting to see the ED physician or nurse. Conversely, participants found the Virtual ED to be a socially and culturally safe space since they could now by-pass the waiting room experience. However, virtual care could not replace in-person care for certain issues (e.g., physical exam), and there was a need for greater promotion of the service to specific communities that might benefit from having access to the Virtual ED.” They also found that there were digital inclusion barriers to accessing the Virtual ED, but that patients from equity-deserving populations might still choose the Virtual experience because of poor past experiences. What does it tell us about the state of care when, even with barriers and imperfections, people from equity-deserving populations would choose a digital experience over an in-person experience for their health care? Where do you hope to see your work go from here? The projects Ibukun and Nancy discuss on the podcast were funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Connection Grant (Beyond Technology, Beyond Healthcare: Translating Intersectionality in the Promotion of Equitable Virtual Health Care Services for Newcomers to Canada) and a AMS Healthcare Compassion and AI Fellowship (Re-imagining digital health compassion through the lens of Canadian newcomers). Some useful resources: Beyond Technology, Beyond Healthcare: Promoting Equitable and Integrated Supports for Newcomers and Refugees in Canada project website which also credits other project team members “Digital Crossroads” Comic Book Settlement Journey Map Ibukun on the Good Tech, Compassionate Healthcare Podcast Canadian Diversity article by Ibukun and colleagues: Beyond Technology: Digital Health Compassion for Canadian Immigrants and Refugees Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript of our conversation using Otter.ai. It may contain errors and odd sentence breaks and is not a substitute for listening to the audio. Marco Campana 0:00Welcome to Episode 46 of the technology and human services podcast. In this episode, I’m joined by Ibukun Abejirinde and Nancy Clark to talk about their work looking at how to reimagine digital or virtual healthcare through a compassionate lens, focusing on newcomers to Canada. In an article Ibukun wrote for Canadian diversity, she wrote, it is relevant to explore if and how the digitization of healthcare impacts the experience of compassionate care for marginalized groups, including immigrants and refugees. So how do newcomers experience virtual care? How do they experience compassionate healthcare in general? With a number of colleagues, Ibukun and Nancy, continue to work on this question, as well as new lines of inquiry regarding the overall settlement experience in the role of digital technology in supporting the settlement experience, setting newcomers up for success. I think their research focuses on some essential questions that should impact the entire newcomer serving sectors, approach to digital transformation, hybrid service delivery, and how we can ensure that our virtual and hybrid services are equally compassionate, client centered and ultimately focus on meeting the needs of our clients and communities. I think you’ll enjoy this conversation. Welcome to the technology and human services Podcast. I’m going to let you both introduce yourselves and and a bit about your work before we kind of dive in. So Ibukun why don’t we start with you? Ibukun Abejirinde 1:18All right, thanks, Marco, very lovely to be in this conversation with you and Nancy. So my name is Ibukun Abejirinde. I’m a scientist at the Institute for Better Health, which is Research and Innovation Hub within Trillium Health Partners. And I’m also an assistant professor at the Dala Lana School of Public Health University of Toronto. So my work is really applied research, where I ask very interesting questions with the aim of addressing complex healthcare problems, and I focus on health inequity digital technology and what these mean for marginalized populations and how they access and experience quality healthcare. A lot of my work partners very closely with patients and caregivers, policy makers, community organizations, researchers from different disciplines, and I kind of focus more extensively on immigrants and refugees, racialized communities and older adults. And so that’s sort of the hat I’m wearing coming to this conversation. This conversation. Marco Campana 2:24Awesome. Welcome and thank you for joining. Nancy. Please introduce yourself and your work. Nancy Clark 2:29Hi Marco. Thanks for the intro, and thanks to Ibukun. Yeah, I’m an Associate Professor at the School of Nursing at the University of Victoria in Canada, British Columbia, my program of research focuses on refugee mental health. I’ve been a mental health clinician for about 30 years, so most of my work has been in clinical practice. I came to academia later than most people, and I really try to focus on the issue of equity and why people are experiencing barriers, and how can we make the healthcare experience equitable but also a friendly place to go to. So I think a lot of people sometimes talk about access and equity, but we also need to think about the quality of care. So what is, what is caring? How do we care for people like Ibukun? I’m interested in what we call, what we might categorize as marginalized communities, but looking at the structural pieces of that. So what are the policies, the bigger pieces that are sort of creating those barriers, but also what works, and why does it work for some people and not other people? So that’s sort of me in a in a nutshell, and really interested in advancing mental health outside of the mainstream. So looking at the social determinants of mental health, such as poverty, housing, social support, and for me, being an intersectionality scholar, gender is always at the forefront of how that works and how that plays out in terms of power relationships and things like that, so that that’s sort of my work. Awesome. Marco Campana 4:29Thank you both very much for joining. And that notion of intersectionality Nancy is something I think will be a thread through this conversation. Because, again, as we mentioned before we started this, this conversation is about about health care and virtual health care and equity and health care and digital equity, but it, but it also is where it intersects with newcomers in particular and other equity deserving groups. And I think that that thread throughout is where people who are going to be listening are going to be quite interested. So I want to set the stage a little bit, because we came at this originally, I became out of your out of two. Projects, right? So the first was looking at a project to reimagine virtual healthcare with a compassionate lens. So not just how do we do virtual healthcare, because the mechanics of that you can find everywhere, but how do we do it compassionately, in particular with newcomers to Canada. And then that work, as you explained to me, has evolved into new lines of kind of questions and inquiry, l

    1 h 9 min

  2. 22/02/2024

    TiHS Episode 45: Tracey Mollins – Alphaplus, a sectoral digital support model that should be replicated

