Cultural brokering and child and family services: Collaborative, family-focused, and strengths-based practice with immigrant and refugee families and communities

Since 1996, Alberta has grown significantly in size and ethnocultural diversity. Families, from across the globe, are creating new homes and providing local ethnocultural leadership to support community engagement. Innovations... [ view full abstract ]

Since 1996, Alberta has grown significantly in size and ethnocultural diversity. Families, from across the globe, are creating new homes and providing local ethnocultural leadership to support community engagement. Innovations include cultural brokering in support of children and families in crisis. Since 2008 in Edmonton and 2013 in Calgary, the Multicultural Health Brokers Co-operative (MCHB Co-op), Calgary Catholic Immigration Society (CCIS), and Child and Family Services (CFS) have collaborated to facilitate family-focused, strengths-based, evidence-informed practice.
Objectives: To discuss the collaboration with delegates; identify how initiatives link with Alberta’s Child Intervention Practice Framework; and reflect from cultural-broker, government, and family perspectives.
Method: The Edmonton initiative is a collaboration between CFS and the MCHB Co-op with 4 pilot sites that have developed into 8 Neighbourhood Centres and a Crisis Unit. Evaluation is underway regarding the adoption of a collaborative service delivery model. The Calgary initiative is a CFS-CCIS partnership to increase collaboration, engagement, and partnership with culturally diverse communities and to strengthen community capacity. The Cultural Brokerage team is co-located in CFS sites.
Results: Through facilitated dialogue, we will engage delegates regarding: (i) Capacities of immigrant and refugee families (e.g., realities of two-culture parenting, domestic violence, mental-health issues, pre-migration experiences) and how they enable partners to see vulnerability and inform practice; (ii) Capacities of community in connecting public/private/non-profit resources to develop family-focused practice and a trauma-informed workforce; (iii) Capacities of child-welfare systems (e.g., Brokers’ and CFS staff capacities) relative to the Child Intervention Practice Framework, a foundation for Collaborative Service Delivery and Signs of Safety. One point of discussion will be to invite participants to consider potential implications of this type of collaboration in their regions.
Conclusion: These collaborations are shifting child-protective systems in terms of capacity building and emergent learning. On-going evaluation informs recommendations for future, sustainable practice and policy making.