The Role Of Immigrant Serving Organizations In The Canadian Welfare State: A Case Study

by
B. Saddeiqa Holder

CHAPTER FIVE

FINDINGS

This chapter introduces findings from the data interwoven with a discussion of findings from the literature. Following a historical overview of the Centre, data is presented in terms of the Centre's relationships with its four major constituencies (clients, the ‘community,’ funders, and mainstream organizations). As seen in the literature review these categories represent crucial features of ISOs. Additional themes arising out of the data constitute the final part of the analysis. These latter themes were not suggested by the literature; they constitute the specificity of this case.

In presenting the data I have indicated the speaker’s position in place of using names, for example, board member, settlement worker, etc.

The Centre: An Overview

The Centre is one of three service agencies in Metropolitan Toronto whose client base are primarily Portuguese speaking, and one of four organizations serving the Spanish speaking community (although there are Portuguese and Spanish speaking workers at multicultural agencies). 1996 was the Centre's twentieth year of operation. The chronology following provides highlights from the years 1974 to 1984-85 and was compiled by the Centre to commemorate its tenth anniversary.

1974 · A group of Brazilian, Black, Chinese and Spanish women met to discuss the creation of an employment counselling centre for immigrant women.

· A needs assessment was conducted at the same time that a drop-in centre to provide primarily labour-related counselling and information was established.

1976 · A split occurred at the Centre with the Portuguese and Spanish-speaking workers forming an organization which became known as the Centre, a collectively run centre, offering counselling, advocacy, referrals, escort services and educational workshops.

· The Chinese, Italian and West Indian workers formed another organization under the sponsorship of another immigrant women's centre, later becoming an independent organization (still in existence).

1977-78 · The Centre initiated a research study into the skills-training needs of Portuguese and Spanish-speaking women in 1977, resulting in the creation of an agency which began operation in September 1978. The agency was established to provide training to improve the employment skills of the women thereby creating alternatives to cleaning and factory work.

1979-80 · A Mental Health Support Group was formed as a preventative measure to provide emotional support for isolated women after a review of social services in Metropolitan Toronto revealed the lack of services available for non-English speakers. The groups were run for 15 weeks, 3 times during the year and included an ESL component.

· The Centre provided staff support to a group of Portuguese women dressmakers who had begun to meet and work there.

1980-81 · Continuation of the Mental Health Group with discussion topics geared to the changing needs of the women along with ESL instruction.

· A grant secured under the Canada Community Development Project enabled a garment making cooperative enterprise to employ six Portuguese dressmakers along with a full-time business coordinator.

· A Clothing Drop Box was set up for clients and those in need to help them cope with the effects of economic recession.

· A volunteer led program for Spanish speaking children - Creative Expression through Dance - provided children with to the opportunity to explore the creative arts and Hispanic culture.

· In conjunction with an immigrant women’s advocacy organization, the Centre sponsored a feasibility study into the creation of the first shelter in Canada designed around the needs of abused non-English speaking women.

1981-82 · As a result of increased demand for ESL instruction, ESL classes were established in addition to those associated with the support groups.

· A child-parent drop-in centre ran for 6 months at a library.

· A market analysis conducted for the garment cooperative resulted in a business plan for the cooperative. LEAP funding secured for 3 years.

· Start-up of a resource library on immigrant women.

1982-83 · The ESL classes were expanded and citizenship ESL classes were added.

· The garment cooperative became separately incorporated.

·The Centre is an active member of the Immigrant Women's Shelter Advisory Task Force.

· A Canada Works summer project allows for the development of visual training materials developed for bilingual ESL classes.

1983-84 · In addition to again expanding the ESL class offerings, Citizenship classes were held, as well as a new program of ESL Employment Options for Immigrant Women.

· A Canada Works project enabled the development of instructional software to be used in a computer literacy course for immigrant women, to be offered in conjunction with a large community centre in 1985.

· A training program in electronic testing is offered in cosponsorship with a college to provide training to allow immigrant women to move into higher waged occupations.

· A series of workshops on Nontraditional Occupations for Women are held.

· Parenting workshops based upon slide/tape and written materials in Spanish and Portuguese were offered.

· Women's support groups, including one for Spanish speaking seniors, are formed as an outgrowth of the Mental Health Groups.

1984-85 · The ‘nontrad’ training program offers tester and assembler programs.

· ESL computer literacy classes are held at a large community centre

· Work on the Immigrant Women's Shelter Advisory Task Force continues.

· ESL classes and women's groups continue.

The following record of the Centre's second decade was compiled from Annual Reports.

1985-86 Annual Report unavailable

1986-87 Programs consist of:

· 6 ESL classes

· Spanish speaking seniors group and the Portuguese women's group

· Counselling services

· Placement rate for ‘nontrad’ training program of 96% at wages that are 57% higher than the women’s previous wages

· Participation in the Advocates for Community-Based Training & Education for Women (ACTEW), Coalition for a Just Refugee Immigration Policy, Hispanic Social Development Council (HSDC), Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI), Ontario Immigrant Women's Network (OIWN), Portuguese Interagency Network (PIN), WWIW

1987-88 · Hiring of an Executive Director and move to a hierarchical structure

(The earliest memories of the current staff date back to 1987 when the senior Portuguese counsellor was first hired.)

