Resilience in the system: COVID-19 and immigrant- and refugee-serving health and human service providers.

Abstract

Introduction: Immigrant and refugee families in the U.S. have been particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Health and human service providers who serve these communities have been essential in supporting them during this crisis, yet have also had to adapt the way they provide services. The current study aims to describe the challenges these service providers have faced and the adaptations they have made. Method: Our research team conducted semistructured interviews with 19 service providers at 10 organizations identified as serving one or more immigrant and/or refugee communities in the state of Minnesota. We analyzed the interviews for themes and used normalization process theory (May & Finch, 2009) to understand how service providers have shown resilience and where gaps in capacity emerged. Results: Mechanisms of adaptation to the COVID-19 crisis included staff taking on larger workloads, utilizing existing service frameworks in new ways, shifting their services remotely and/or substantively, and utilizing the trust they had built with communities and individuals over time. Challenges that had not been fully overcome included insufficient funding for community need and restrictions on methods of interaction. Discussion: Key implications include allocating funding for immigrant and refugee families, developing and evaluating new service formats in collaboration with clients, providing direct support for staff in times of crisis, and using practice-based evidence to speed implementation science research.

A management perspective on resilience in healthcare: a framework and avenues for future research

“…Investments—both in managerial tools, in terms of master data management plans and data-sharing agreements, and in social factors, in terms of culture—are needed to sustain the infrastructure in developed countries [ 48 ]. In this stream, a study aimed at identifying mechanisms of adaptation to the COVID-19 crisis included staff taking on larger workloads, for example, using the existing service frameworks in new ways, shifting their services remotely and/or substantively, and utilising the trust they had built with communities and individuals over time [ 49 ].…”

In Need of a Roof: Pandemic and Housing Vulnerability

“…Despite the aforementioned studies that suggest positive e↵ects of government relief programs, there is also evidence that many minority groups were unable to access and benefit from these programs-sort of chilling e↵ect for certain groups, particularly Asians and immigrants. Buchanan et al(2022) using data collected form interviewing immigrants families in Midwest find that new immigrant families not only su↵ered severe job loss due to the sector they were working in, followed by severe housing hardships, but also lacked skills on how to cope with the financial crisis including how to access the government relief in place. They particularly lacked technology and English language skills needed to cope with the financial hardships created by the pandemic.…”

“…In the U.S., even before the onset of the pandemic in Feb-March 2020, it is well known that Blacks and Latinx face income, wealth and housing gap and also lack safety nets in the face of exogenous shocks and crisis 2 . With the onset of COVID-19 in April 2020, Blacks and Latinx were more significantly a↵ected because they worked more in sectors and occupations that were hit most severely by the crisis.…”

“…It is important to consider how housing vulnerability changed across these groups over time 1 According to the CFB report, mortgage holders owed almost 90 billion in deferred principal, interest and taxes and insurance payments and the housing crisis was as acute as seen during the Great Recession. 2 For example, see Coulson 1999, Gabriel and Rosenthal 2005, Mundra and Sharma 2015, and Mundra 2020 3 In addition to the labor market insecurity there was increasing health and food crisis. COVID Hardship Watch from the Center on Budget and Policy show that in Oct 2021, 8% of white household did not have su cient food the previous week versus 17% for Black and 16% for Latinos respectively.…”

In Need of a Roof: Pandemic and Housing Vulnerability

“…Despite the aforementioned studies that suggest positive effects of government relief programs, there is also evidence that many minority groups were unable to access and benefit from these programs-sort of chilling effect for certain groups, particularly Asians and immigrants. Buchanan et al(2022) using data collected form interviewing immigrants families in Midwest find that new immigrant families not only suffered severe job loss due to the sector they were working in, followed by severe housing hardships, but also lacked skills on how to cope with the financial crisis including how to access the government relief in place. They particularly lacked technology and English language skills needed to cope with the financial hardships created by the pandemic.…”