National Initiatives

National Settlement Conference 2
(Calgary - October 2-5, 2003)

Working Groups - Maximize Current Settlement Work

Co-Chairs:
Bill McMichael
Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks, National Organization
william.mcmichael@ubc.ca

Joan Texeira
Citizenship and Immigration Canada, NHQ, Ottawa
Joan.Texeira@cic.gc.ca

The ‘Maximizing Settlement’ working group has been conducting research into current practices and policies in an effort to further the development of effective, sustainable, innovative and inclusive settlement supports for newcomers.

This working group will present a workshop at the conference on Saturday October 4 entitled Promising Policies and Practices for Maximizing Current Settlement Work. The purpose of this workshop is to help bring new ideas for policy and service delivery to the public discourse on settlement and integration. The presenters will be Bill McMichael and Joan Texeira. Research summaries and position papers on promising practices and policies will be presented for discussion by workshop participants. The results of first-language community consultations in Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina and Toronto in immigrant and refugee communities will be reported. This research, conducted in the winter of 2002 and spring of 2003, focused on settlement practice from the perspectives of the newcomer and the service provider. Policy issues that will be addressed include settlement funding and ‘pre-arrival’ information for newcomers. In addition, an overview of the “National Network” project, coordinated by working group member Brenda Lohrenz, will be presented. The National Network for LINC/ELSA, MIIP-ESL Providers will promote information access and sharing among providers involved in programs that are administered both federally (LINC = Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada) and provincially (BC’s ELSA program = English Language Services for Adults, and Manitoba’s MIIP-ESL Program = Manitoba Immigrant Integration Program – ESL Component).

Brenda Lohrenz will also facilitate the informal interest group meeting on Language Issues that will take place at the conference on Thursday October 2 in the afternoon. Brenda will introduce the National Network LINC/ELSA/MIIP-ESL Providers’ project, collect feedback and determine potential next steps for the national network, currently located at http://www.elsanet.org but will eventually be accessible on the TESL Canada web site.