    Welcome to episode 45 of the Technology in Human Services podcast. In this episode I chat with Tracey Mollins from AlphaPlus, an organization that provides digital support and solutions from peers in Ontario’s literacy community. Tracey is a Professional Learning Specialist – Education and Technology at Alphaplus. She has worked in adult education at community programs, school boards, colleges, universities, unions and network organizations. Her work is informed by her experience as an instructor, program worker and researcher as well as project experience developing e-learning strategies, blended or distance curricula and models for online instructional design. She is especially interested in investigations into connectivism ~ diversity, autonomy, interactivity and openness + creativity, collaboration, camaraderie, critical thinking, justice, kindness, freedom and fun ~ in digitally-mediated networks. I’ve written that I think that the Immigrant and Refugee-serving sector needs an AlphaPlus to help support our hybrid service delivery evolution and work. I wanted to talk to Tracey to find out more about how they do their work and what we can learn from and replicate. Some of the questions we discussed: Our sector has seen an increase in awareness about how digital technology can be part of a useful and practical service intervention model, bringing along some workers and organizations that were more skeptical before the pandemic. Have you seen a similar trend in your work and sector? What I’m particularly after is how the support models came about and their impact/outcomes on the literacy sector. In our research about other interesting digital literacy and inclusion models, AlphaPlus came up as something our sector could learn from and replicate. As mentioned I think we could spend a nice chunk of time discussing the AlphaPlus support model focusing on your Coaching, Quick Tech Help, Educator Network, the Digital Toolbox course, Wayfinders and Community Gabfests, a well as Custom Solutions for service providers.Let’s start with the overall mission of AlphaPlus and the ways you support literacy service providers when it comes to digital strategy, implementing digital tools in their literacy work, and more. The Immigrant and Refugee-serving sector also wants to “use digital technology to increase the relevance, responsiveness and reach.” You help both adult literacy educators integrate technology into teaching, as well as program managers and co-ordinators integrate technology into program administration. That seems like an important combination, getting the front line as well as agency leadership literate and involved. Can you tell me a bit about the different challenges and approaches that come with those 2 different groups? Can you tell me about some success stories in that work, as well as some of the challenges you still face? If we were thinking about creating some of the services and supports that you have created at AlphaPlus in our sector, what advice would you give to help get us started? Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript of our conversation using Otter.ai. It may contain errors and odd sentence breaks and is not a substitute for listening to the audio. Marco Campana 0:00Welcome to Episode 45 of the technology and human services podcast. In this episode, I chat with Tracy Mullins from alpha plus an organization that provides digital support and solutions from peers and Ontario’s literacy community. Tracy is a professional learning specialist on education and technology at alpha plus, she’s worked in adult education, community programs, school boards, colleges, universities, unions and network organizations. I’ve written before that I think that the immigrant and refugee serving sector needs and alphaplus to help support our hybrid service delivery evolution and work. So I wanted to talk to Tracy to find out more about how they do their work and what we can learn from and replicate. Our sector has seen an increase in awareness about how digital technology can be part of a useful and practical service intervention model bringing along some workers and organizations that were more skeptical before the pandemic alphaplus has done a lot of work during had after the pandemic and before the pandemic, to move these models long to ensure that digital technology is integrated in an inclusive and equitable way. And I think you’ll find this a really useful conversation and of interest to anyone who’s thinking about what their sector any nonprofit or charitable sector might need, when it comes to supports, interventions, and an organization like alpha plus to provide them with some direction, I hope you find it a useful conversation. Welcome, Tracy to the technology and human services podcast. I wonder if you can start maybe by just telling us a little bit about yourself, your background and what brought you to the work that you’re doing now? Tracey Mollins 1:30Yeah, so I’m I working at alpha plus. And I work there as the Professional Learning Consultant. So my, my bailiwick at alpha plus is working with cohorts of adult instructors in the literacy and basic skills field, and mostly on on questions around blended learning, and integrating digital technology into teaching and learning. So alphaplus has a much broader Tracey Mollins 2:02remit for digital technology. But that’s my my area will probably talk about the other things we do a little bit later. And I started as a volunteer tutor in a literacy program in Toronto here. Tracey Mollins 2:16And then I worked as a as a supply instructor, and then as a link instructor at the Toronto District School Board. So that was my first full time paid position as an adult educator was in the Link program and that ESL literacy class, which was fantastic. And then oddly, I got that class closed eventually. And I started teaching in a computer lab at the at the school board, which was quite a weird experience. And, and after the school board, I went back to community based literacy, actually, in the program where I had been a volunteer, I worked there for a couple of years. And after that, a group of literacy, workers from across the country started a journal called literacy. And I became the publisher of literacies, for about six years, was funded through the National Literacy Secretariat, and was part of that movement of sort of research and practice and trying to create a pan Canadian sort of professional learning network for literacy workers, because nothing like that sort of existed. And the the purpose of literacies was to start a conversation between literacy practitioners and literacy, education, researchers create that conversation. So that was part of it that but at that time, and after that, since then, I’ve been working mostly on contracts, and different all kinds of different projects, often projects that include some element of digital technology. And I came on staff at alpha plus about five years ago. Marco Campana 4:16I love it. I love hearing people’s meandering kind of paths. But it’s great that you’ve also worked in the settlement sector, which is, which is kind of where this, this podcast is kind of centered. And also, I just came out of a conversation earlier this morning about building communities of practice and collaboration and things like that. And so I wonder how how, how successful was that effort because it’s so important to bring practitioners together with each other, but also with researchers and policymakers and decision makers at a broader level in the sector. And I’m curious how that contributes to the work that you do at alpha plus now just having had that experience of convening and trying to create collaboration. Tracey Mollins 4:54Yeah, no, I it has a powerful impact on the way I think about it. It’s, it’s a real shame that work kind of stopped when the National Literacy Secretariat was, I don’t know what you call it defunded changed. But because I first experienced it as a practitioner, I went to some the OISE here at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, they, they had some opportunities for practitioners to come in and work on small research and practice projects with a researcher from Boise. And that it was such a great experience, it was such a interesting way to learn and to understand my role as a, you know, the teacher as researcher role that you’re that you’re really always in. But it made it sort of intentional and, and because of the, because you had to do the reflective practice piece to be part of it, it made that piece of it much more intentional, as well. So I certainly saw the power of it, in terms of advancing my own practice, as an instructor, and then when when I was involved in the OISE, had a thing called the festival literacies, that was part of Ontario’s contribution to that pan Canadian network. And I was involved in a lot of projects there. And it was it, it did, it was a very powerful thing for all the people who participated in it, just in terms of being able to collaborate and to connect with each other, but also that sort of intentional examination of of their practice, always with the idea of, you know, making it more more relevant, more responsive, more engaging for learners who are coming to our program. So, Marco Campana 6:53I mean, yeah, that intent that intentional reflection is, it’s such a luxury I find in our sector and in so many others, but it’s so important if you can actually bake it in or build it into your work, because it just has an impact. It can shorten timelines, right? If you have time to reflect, you have time to change and iterate and maybe improve, right? Yeah, Tracey Mollins 7:11no, for sure. For sure. And it was a practice that I when I was working in the Link program at the school board, that was full

    49 min

  3. 30/08/2023

    TiHS Episode 44: Lucia Harrison – getting hybrid services and work right is a whole organization effort

    Welcome to episode 44 of the Technology in Human Services podcast. In this episode I chat with Lucia Harrison, CEO of the Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre about her experiences transitioning to hybrid services and a hybrid workplace that includes a 4-day work week. The effort, and it took a great effort, resulted in a 95% satisfaction rate from staff, particularly when it came to improved work-life balance. All organizations are going through this change, trying to figure it out, trying to find the right mix. Lucia has many lessons to share. Lessons you can implement in your organization. In OCASI’s January 2023 newsletter a number of sector leaders were asked to share their insights. Lucia’s caught my eye and I knew that we needed to dive in more deeply. At the core, her advice is to talk with your staff. Involve them in this whole process. Trust them. Make it something that you envision that you’re going to be working on probably forever. You’ll be tweaking this. You’ll always be piloting something. You’ll be trying new things. You’ll be learning as you go. I think you’ll find this an important and useful conversation for you. I hope you enjoy it. Background In January Lucia wrote: “Our agency has moved to a 4-day work week, with 2 groups on a rotation so each group gets a 4-day weekend every second week. We increased our workday to 8:45 hours. Everyone still works 35 hours. The centre is still open 5 days a week, and we have actually increased the number of hours our centre is open to serve clients. We implemented this in June and a survey conducted in Oct had a 95% satisfaction rate from staff. The most common comment in the survey was “improved work / life balance”. We also have most staff working on a hybrid model, except our LSP staff because of the nature of our agreement with the library. Our board approved this as a pilot in June and they have agreed to approve permanent changes to our personnel policy to reflect these changes. The board’s major considerations were 1) that our clients were being served, 2) staff well-being and 3) that we were meeting our funded commitments. We have seen increased productivity and based on our staff survey, we have boosted morale. It is working for us.” She expands on this and more in our conversation. Some of the questions we discussed: You’ve created an interesting and innovative approach to hybrid work at KWMC. Can you tell me how that evolved and where things are at now? What lessons have you learned that others in the sector could benefit from? What advice would you give other sector leaders who aren’t sure how to approach hybrid work models in their organization? What does client service look like in the new model? How have your clients reacted to this new approach? Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript of our conversation using Otter.ai. The transcript has been edited slightly edited (name error fixes). It may contain errors and odd sentence breaks and is not a substitute for listening to the audio. Marco Campana 0:00Welcome to Episode 44 of the technology and human services podcast. In this episode, I chat with Lucia Harrison, CEO of the Kitchener Waterloo multicultural center about her experiences transitioning to hybrid services, and a hybrid workplace that includes a four day workweek. The effort and it took a great effort resulted in a 95% satisfaction rate from staff, particularly when it came to improve work life balance. All organizations are going through this change trying to figure it out trying to find the right mix. Lucia has many lessons to share lessons you can implement in your organization. In their January 2023 newsletter. O’Casey asked a number of sector leaders to share their insights Lucy has caught my eye and I knew we needed to dive in more deeply at the core. Her advice is to talk with your staff involve them in this whole process. Trust them, make it something you envision that you’re going to be working on probably forever. You’ll be tweaking this, you’ll always be piloting something, you’ll be trying new things you’ll be learning as you go. I think you’ll find this an important and useful conversation for you. I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to the technology and human services podcast. Thank you so much for joining me, I’m gonna let you introduce yourself Lucia and tell us a little bit about where you’re coming from today. Lucia Harrison 1:11Hi, my name is Lucia Harrison. I’m the CEO of the Kitchener Waterloo Multicultural Center. We are a full service settlement agency. Obviously in Kitchener working throughout Waterloo Region. We have coming into 57 years of history of serving this community and serving immigrants, refugees, and those with no status. So I’m pleased to be here. Thank you, Marco. Marco Campana 1:38Awesome. And full disclosure for people listening. Lucia and I go way back. So if we get ridiculously giddy are there inside jokes, you know, just ignore us. I might keep those in anyway. But ya know, it’s so great to talk to you. And the main reason we’re talking today is because I actually have something that Debbie Douglas from O’Casey shared in one of her in last month’s newsletter, I think, where she was talking about how sector organizations are kind of adjusting to the emerging new realities of hybrid service delivery, but also hybrid work models. And she shared what you’ve been able to accomplish at the Multicultural Center. And it just struck me as something that there’s much more but not below the surface of that because it sounds like an amazing outcome. But I know that a lot of work probably had to go into doing it. So. So let’s talk about this interesting and innovative approach to hybrid work. And maybe you can just sort of start with how did that evolve? And where are you now? Lucia Harrison 2:33Well, if you want to talk about stars aligning, that that’s what I would say happened with us that despite all the negative impacts of COVID, there was a series of events that happen throughout COVID, that kind of gave us an opportunity. So we had put our building up for sale, Jerry COVID sold, it made a rental agreement on a new premise. That was bare walls. So we got to design from concrete. And we started to envision a space that would be different we had finally successfully pretty well gone paperless. Thank you COVID. We had everything stored in the clouds. Thank you COVID. It’s all secure. And but, you know, two years of working out of the office gave us this clean slate. And as a management team, what we decided is people in our sector can be a little hesitant was changed and you know, can be a little adverse to change that in a way it was kind of like, let’s just do this. Let’s do it all. What do we envision in future. And so we envision a hybrid model, it had worked very well for our organization, we had continued to serve the same or more clients. Our workshops were happening virtually. So that had worked, we knew it worked. But we knew we had a lot of clients who much preferred face to face service. We had clients who preferred virtual service. But we also wanted to be proactive that, you know, the mental impacts of COVID and the stress on staff. So I can’t talk about hybrid without sort of doing the full gamut that what we decided to implement was a hybrid work model. For all of those staff that we could do that with there are some that we could not and going to a four day work week, which the way we’ve arranged that gives every staff person a four day weekend every second week. So we were dealing with If you know this amazing space, how to best use it, how to best serve our clients, and how to deal with the mental health impacts, and they know the stresses on staff. So we implemented all of that, as we came back to work in April and May, when, you know, some of us had started coming back. So there was, there was no history said, we were kind of lucky, there was no history in this building. So, you know, and the hybrid work model does not impact our library settlement workers. That entire agreement is to have settlement workers in the library, I mean, really, to encourage people newcomers to come in to the library. But while working at the library, they’re still providing a mixture of virtual and face to face service, but they are providing a presence in the library. For everybody else, it is a two days in the office two days out of the office, unless needs come up. It’s kind of a minimum of two days. But if we need you in the office and other day, well, that’s, you know, what has to happen this week, we’ve accommodated people who for whatever reason, did not want to work from home at all. And they just come into the office there for days, and that works fine. We have an open table area that people can come. And if they need to just plug in for a little while they can do that. It was a long process. I joked with Marco before we went talked earlier that I’m using a lot of dye on my hair, because it’s gone very, very gray from the process of trying to find the schedule that would work on the four day schedule, as well as implementing the hybrid. But it’s now it’s gone very well. Maybe I’ll stop and see Marco, if you’ve got questions or want to lead in another direction? Yeah, Marco Campana 7:17no, I mean, all of that’s really useful. I have so many questions. But one of the things is that, as you wrote in what Debbie shared is that the result is a 95% satisfaction rate from staff. And the most common comment when you surveyed them was improved work life balance. And I think that’s something that had that came that’s come up a lot in conversations convenings, and surveys, during the pandemic, that this whole remote work thing worked for a lot of people. And it surprised a lot of people

