Notes
Community organizations:
1) ASSIST Community Services Centre
2) Action for Healthy Community (AHC)
Future research / gaps identified: Continue following the organizations post-evaluation to determine how the organizations and/or the larger landscape of settlement services have/have not changed
Integration timeline: not defined
Key populations: newcomers served by the ASSIST Community Services Centre and/or Action for Healthy Community (AHC), as well as service providers and related stakeholders
Key findings:
1) Long-term program goals: to contribute to the development of the Canadian economy and maintain a stable society and create social change.
2) Medium-term program goals: to reduce the concerns and pressures experienced by new immigrants when settling in Edmonton to relatively low levels, to decrease or eliminate crime among new immigrants, to enhance the educational attainment of new immigrants and refugees, reduce the unemployment rate, and alleviate the challenges associated with settling down in Canada.
3) Short-term program goals: housing, access to LRT or bus transportation, social services, health care, and overcoming language barriers.
Key recommendations:
1) Conduct an impact evaluation process, a performance-based evaluation methodology, because:
a) a systems-based approaches yield better and more effective results than logical or linear causal models
b) flawed relationships are avoided
c) evaluators are more accurate in predicting program elements and outcomes when manipulating the results of an evaluation
