When it comes to successfully settling newcomers, it truly takes a village! From sponsors, to settlement agencies, to sponsorship agreement holders (SAH), it’s so important that those relationships are as strong as possible, with clear and open lines of communication.
As you may know, last year with the PRSN Partnership Committee we launched a survey to learn about possible communication gaps between sponsors and settlement agencies and completed a report and action plan based on need for increased communication, services and collaborative programs. You can find the report on the PRSN website or link to it — https://refugeesponsornet.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PRSN-Building-Relationships-with-Settlement-Agencies-research-report.pdf
This year the PRSN Knowledge Exchange committee, again in collaboration with the Partnership committee, launched a companion survey focused on relationships between SAHs and private sponsor constituent groups. We want to identify the challenges SAHs have in working with sponsors, and sponsors have with SAHs. Our goal is to identify opportunities to work better together, particularly around post-arrival issues.
We want to capture promising practices and experiences that reflect the current environment in the sector to create new opportunities for PRSN to partner more effectively on behalf of sponsors. We believe that with improved relationships, newcomers will benefit from more efficient and effective settlement.
The survey to both SAHs and sponsors went into market in February with data collected analyzed in April and report writing soon to be completed in May. The report will be available for distribution following the development of a PRSN action plan based on survey results.