    41 min

  4. 03/08/2023

    TiHS Episode 43: Sampada Kukade – what can digital transformation look like if you have support

    Welcome to Episode 43 of the technology and human services podcast. In this episode, I’m speaking with Sampada Kukade from Skills for Change, a Toronto based settlement and employment organization that is no stranger to technology innovation. However, what you’ll find in this conversation, and what I find infinitely useful is that even organizations who are large and growing such as Skills for Change still need support in their digital transformation. And as part of their support, Skills for Change joined a pilot project called Charity Growth Academy run by CanadaHelps, which has been providing organizations, nonprofits, specifically, and charities with support around their digital transformation. So I wanted to talk to her about what that looked like how it was useful for Skills for Change, and what the impact has been, and how it’s something that could scale beyond the small group of pilot organizations? Because the reality is, we all know that this is something that all organizations need. Whether you’re in a big, small, growing new, older, legacy organizations, digital transformation is a challenge. And so one of the things we talked about was how do you shift internally to build this kind of a long term vision and infrastructure for digital transformation? What’s the impact been of getting this kind of support from outside in doing that, and baking that into the organization? What does that look like? And what has the Academy and what have these kinds of supports meant. What can Skills for Change do now that they might not have been able to do on their own? And then ultimately, what advice she has to share not just with the sector, but with the sector’s major funders around how they can support organizations who are at very different stages of the digital transformation journey. I think this is a really important and interesting conversation, and I hope you find it quite useful in your work. Some of the questions we discussed: What is the Charity Growth Academy and how did Skills for Change get involved? You’re one of the pilot project organizations for the Academy? What has the process been like? For example, the site indicates that they’re building an assessment that will lead to an action plan, then ongoing support. How has being part of the pilot project impacted your digital transformation journey? We know that digital transformation is not a “one and done” exercise. It also requires internal change management, new ways of doing and looking at things, and additional human resources. How have you shifted internally to build a long-term vision and infrastructure for your digital transformation journey? What has the Academy provided you with that you might not have gotten on your own? What advice and learning would you share with other Immigrant and Refugee-serving organizations who are are different stages of their digital transformation journey?What advice would you give to funders? Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript of our conversation using Otter.ai. The transcript has been edited slightly edited (name error fixes). It may contain errors and odd sentence breaks and is not a substitute for listening to the audio. Marco Campana 0:00Welcome to Episode 43 of the technology and human services podcast. In this episode, I’m speaking with somebody who they have the skills for change, a Toronto based settlement and employment organization that is no stranger to technology innovation. However, what we’ll find in this conversation, and what I find infinitely useful is that even organizations who are large and growing play skills for changes still need support in their digital transformation. And as part of their support, skills for change joined a pilot project called Charity growth Academy run by CanadaHelps, which has been providing organizations nonprofit, specifically, and charities with support around their digital transformation. So I wanted to talk to her about what that looked like how it was useful for skills for change, and what the impact has been, and how it’s something like that could scale beyond the small group of pilot organizations? Because the reality is, we all know that this is something that all organizations need big, small, growing new, older, Legacy organizations. And so one of the things we talked about that was really important was, how do you shift internally to build this kind of a long term vision and infrastructure for digital transformation? What’s the impact been of getting this kind of support from outside in doing that, and baking that into the organization? What does that look like? And what has the academy and what has these, what have these kinds of supports meant that they could do that they might not have been able to do on their own? And then ultimately, what advice she has to share not just with the sector, but with the sectors, major funders around how they can support organizations who are at very different stages of the immigrant at the digital transformation journey, I think this is a really important and interesting conversation, and I hope you find it quite useful in your work. Marco Campana 1:43Welcome to the technology and human services podcast, Sampada, thank you so much for joining me, why don’t we start by maybe introducing yourself and tell me a bit about your work at skills for change? Sampada Kukade 1:53Yeah, thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here today and talk about this important topic. My name is Sampada Kukade today, and I’m the Vice President of Corporate Communications, and stakeholder engagement at skills for change been here for just over eight years. And it’s been a fantastic journey. For me. My portfolio includes many different facets, including the program marketing of all of our 25 Plus programs, across the agency, all of our communications and communication channels. In addition to that, a huge part of my responsibility is around stakeholder engagement, which really is working with employer partners and corporate partners to see the value in the clients that we serve, which are newcomer clients, of course, and allow employers to have access to a global talent, talent pool. So that’s, that’s what I do. And yeah, really excited to talk about the charity growth Academy and digital transformation today. Marco Campana 2:57excellent segue. No, I mean, skills for change has been around for quite a long time, but also has been a tech innovator in the past. I know. I mean, I’ve been in the sector for a while. So I know that you were one of the first organizations to sort of start doing some online community with internationally educated professionals and things like that many, many years ago, very, very ahead of the times kind of experimenting. So but we know, especially in the last three years, that digital transformation, and in our sector, this sort of shift to hybrid services, is it’s kind of an inevitability. So So yeah, you mentioned the charity growth Academy. So I wonder, that’s really why we kind of came together, because I saw that your organization was part of that. And I thought, great. This is a good example of one program that is focused on helping nonprofits and charities to, to become digitally transformed and digitally literate. So can you tell me a little bit about what the charity growth Academy is and how you got involved? Sampada Kukade 3:48Yeah, absolutely. So if I can just take a step back, and as you mentioned, yeah, skills for change has, you know, kind of been one organization that has offered, you know, the online supports and things like that. But it really wasn’t until 2020. Of course, everybody had to shift immediately. And it was definitely, you know, a challenge for us from the perspective of, at that time, only offering pretty much online, sorry, in person courses, with some supports online through, you know, various tools, but really shifting that focus to full virtual delivery. And so what we kind of saw and identified, as you know, just the change management process, and how quick everyone had to adapt, which was fantastic. Everyone, of course, did that. But really, how do we now become more prepared for any of those situations in the future, but just also just the evolving world and how digitally connected and digitally, you know, we’re so reliant on digital technology, so to ensure that we’re continuously ahead of the game and so, last year, I had content At Shari Austin, who is sits on a board with our CEO, cerana, Sandy. And she had connected us with CanadaHelps, who then discuss this new pilot project called Charity growth Academy, which is a partnership with MasterCard Chang works and Canada helps to help nonprofit organizations to become more digitally transformative, and really to support that whole process. And so after having some conversations with CanadaHelps, initially, they had wanted to really focus on really small organizations and skills for changes. Now, you know, kind of, we’re at the 9 million mark. So we’re getting to that bigger stage. And so but they did see a lot of value in having an organization like skills for change, participate, from the perspective that you are in this growth stage, you know, we’re growing quite big, we’ve expanded in terms of our program delivery and the number of programs that we have. And so how are we keeping up digitally and with our digital transformation, and it’s been a challenge that’s calls for change. And so we really, you know, identified that, and that was really the precursor to us getting involved with this program. And this particular program, what it was, was brought together a group of nonprofit organizations that could meet with, you know, CanadaHelps, and a few consultants that they had that specialized in digital transformation. And we work together to really unde

    47 min

  5. 10/07/2023

    TiHS Episode 42: Lisa DeGara – a much needed Newcomer rural perspective on digital inclusion

    Welcome to episode 42 of the Technology in Human Services podcast. In this episode, I chat with Lisa DeGara, Manager, Small Centres at Action for Healthy Communities in Alberta. I came across Lisa’s work in rural Alberta in a conference presentation and wanted to chat with her about the challenges and opportunities of digital in and between rural small centres, with a focus on how to provide services in that challenge/opportunity context. She’s able to effectively put a face to what we know about stats and information about rural internet access, what the acceleration of hybrid/digital service delivery means in that context, and the additional nuances of Newcomer-related digital literacy, digital divide challenges. We explore what she learned from her Summer 2021 Digital Literacy training, including how she was able to replicate another nonprofit’s curriculum for Newcomers, and how important the device (Chromebook) was in that process. We also explore that post-COVID context, and how we can harness what we learned during a time of purely remote service delivery and what means for how Immigrant and Refugee-serving organizations serve Newcomers in rural small centres. The work she and her colleagues are doing in rural communities and how our sector’s shift to hybrid services is important for us to discuss and ensure is taken into account in digital inclusion work in our sector. As you’ll hear, those that rural perspective is not heard or included often enough in our national conversation. And it needs to be. Hybrid means very different things, has many nuances, and is approached very differently in different settings. Lisa says that technology is merely a means of enhancing the in-person experience. You can do a lot online. But it’s best if you use technology to enhance that in-person interaction. And she outlines how dangerous an urban, bureaucratized, middle class, Southern Ontario perspective that permeates our sector’s thinking can be when it comes to digital inclusion. As she describes, many people can’t just walk down to their local library to access devices, high speed internet, and support. We also talk a bit about the cult of efficiency. It’s OK to be less efficient if your impact is high. That’s a strong balance and tension that needs to be addressed. Lest you think she might be a Luddite, Lisa recently completed a Master of Science in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. I really enjoyed our conversation, the needed perspective she brings that I found myself realizing I don’t have enough of, and what it means for our sector. Some of the questions we discussed: Rural and small centre internet access is less stable, slower, and more expensive than in most urban centres. The internet is a necessity, not a luxury, can you tell us a bit more about your experiences with internet connectivity as a challenge in rural small centres? Can you give us a bit of a sense of the Newcomer context in super small centres (eg. isolation, limited local services, discrimination, other challenges), in particular when it comes to the role digital/virtual services can play? Can you tell me a bit about your Summer 2021 Digital Literacy training, including how you were able to replicate the Boys and Girls Club curriculum for Newcomers? We know that many Newcomers have smartphones, but how important was giving Newcomer a larger device (Chromebook) in that process? What other aspects of Newcomer digital literacy did you learn about that are important for others to be aware of? Can you speak a bit about what you described as the Newcomer shift to digital adoption while facing a digital lag? What did you learn and how has that impacted your work now in those and other communities? In your 2021 conference presentation “Supporting Virtual, Hybrid and In-Person Service Delivery Among and Between Rural Small Centres” you discussed how the sector is shifting to a hybrid service context. What does that mean for how Immigrant and Refugee-serving organizations serve Newcomers in rural small centres? What are the opportunities and challenges for service providers in that context? Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript of our conversation using Otter.ai. The transcript has not been edited. It may contain errors and odd sentence breaks and is not a substitute for listening to the audio. Marco Campana 0:00Welcome to Episode 42 of the technology and human services podcast. And this episode I chat with Lisa DeGara manager small centers that Action for Healthy Communities in Alberta. I came across Lisa’s work in rural Alberta in a conference presentation and wanted to chat with her about the challenges and opportunities of digital in in between rural small centers. With a focus on how to provide services in that challenge and opportunity context, she’s able to effectively put a face to what we know about stats and information about rural internet access, what the acceleration of hybrid and digital service delivery means in that context, and the additional nuances of newcomer related digital literacy and digital divide challenges. We explore what she learned from her summer 2021 digital literacy training, including how she was able to replicate and other nonprofits curriculum for newcomers, and how important the device was in that process. We also explore that post COVID context and how we can harness what we learned during a time of purely remote service delivery. And what that means for how immigrants and refugees serving organizations serve newcomers in rural centers. The work she and her colleagues are doing in rural communities and how our sector shift to hybrid services is important for us to discuss and ensure is taken into account in digital inclusion work in our sector, as you’ll hear that that rural perspective is not heard or included often enough international conversations and it needs to be hybrid means very different things has many nuances and is approached very differently in different settings. Lisa says the technology is merely a means of enhancing the in person experience. You can do a lot online, but it’s best if you use technology to enhance that in person interaction. And she outlines how dangerous in urban bureaucratized middle class southwestern Ontario perspective that permeates our sectors thinking can be when it comes to digital inclusion. As she describes many people can’t just walk down to their local library to access devices high speed internet and support. We also need to talk a bit about the cost of efficiency. It’s okay to be less efficient if your impact is high. She says that’s a strong balance and tension that needs to be addressed in our conversation. Lest you think that she might be a bit of a Luddite Lisa is currently pursuing a Master of Science in digital education at the University of Edinburgh. I really enjoyed our conversation that needed perspective she brings that I found myself realizing I don’t have enough of and what it means for our sector. I think you’ll enjoy this conversation. Welcome, Lisa to the technology and human services podcast. Thanks so much for joining me. Um, can you tell me a little bit about yourself, your background and some of the digital transformation work that you’re doing at Action for Healthy Communities? Lisa DeGara 2:24Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the chance to be invited. I appreciate that you’re doing deep dives of prior presentations, I give a lot of presentations. And one of the great things is that I give it and then I immediately forget. So it’s nice to be reminded of something I’d done previously. So my name is Lisa Chang Gaara. I am a manager at Action for Healthy Communities. We are an IRCC funded settlement organization. We’re headquartered here in Edmonton, Alberta. But as a manager of the small Centers program, I do the support of all of the rural communities that we support immigrants and refugees. And so my team works in LaDuke and Beaumont, just south of Edmonton near the airport. We work in Camrose, which is a community of about 15 to 20,000 people, about 90 minutes south east of the city of Edmonton. We do work in cold lake and Bonnyville, which our communities bought. Bonnyville is about three hours northeast of Edmonton and cold lake is about three and a half hours just at the border with Saskatchewan. Lisa DeGara 3:19And in addition, we do lots of work with lots of other surrounding communities obviously doesn’t translate podcast but I felt like back over my shoulder. We do support I think in schools in I want to say 17 Different communities across Alberta. So we’re in Glendon population 500, home of the giant pierogi which is not that giant, it’s only about seven feet tall. Lack of rubbish we are in Bashaw we are involved. We’re in Riley, we’re in tofield Forsberg, all these things every day, I feel like I’m learning a new small part of town. So background, my background. Originally I studied political science at McGill University. Then I returned to the prairies from Edmonton originally returned prairie study at the University of Saskatchewan, Master of Public Administration program. Johnson Triana, I teach there sometimes so big fan, we love JSPs great school. And then at the moment academically, I’m also studying Master of Science in digital education online with the University of Edinburgh. So digital things are a big passion of mine. And I’ll jump to that in a second. I had the opportunity to work with the Government of Alberta for a number of years, I worked for an economic development organization for a while and then in March of 2021, I was able to come into this role with action and healthy communities. It’s interesting to think about like digital transformation in the immigrant refugee sector, bec

    57 min

  6. 25/02/2023

    TiHS Episode 41: David Phipps – on Knowledge Mobilization

    Welcome to episode 41 of the Technology in Human Services podcast. In this episode, I speak about Knowledge Mobilization with David Phipps, Assistant Vice President of Research Strategy & Impact at York University and director of Research Impact Canada (RIC). David has been a Knowledge Mobilization pioneer in Canada and I was excited to chat with him about how KM has evolved and continues to evolve in Canada and beyond. As a past alum of MobilizeU, a course designed by York University for folks interested in learning more about Knowledge Mobilization, I’ve long been a fan of the work York U, through David, has done, including in the Immigrant and Refugee-serving sector. You know that Knowledge Mobilization is near and dear to my heart, and is really the point of the work that I do. In our conversation, we talk about some of the foundations of Knowledge Mobilization, how community organizations can connect and work with academics, as well as what KM can mean in our community work. I think you’ll find it an educational and interesting conversation. Some questions we discussed: Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your background, and what brought you to the work you’re doing in Knowledge Mobilization? Someone once said to me that the art of Knowledge Mobilization is answering 3 simple questions What? So what? Now what? The goal is to move knowledge to action, or as your work suggests, from research to impact. Can you tell me a bit about your experience and some examples where you’ve seen success in the research to impact continuum? I work in the Immigrant and Refugee-serving sector so any specific examples of where Knowledge Mobilization has had an impact would be great. Knowledge Mobilization takes time. For many nonprofit front line workers, having time to read, reflect, analyze, and potentially apply research to their practice is a challenge. What advice would you give them? What advice would you give researchers to create more impact from their work? I find Research Snapshots particularly useful in distilling research into something that helps answer the What? So what? Now what? questions. Can you tell me a bit more about what Research Snapshots are, how they came to be, how they have worked, and how widely they’re being used. How can we encourage more researchers and academics to create Snapshots? Resources: Here are links to documents David mentioned during our conversation: Jonathan Grant analyzed 6679 impact case studies Barwick, M., Phipps, D., Myers, G., Johnny, M. and Coriandoli, R. (2014) Knowledge Translation and Strategic Communications: Unpacking Differences and Similarities for Scholarly and Research Communications. Scholarly and Research Communication, 5(3): 0305175, 14 pp.  Bayley, J.E., Phipps, D., Batac, M. and Stevens, E. (2018) Development of a framework for knowledge mobilisation and impact competencies. Evidence and Policy, 14(4): 725-738 Public Scholars Initiative at the University of British Columbia Phipps, D.J., Johnny, M.J. and Wedlock, J. (2015) An institutional process for brokering community-campus research collaborations. Engaged Scholar Journal 1(1): 69-86. Bayley, J.E. and Phipps, D. (2019) Building the concept of research impact literacy. Evidence & Policy. 15(4):596-606  Bayley, J.E. and Phipps, D. (2019) Extending the Concept of Research Impact Literacy: levels of literacy, institutional role and ethical considerations. Emerald Open Research. 1:14 Phipps, D., Poetz, A., and Johnny, M. (2022) Demonstrating impact – considerations for collecting and communicating the evidence of impact. In, Kelly, W.B. (Ed.). (in press, 2022). The Impactful Academic: being and becoming an impactful researcher throughout your career. Emerald Publishing Limited. Impact and Engagement Case Study Guidelines for collecting and communicating the evidence of impact in English and French. Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript of our conversation using Otter.ai. The transcript has not been edited. It may contain errors and odd sentence breaks and is not a substitute for listening to the audio. Marco Campana 0:00Welcome to Episode 41 of the technology and human services podcast. In this episode, I speak about knowledge mobilization with David Phipps, the Assistant Vice President of Research, strategy and impact at York University and director of research impact Canada. David has been a knowledge mobilization pioneer in Canada. And I was excited to chat with him about how knowledge mobilization has evolved and continues to evolve in Canada and beyond. As a past alum of mobilize you, of course, designed by York University for folks interested in learning more about knowledge mobilization, I’ve long been a fan of the work your cue does through David, including in the immigrant and refugee serving sector. You know, that knowledge mobilization is near and dear to my heart. And it really is the point of the work that I do. In our conversation, we talk about some of the foundations of knowledge mobilization, how community organizations can connect and work with academics, as well as what knowledge mobilization can mean, in our community work, I think you’ll find it an educational and interesting conversation. Marco Campana 0:56Welcome, David, to the technology and human services podcast. Thank you so much for joining me in this conversation. And why don’t we just get started if you could introduce yourself the work that you do, and and what is knowledge mobilization? David Phipps 1:09Oh, well, good question. Thanks, Marco for the opportunity. My name is David Phipps. I am a settler born to white parents in England. And we emigrated to this land that some people call Canada when I was two, I live with my husband in Toronto, which is on the traditional territories of the Anishinabek nation, the hood, nashoni Confederacy, the Huron Wendat and the maytee. And the current treaty holders are the Mississauga the credit. So that’s my journey, where I am now is as the Assistant Vice President for Research strategy and impact at York University. That means I get had the pleasure of working with all of our researchers on running the grants office and helping the researchers get their money. But the fun stuff that I get to do is work on what we call knowledge mobilization. And we’ll talk about that in a little bit. But as part of my fun, I am the network director of a network called research impact Canada, a network of 23 research, performing organizations, all interested in building institutional capacity to support knowledge mobilization. So what is what is known as mobilization, I like to say in an uncomplicated fashion, that knowledge mobilization helps make research useful to society. And so it gets research outside of the academic walls and into the hands of people from the public, the private or the nonprofit sectors who are looking to use that research in, in non commercial forms. I’ll talk a bit about that in a minute. But to help inform decisions about public policy or professional practice or social services, this is particularly important for research that’s not served by commercialization that’s not partnered with industry. It’s not the focus of startup companies. So and it’s research centers in all disciplines. shirk was one of the first organizations surfshark, the social sciences, and Humanities Research Council was one of the first organizations to use the term knowledge mobilization in Canada. But it’s not just limited to shirk disciplines, any any social sciences, human sciences, creative arts, or STEM disciplines that can have an impact on public policy, professional practices, social services, these can all be served by knowledge mobilization, and they very much fits a lot of federal priorities. Things like homelessness and housing, public health, immigration and settlement, environment, policy, emergency preparedness, these are all disciplines that are never going to be served by commercialization, but nonetheless are of interest to Canadians, and for which academic research can help provide evidence for these decisions. And I like to conceptualize it or not conceptualize, but sum it up by saying, We’re never going to patent our way to reconciliation. Right, we’re never going to patent our way to reconciliation. So it’s, it’s really connecting university research from the University and connecting it with organizations from outside of the university so that research can leave the academy and get taken up in in places that will provide societal benefit. So I’m curious if because York is one of the pioneers in knowledge mobilization. And in fact, I think you’re the the hub for research impact Canada, right. And in a lot of ways, a lot of other universities are kind of following your lead around doing this work. And I wonder if in your experience, those academics who have committed to knowledge mobilization if their work actually even starts with the question of how can this be useful instead of kind of just, you know, hey, this is an interesting question. But even out of the gate, is there a sort of a preconceived idea that I want to do something that will have an impact on the communities that I’m working with? Because, like you said, it’s multidisciplinary, you know, you and I talked earlier about the immigrant and refugee serving sector, which is where I come out of, and and we’ve done a lot of work with a lot of academics. And you can see the difference when someone has kind of, you know, out of the gate committed to knowledge mobilization versus someone who’s just kind of doing an academic exercise, and the difference of what that that research can have an impact on in turn. Marco Campana 5:00to the community, do you have a sense of those who’ve committed to Cam? If it actually matters and has an impa

    54 min

  7. 16/01/2023

    TiHS Episode 40: Agnes Thomas – focus on the humanity behind digital transformation

    Welcome to episode 40 of the Technology in Human Services podcast. In this episode, I speak with Agnes Thomas, Executive Director of Catholic Crosscultural Services. Agnes has led Catholic Crosscultural through a digital transformation that started before, but certainly accelerated during the pandemic.  That isn’t a new story. But her democratic approach as a leader and insights about how the Immigrant and Refugee-serving sector can and should be working collaboratively to serve all Newcomers are refreshing.  And for some, it will seem new. It shouldn’t be that way. We should be following Agnes’ lead to move our sector towards an ecosystem mindset and approach that puts the humans we’re serving first in our minds. And to be fearless and intentional in our community work. In our advocacy work. In the work we do to ensure that our sector has the resources and leadership needed to move forward. As I start this year with a bit of cautious optimism, this is a great conversation to reflect on and energize me, to be boldly, but not blindly optimistic, about what we can do and achieve as a sector. Hybrid service delivery is here. That doesn’t mean making a choice of either digital or in-person, but as Agnes so eloquently puts it, looking at how to build tech capacity to serve people while recognizing the equal need to serve Newcomers in person. It’s all about making service accessible for all, whether their preference is to be served remotely or if they want to walk in through your doors, or both. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope it sparks some optimism and energy in you as well. Some questions we discussed: Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your background, and the digital transformation work you’re doing at Catholic Crosscultural Services? In your presentation last year at the Digital Literacy in the Immigrant Refugee Serving Sector – Increasing Collaboration event you spoke about CCS’ approach to digital transformation. Can you give us a high-level overview of that work? Your plan included several steps that started with cyber security. Can you tell me about the guidelines you established and the steps you took to assess your organization’s cyber security and staff training? How did you go about assessing your technology capacity and the staff’s digital capacity? What was that process like? How did you address your client’s needs and capacity to access digital and hybrid services? How have you worked to help address the digital divide among your Newcomer clients and communities? Where are you now on your digital transformation journey? What have you learned and what are your plans? What good ideas and promising practices can you share with the Immigrant and Refugee-serving sector? What leadership do you think is needed in the sector, from funders, and within organizations to ensure that the future of hybrid service delivery moves in the right direction? Additional resources: Agnes presented at an event last year that you might find of interest: Digital Literacy in the Immigrant Refugee Serving Sector – Increasing Collaboration Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript of our conversation using Otter.ai. The transcript has not been edited. It may contain errors and odd sentence breaks and is not a substitute for listening to the audio. Marco Campana 0:00Welcome to Episode 40 of the technology and human services podcast. In this episode, I speak with Agnes Thomas, Executive Director of Catholic cross cultural services. Agnes is led Catholic cross cultural through a digital transformation that started before but certainly accelerated during the pandemic. That isn’t a new story. But her democratic approach is a leader and insights about how the immigrant and refugee serving sector can and should be working collaboratively to serve all newcomers are refreshing. And for some, it will seem new. It shouldn’t be that way. Though. We should be following agonises lead to move our sector towards an ecosystem mindset and approach that puts the humans we’re serving first in our minds, and to be fearless and intentional in our community work in our advocacy work in the work we do to ensure that our sector has the resources and leadership to move forward. As I start this year, with a bit of cautious optimism, this is a great conversation to reflect on and energize me to be boldly but not blindly optimistic about what we can do and achieve as a sector. Hybrid service delivery is here. That doesn’t mean making a choice of either digital or in person. But as Agnes so eloquently puts it, looking at how to build tech capacity to serve people, while recognizing the equal need to serve newcomers in person. It’s all about making service accessible for all, whether their preference is to be served remotely. Or if they want to walk in through your doors, or both. I really enjoyed this conversation. And I hope it sparks some optimism and energy in you as well. Agnes Thomas 1:39Good morning, Marco, how wonderful to see you again. And I am so excited to have this discussion with you today. As you mentioned, my name is Agnes Thomas. And I lead the Catholic cross cultural services. We are an organization that has been in existence since 1954, serving newcomers and refugees in the GTA, and we do have staff presence across the country, providing refugee sponsorship training. So good to be with you today. Thank you. Yeah, no, of course, I forgot that you’re actually a national organization in that respect. So that time, and that’s a great example of where digital can play a really important role, obviously, so very true. And you know, that is what we are seeing like how the whole pandemic really helped us to pivot into that space of what is possible. And what is possible when we imagine possibilities, or when we are imagining possibilities. In terms of technology and tools, I would say that we are in an exciting space as a result of a problem. Marco Campana 1:25Welcome to the technology and human services podcast. Agnes, thank you so much for joining me, I’m gonna let you start by introducing yourself, your background, and start talking about some of the digital transformation work that you’re doing at Catholic cross cultural services. Agnes Thomas 2:45Because it is making us to think new ways of engaging new ways of delivering services, new ways of thinking about security and privacy and data. Yeah, yeah, Marco Campana 2:57I’m sorry. So for you go ahead. Agnes Thomas 2:59No, for me, I was thinking that this is the next step. You know, like how, when people start talking about AI, how much there was fear. But then slowly, I think this is opening a new door for us to look into the future. Marco Campana 3:14That’s so interesting. And I mean, you brought up kind of your foundational stuff in last year, we had a digital literacy in the sector collaboration events. And you spoke about your approach to digital transformation at Catholic cross cultural. And so today, I really want to talk a bit about kind of that grounding and what you’ve been doing, but also where you’re looking. And it sounds like overcoming fear and anxiety is a big part of doing that work. Agnes Thomas 3:39Yes, I think so. Because we as you know, we all kind of got into that space. I still remember March 2020. That scary space and scary conversation, you know, people should believe right now, what are we going to do? What are we going to do about the clients? What struck me? Was that that question, what are we going to do about our community members? Who is going to walk through our door? How do we ensure that they receive the service they need? And I think for us, that was the conversation that led us to what we have in place. It is like that all biblical story of files of five loaves of bread and two piece of fish. Like, you know, we looked into, but we have, so how we approached from that conversation of like we saw the need, we saw the need in the community. And yes, there was here. But we also wanted to look at what we had and where we needed to go. And that was quick. One thing that helped us I think that this may be an important piece for me to mention. Our culture was agile. Our culture was open and transparent and everyone came together regardless of so this is something I think of when I look back so proudly that regardless of the roles and titles people gathered, and so we gathered a group of people who were well versed in the technological space, and then we made our blueprint out of those conversations. And I think I would put that into three steps. When I look back into what we have done. One was that we had to look at our technology capacity, equipment wise, as well as user, like the consumer versus, you know, what we had in place, hardware software, as well as skill set. And so we did a resource assessment, then we went to the staff to kind of learn a staff baseline. So that would allow us to look into what kind of training we needed to get on board and the capacity. Then we looked at the gathering of the whole resources together into one space, our ID team, which was actually one person, and we had like an external person watching either our cloud space and our internal team, that IT team came together, or the committee came together to propose number of trainings based on the data. So those were the three immediate steps that we did. And the question of privacy, confidentiality, all that also got addressed in the process of developing that roadmap. So it was actually we were building the plane as we were going, right, like Marco Campana 6:31everybody else at the time, I guess, too, but it sounds like you were already sort of in a in a different place because of that agile approach. And, and, and again, I think I’ve had some interesting conversations with

    47 min

  8. 09/12/2022

    TiHS Episode 39: Ross McCulloch – on Open Working

    Welcome to episode 39 of the Technology in Human Services podcast. In this episode I speak with Ross McCulloch, Director of the Third Sector Lab in the UK, about Open Working. Ross and his colleagues have created the Open Working Toolkit to help charities, funders and other organizations share their work openly. As their toolkit states “Great things can happen when something is made open… more people can reuse it, often cheaply. People can learn from it, even if they don’t use it. And there are almost always wonderful unintended consequences.” I love this project, and even just the idea of it. The toolkit provides a simple, practical, and replicable model for anyone to use. And it focuses on both organizations as well as funders. It starts with the idea of sharing what you’re working on, in the open. Just start. It doesn’t have to be perfect. The format doesn’t matter. But share a bit and share often. Ross provides a great overview of the Open Working approach, where it came from and how it’s going now. We talk about the kind of effort it takes, what you should do if you’re interested in exploring Open Working, and why so many great ideas and initiatives focused on non-profit collaboration seem to be coming out of Scotland! If you’re wondering how to build awareness of your work, connect with others, and learn from your efforts, I think you’ll find this introduction to Open Working of interest. Some questions we discussed: What is Open Working? How is Open Working significant from an organization perspective, from a funder perspective? How have charities and funders reacted to the idea of Open Working? What type of effort does it take? For example, according to a Catalyst article, Open Working Lineup folks coached grantees through six months of open working? An outcome of that coaching work was the creation of the Open Working Toolkit. What has the uptake been? What advice or suggestions would you have for folks who want to embrace and encourage Open Working in other places, such as Canada? Some useful resources: Open working toolkit – This toolkit gives charities and funders the best resources for learning why and how to work in the open, share work and reuse work from others. Open working at Catalyst – Re-use other organisations’ work: assets and other useful resources created by charities, groups and agencies working in the open. Funding open working – Funders around the world are starting to be more transparent and ask that their fundees be open about their work so that the benefits of the funds are felt more widely across the sector. Opening Up: Demystifying Funder Transparency – This report explores how transparency can strengthen credibility, improve grantee relationships, facilitate greater collaboration, increase public trust, reduce duplication of effort, and build communities of shared learning. Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript of our conversation using Otter.ai. The transcript has not been edited. It may contain errors and odd sentence breaks and is not a substitute for listening to the audio. Marco Campana 0:00Welcome to Episode 39 of the technology and human services podcast. In this episode, I speak with Ross McCullough, director of the third sector lab in the UK about open working. Ross and his colleagues have created the open working toolkit to help charities, funders and other organizations share their work openly. As their toolkit states, great things can happen when something is made open, more people can reuse it often cheaply. People can learn from it even if they don’t use it. And there are almost always wonderful unintended consequences. I love this project. And even just the idea of it, the toolkit provides a simple, practical and replicable model for anyone to use. And it focuses on both organizations as well as funders. It starts with the idea of sharing what you’re working on in the open, just start, it doesn’t have to be perfect, the format doesn’t matter. But share a bit and share often. Ross provides a great overview of the open working approach, where it came from and how it’s going. Now, we talked about the kind of effort it takes what you should do if you’re interested in exploring, open working, and why so many great ideas and initiatives focused on nonprofit collaboration seem to be coming out of Scotland. If you’re wondering how to build awareness of your work, connect with others and learn from your efforts, I think you’ll find this introduction to open working of interest. Welcome to the technology and human services podcast. Thank you so much for joining me to talk about open working and can you maybe start by telling us a bit about yourself, your background and your work around the nonprofit sector in particular, open working? Ross McCulloch 1:24Yeah, so I run organization called Third Sector lab. And so there’s a team members here. And we’re really focused on a tape forget, and particularly within the charity sector, across the UK, we’ve got a small number of public sector clients, but 95% of the people we work with our charter is a lot of our work has shifted quite a lot since the pandemic. And we’ve actually really quite focused now on trying to deliver as much work as we can free at the point of service for charities themselves. So one of the things we found during the pandemic was people were reacting very, very quickly to digital, which was great, but actually a lot of the time that was coming with its own pitfalls, whether that was about safeguarding the service users, whether it’s about making the right technology decisions. And so we’ve we’ve kind of put quite a lot of work in that kind of a three strands of work that we’re doing as part of the catalyst, which is the wider UK Tech for Good network. So one of them is the current training program. So we’ve trained the relevant 5000 people, since the start of the pandemic working in third sector across the UK. And we run a workshop once per week. It’s our 90 minute format. And we previously bring an expert speakers to run training session where the queen is powerful for the sector as the powertrain and but what they’re certainly not is people coming along and just kind of listening a PowerPoint from the minutes with a lot of charities has given them access to someone who’s an expert in their field and they will ask the right questions. So we’ve had different ones recently on a building data dashboards and data analytics, we’ve had ones in SEO, Ross McCulloch 3:03a few really well received ones in accessibility with drill down specific tools like MailChimp and Canva. We’ve covered that can a really broad spectrum of digital and helping sector understand it’s not just you’ve spoken with before, where people become fixated and online fundraising and marketing. And that’s a core part of any nonprofit but actually seen this as as more than just those kind of small parts of what you’re trying to do. And the other work that we’re doing. We’re doing some work called Digital trustees, which we actually used to do pre pandemic as well as physical matchmaking events. And we’re loading them online. So once someone’s bid on those, anytime they can come along, and they did really simple is that basically zoom a bit of Heldens in for 60 minutes or a 5050 split between people in the tech sector who want to join J boards, and Charlie syndicate expertise in the board to asset one this morning, which we specifically ran with the YMCA network in the UK. So there was a bunch of local YMCAs some of them did amazing stuff with digital around youth works all the really cool stuff around a given particular younger people access to Raspberry Pi’s and running code classes, and really interesting stuff using augmented reality. But actually that recognition that they need strategically than their stuff that they’re really going to push the boundaries of what’s possible and often the best services because young people that are coming along to IMC every week. And then so we’ve kind of done the hard work of recruiting the people who come along with it everything from service designers to data scientists to web developers, they’re kind of cybersecurity specialists. And what is allowed a lot of guys to do is broaden their horizons in terms of what a digital trustee may look like. And again with stuff you’ve touched on, we tend to find that people feel with tech that digital trustee box but they’ve got a kind of IT specialist people at Microsoft reseller or they’ve got someone who works in online cons and that might be what they need. Actually, for a lot of organizations. If someone’s YMCAs today, you’ll be better served have services already. Ross McCulloch 5:00Get a scientist or someone who’s working in AI or augmented reality, to really thinking about who they push what’s possible as an organization. So we run them once a month, they’ve been really successful helping people start that journey and get digital embedded that much more strategic level in the organization. And in particular, if you look at things like the chatty digital code, which so EMR and her team have been working on one of the big findings over the last couple of years, there’s been a real lack of digital knowledge at the board governance level things like 65%, of boards, rank or a digital skills is very, very low. And actually, that’s a critical part and potentially, where you’ve got passionate staff coming aboard to investment or to make changes. But there’s nobody in the board champion that stuff, what does that look like in the future. And then the famous strand, which we’ll talk with you that we’re about today is around open work and reuse. And more recently, we’ve delivered a thing called Open working program, which i

    43 min

  9. 20/11/2022

    TiHS Episode 38: Bo Ning – the Digital Navigator

    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. Bo and other Digital Navigators play an essential role to support both Newcomer language learners and his ESL instructor colleagues. One of the important nuances that is clear in our conversation is how effectively Digital Navigators bridge technology and subject matter expertise. He understands the systems and processes Newcomers as English language learners are going through, as well as how ESL is taught, and can be taught and facilitated online on in a hybrid format. What is a Digital Navigator? Digital Navigators provide digital literacy skills orientation or training for Newcomers. They help Newcomers access digital/hybrid services. During the pandemic these new positions were filled by admin staff or settlement and language practitioners whose roles changed to incorporate digital support and orientation for both clients and colleagues. Digital Navigators are emerging as an important bridge in the Immigrant and Refugee-serving sector as we continue to move to a hybrid service delivery model. There is so much useful information in this conversation, I hope you enjoy Bo’s insights and important perspective on the role Digital Navigators play and can play in our sector. Some questions we discussed: Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your background, and what brought you to the work you’re doing at ISANS as a Digital Navigator? What is a Digital Navigator? Can you describe what you do at ISANS? How did the role emerge and is it something that you think should be part of every settlement and language services organization? What skills and attitudes do Digital Navigators need to be effective supporting both Newcomers and service providers? Front-line Settlement Workers provide essential roles helping Newcomers navigate different systems as they settle in Canada. Do you see digital navigation also inevitably becoming part of the work that they do? You share your excitement, knowledge, skills, and what you’ve created to your networks beyond ISANS (I’m thinking of things you share on LinkedIn, for example). How important is it for all of us to be “working in the open”, sharing what we do, our successes and challenges, and how we are responding to the emerging hybrid service delivery reality? Where do you look for inspiration and community when it comes to your emerging role as a Digital Navigator? Where would you recommend others look to connect with others and learn more about how to be effective Digital Navigators? Sector organizations and funders are looking at new and emerging roles such as Digital Navigators to become permanent and embedded roles and skills in the emerging hybrid service delivery system. What advice would you give them about creating, supporting, and developing this role across the sector? Some useful resources: ISANS’ Digital Navigators talk about their role Bo’s Portfolio site Bo’s LinkedIn page where he shares what he’s learning and resources he’s creating ISANS info about Digital Navigators Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript of our conversation using Otter.ai. The transcript has not been edited. It may contain errors and odd sentence breaks and is not a substitute for listening to the audio. Marco Campana 0:00Welcome to Episode 38 of the technology and human services podcast. In this episode I speak with bohning about his role as a digital navigator at immigrants Services Association of Nova Scotia or ISense. Bow and other digital navigators play an essential role to support both newcomer language learners and his ESL instructor colleagues. One of the important nuances that is clear in our conversation is how effectively digital navigators, bridge technology and subject matter expertise. He understands the systems and processes newcomers as English language learners are going through, as well as how ESL is taught and can be taught and facilitated online in a hybrid format. Digital navigators provide digital literacy skills orientation or training for newcomers. They help newcomers access digital or hybrid services. These new positions are filled by admin staff or settlement practitioners whose role is changed to incorporate digital support and orientation for both clients and colleagues. Digital Navigators are emerging as an important bridge in the immigrant and refugee serving sector as we continue to move to a hybrid service delivery model. There is much useful information in this conversation. I hope you enjoy Bo’s insights and important perspective on the role digital navigators play and can play in our sector. Welcome to the technology and human services podcast. I really appreciate you being here. Um, why don’t we start with you telling us a little bit about yourself, introduce yourself, your background, and what brought you along the path to your work, you’re doing it I sense now as a digital navigate? Bo Ning 1:23Sure, so thank you for having me here today, Marco, and always wanted to be to be part of that whole project to share, to let my voice heard and also to share my resources with everyone. So my name is phoning and I go by Bob. I started with my EAL teaching when I was a graduate students at the University of Buffalo in 2013. And in the past years, I taught general ESL, TOEFL and tussled, those international preparation, class preparations. And also I did link in the past and now as a teacher, navigator, at Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia. I am an immigrant. So I moved to Nova Scotia in 2018. And from mainland China, and I started with Eisenerz as a client. So I have accessed a lot of resources that ISIS has provided in the past. And I feel that those sessions were super helpful to me to settle down in the new country in a new city. Yeah, so that’s basically in the past. And because of the COVID, everything, everything’s shifting online. And with my previous experience, teaching remotely teaching in hybrid mode, was my expertise on digital literacy, I’m able to transfer some of the skills that I had in the past, the experience that I have learned to support our instructors. So that’s why right now at this position, I’m supporting instructors and client navigating in general, navigating our online programming. Marco Campana 3:02That’s great in this whole idea of a digital navigator. I mean, I think it’s a recent name in terms of as as sort of an official position. But it’s one that’s definitely emerged in particular very strongly during the pandemic, I think, you know, as the sector pivoted, and was doing just online, there was a real need to kind of help both newcomers as well as staff really figure out this technology and how to use it practically and how to apply it. So can you tell me, I mean, and again, we were just talking earlier about like, there’s probably as many definitions as there are digital navigators out there. So when you think of yourself as a digital navigator, what does that mean to you? Can you describe a little bit I guess, what’s a day in the life like for you? Bo Ning 3:40So very general, is that I am, I’m always thinking of myself as an instructor, but I’m instructor with educator with more technology skills. So I am able to use those technology skills to make my class like virtual classes, more interactive, and more how to say I just had like, like a more interactive and also like, you know, clients be more engaged in a virtual environment. So in person classes, we have a lot of amazing activities that we can do with client but how we’re able to shift those activities and tweaked and tailor into the online version and see the thing fee those activities. From the instructors perspective. First, I think that is very important as this row ever if I always have people calling me I’m an IT person. And very frankly, I’d say I’m not a specialist it although I have some IT skills, but it’s just that everything we see, obviously I see is from a teacher’s perspective, how I may be able to modify the teaching method to an online mode and make those online classes more suitable, more suitable to our clients. Marco Campana 4:55Yeah, I think there’s a couple of things to touch on that I think are super important. And then in the way that the role is evolving is that you are, you are not just as you said to technologists, you’re perhaps a little more digitally literate than the people you’re working with, or perhaps sometimes a lot more, but you’re a subject matter expert, you understand the system and the processes that they’re going through, and how to apply to I guess, like how to be part of that system. And I think that’s I’m flubbing it. But basically, what I’m trying to describe is that you’re not just a technologist who comes in and says, here’s how you use WhatsApp, here’s how I use Moodle. But you’re someone who understands that they’re going through a learn an English language learning process through i sands. And I think that’s a really important nuance to this is that the digital Navigator is kind of it’s building on the other systems navigation that you might be doing as an instructor as a teacher. And, and I think that’s really something that’s, that’s quite interesting for us to think about in our sector. Bo Ning 5:55Right. And then another big advantage for me myself is that because I am a second language learner, English is my second language. So I understand how a second language learner needs to learn those skills to be able to achieve, you know, you know, sediment set down in another country, right. So, I know, I have been using those tools to support my English. So for sure, like I see

    38 min

  10. 05/11/2022

    TiHS Episode 37: Charles Buchanan – overcoming technology poverty

    Welcome to episode 37 of the Technology in Human Services podcast. In this episode I speak with Charles Buchanan. The discussion about technology and non-profits is not a new one. But throughout the pandemic and now, even with lessons learned during that time, we’re struggling. Service providers are struggling to make the right decisions when it comes to infrastructure, skills & training, and where to invest. Funders are struggling to figure out how to fund technology in service delivery. It feels sometimes like we’re going backwards. After moving from the private sector to support non-profits, Charles recognized that the state of non-profit technology and digital maturity was troubling. In fact, he saw a situation he called “technology poverty” which he feels best articulates the dire tech situation currently affecting non-profits. I approached Charles because we were part of a recent Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience group discussion. In that discussion we talked about how non-profit leaders are paralyzed with fear and anxiety when it comes to discussing and figuring out what steps to take to protect their organizations, their data, their staff, clients, and communities when it comes to cybersecurity. So I knew I wanted to chat with him in more depth. Turns out he’s deeply connected to, works with, and understands the technology poverty in the Immigrant and Refugee-serving sector. We discussed what technology poverty is and then took a deep dive into cybersecurity and the pressing need for non-profits to get Enterprise Risk Management right. His key message is that you’re not alone in this struggle. Get in touch with him at Technology Helps to take those important first steps. I think you’ll find his perspective and insights interesting and important. (An aside. The beginning of our conversation focuses on Charles’ insights on AI. I like to start recording my podcast conversations early so I don’t forget to hit record (which has almost happened). We started talking about AI because I use Otter.ai for transcripts (see below) and the service has a feature where Otter can join Zoom meetings and transcribe as we’re talking. So I have to explain why there is another connection in Zoom with us, so folks are comfortable, or I turn it off. It got us talking about AI and I love what Charles had to say, so it’s in the podcast. 🙂 ) Some questions we discussed: Can you tell me a bit about that concept and how you’re working to bring non-profits out of technology poverty. Part of your work includes offering a Community Service Desk service to non-profits. For smaller non-profits and even large ones with IT staff, what role does a non-profit-focused tech support service play for these organizations? How is it different from, say, contracting with a business-focused IT support service? Another major service you provide is focused on Enterprise Risk Management. What do we need to to do help sector leaders feel confident in making a decision about cybersecurity framework, organizational policies, organizational practices (sticks/carrots to ensure security compliance), as well as staff training to feel more confident about their tech infrastructure choices, use of tech in client service security, and that their time, energy, resource, and money investments will be the right ones. What role do or should funders and policy makers play when it comes to helping bring non-profits out of technology poverty? You’re active with the Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience, which is focused on helping support and nurture a digitally-enabled and literate non-profit sector. What does a digitally-enabled sector look like to you? Why is it important that our national non-profit sector come together to build it collaboratively? This is a bit of a huge questions, but I’m curious, on a broader level, what do you think a responsible and inclusive technology ecosystem looks like where non-profits are not beholden to tech bros’ limited tech vision, but are active contributors and developers in the creation of technology and development of technology policies and governance? Some useful resources: Technology Helps – Charles’ social enterprise supporting non-profits to come out of technology poverty Charles Buchanan is On a Mission to End Technology Poverty – an article with Charles’ story and his why Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript of our conversation using Otter.ai. The transcript has not been edited. It may contain errors and odd sentence breaks and is not a substitute for listening to the audio. Marco Campana 0:00Welcome to Episode 37 of the technology and human services podcast. In this episode, I speak with Charles Buchanan. The discussion about technology and nonprofits is not a new one, but throughout the pandemic. And now even with lessons learned during this time, we’re struggling. Service providers are struggling to make the right decisions when it comes to infrastructure skills and training and where to invest. funders are struggling to figure out how to fund technology and service delivery. It feels like we’re going backwards. After moving from the private sector to support nonprofits, Charles recognized that the state of nonprofit technology and digital maturity was troubling. In fact, he saw a situation he called technology poverty, which he feels best articulates the dire technological situation currently affecting nonprofits. I approached Charles because we were part of a recent Canadian Center for nonprofit digital resilience group discussion. In that discussion, we talked about how nonprofit leaders are paralyzed with fear and anxiety when it comes to discussing and figuring out what steps to take to protect their organizations, their data, their staff, clients and communities when it comes specifically to cybersecurity. So I knew I wanted to chat with him in more depth. Turns out he’s deeply connected to works with and understands the technology poverty in the immigrant and refugee serving sector. We discussed what technology poverty is, and then took a deep dive into cybersecurity and the pressing need for nonprofits to get enterprise risk management, right? Its key message is that you’re not alone in this struggle, get in touch with him. And technology helps to make those first important steps. I think you’ll find his perspective and insights insert interesting and important. A note on a side, if you will, the beginning of our conversation focuses on Charles insights on AI, artificial intelligence, I like to start recording my podcast conversations early. So I don’t forget to hit record, which is almost happened. We started talking about AI because I use otter.ai. For transcripts, which you’ll see in the show notes. And the service has a feature where otter can join zoom meetings and transcribe as we’re talking. So I have to explain why there’s another connection in zoom with us. So folks are comfortable or I turn it off, they got us talking about AI. And I love what Charles had to say. So it’s in the podcast, I hope you enjoy this conversation Charles Buchanan 1:58that we have to get more used to AI and in fact, your I mean, less intrusive, more in the background. I mean, AI would is the is the path forward. And I don’t know how come from that people will will will get more like now chatbots are generally accepted if though, I mean, some somewhat useless at times, but they’re like, but people have gotten used to them. I tried to avoid them, because they just they if they’re going to just read me an FAQ, then I could just read the FAQ myself, right, like just, Marco Campana 2:32it’s true. No, I know, I find with the chat bots I intersect with or interact with when it comes to like, if I need some sort of actual answer to a question I have to go through until they finally say Oh, would you like to speak to some a human? And it’s like, yes. Why don’t you give me that, like at the first step. It’s like going through voicemail hell, but we’ve applied that to AI and it’s like, really couldn’t do Charles Buchanan 2:54it. No big thing is, so it’s like, no, it’s bad AI, right? It’s actually like, and that that’s what it is. It’s not that it’s, I mean, we have a tool that could do something like it’s like, like we should AI you know, they come in there, there’s an intelligent part of it. And and what we realize is that, not every we just assume that the fact that something is human means it’s intelligent, sorry, this might sound elitist. But there’s a, what we’ve done is just taken or pedestrian stupidity to a technical platform. And what we’re getting is not artificial intelligence is artificial, pedantic stupidity that we that we engage in, like, it’s like going to get bad service at the store, you walk in, and they’re like, may I help you? And you’re like, Yeah, I need this. Oh, sorry, you’re in the wrong department? Why didn’t you just tell me that you’re? You’re in that you know, nothing about houseware? Or why don’t you just tell me what, you know, like, we don’t sell that here rather than? So yeah, it’s and that’s what it is just bad AI just the way they’ve designed interactions. It’s like, Is this really how someone would want to interact? Is this really how you would want to be treated? Like I mean, an AI? It’s one of the things I’m super passionate about, because that’s where I started my career. So interesting. Okay. So I’ve I spent a few years building expert systems for the mining sector and not in northern Ontario, but I live in Toronto, and then I listen, now, I’m, I’m hyped about AI, we’re looking at using some AI in our work, but we are not going to be using it for service desk, not initially, because we do not want

    54 min
  • 10 episódios

Sobre

Marco Campana: Communications & Digital Strategy Consulting for Immigrant and Refugee-serving Organizations

Informação

  • Autoria
    Technology in Human Services
  • Anos em atividade
    2016 - 2024
  • Episódios
    10
  • Classificação
    Para todos
  • Site do programa
    Technology in Human Services