1988/89 · Continuation of the Portuguese women's group and a group for Spanish speaking seniors

· Conducted a research study into the electronics industry resulting in the discontinuation of tester program

· Skills training program for social assistance recipients

· Language training classes

· Published a health manual for Spanish seniors

· Initiated a newsletter for Portuguese women

· Income tax clinic

· Member of the Charter Challenge Committee to obtain a ruling on federal language training eligibility criteria and its impact on immigrant women

· Participated in City of Toronto Community Reference Group, the Employment Standards Group of Parkdale Legal Clinic, OCASI.

1989/90 Annual Report unavailable

1990/91 · In conjunction with the United Way, a Volunteer Leadership Development Program is offered for Spanish and Portuguese women

· A pre-apprenticeship bridging program (math and English upgrading)

· A multicultural women's group

· Spanish speaking seniors' group

· Settlement counselling

· Language classes

· Income tax clinic

· Participation in ACTEW, Canadian Multilingual Literacy Centre, OCASI, OIWN, PIN, Portuguese Women's Coalition.

1991/92 Annual Report unavailable

1992/93 · Expansion of settlement services with funds made available to help clients secure social assistance

· Employment training programs reduced due to federal funding cuts

· A new short term preparation for employment workshop series offered

· ESL classes

· Income tax clinic

1993/94 · Two family violence support groups and the Spanish speaking Senior women's group

· ESL classes

· Cosponsored, with a city college, a new Building Maintenance/Superintendent training program for immigrant men and women receiving unemployment insurance or social assistance

· Income tax clinic

· Participation in ACTEW, Barbra Schlifer Cultural Interpreter Program Advisory Committee (BSCIP), Community Health Board, ESL Coordinators Group, HSDC, Justice for Graciela, PIN, Ontario Association of Women's Centres.

1994/95 · Settlement counselling provided on a one-to-one basis, and through monthly information sessions

· Two family violence prevention workshops

· Support groups for assaulted women in Spanish and Portuguese

· Portuguese women's peer support group and Spanish- speaking Seniors’ Group

· Income tax clinic

· Employment training programs included the completion of the Building Maintenance/Superintendent training program for men and women, Computer Skills/Job Search for women cosponsored by the Toronto Board of Education, and the Home Day Care Provider training program for women on social assistance offered in conjunction with Canadian Mothercraft Society and the Metropolitan Toronto Separate School Board

· Participation in ACTEW, BSCIP, HCSD, International Women's Day Coalition, Latin American Coalition for the Eradication of Violence, OCASI, Ontario Association of Women's Centre's, Wallace Emerson Community Centre Advisory Committee, West End Interagency Network.

The Centre's activist orientation during its first ten years of operation years is evident. For example, from its inception in the mid-1970s, Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) was identified as the educative strategy to be used in the Centre. Freire’s literacy work with Brazilian peasants utilized visual aids and political consciousness raising. This same perspective was utilized in curriculum materials developed by the Centre. The approach continued into the 1980s under the influence of three staff members who were studying Freire's work at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Staff meeting minutes from the early years of the organization identify as a key criterion in Board, staff and volunteer selection the requirement that they be committed to the empowerment of women by helping them to recognize their strengths and taking steps to direct their own lives. The Centre operated as a collective between 1976 to 1988/89.

From 1980 onwards there has been regular participation in the International Women's Day March, bringing women who spoke little or no English to march under the Working Women banner at a time when there was comparatively little participation by immigrant women in the mainstream women's movement (Das Gupta, 1986). In the 1981/82 fiscal year the Centre was unionized which, according to that year’s annual report, recognized "the principle that all workers have the right to organize themselves to negotiate their working conditions collectively and join with other groups of organized workers in the struggle for better conditions for all workers" (p. 2). Even today, few ISOs are unionized.

The Centre also provides services to male family members of their women clients. Still a majority of programming is directed towards women. To decrease barriers for their women clients attempts have been made to provide child care for as many group programs as possible. Similarly Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) tickets are provided. The Centre has also attempted to foster a sense of community among clients through the organization of annual social and recreational events aimed at families: since 1980, an Annual Dinner and Dance; since 1981, an annual Christmas Party; and since 1982, an annual picnic at Niagara Falls.

Evident in 1986/87 Annual Report is a shift to a shorter, more sophisticated visual presentation, and less of a focus on using the publication to present problems and issues faced by clients and struggles over government policies. Minutes of the Finance Committee note that the change was undertaken so that the Report would be more attractive to funders and foundations, presaging a concern with professionalism in the management of the Centre. (As well it would be easier to translate a shortened version into Spanish and Portuguese as per the United Way's direction, making the report accessible to the membership.)

1988/1989 was a watershed year for the Centre when the present Executive Director was hired in the transition from a collective to a "modified hierarchy." The new management structure was accompanied by staff changes and a significant ‘changing of the guard.’ According to a former staff member, the collective structure had grown unwieldy. At one point staff members had rotated job functions resulting in people being assigned to tasks they were not motivated to do (e.g., counsellors having to draw up budgets and funding applications).

As the number of employees grew, decision-making and staff meetings had become increasingly time consuming. Minutes of a staff meeting record a staff member's opinion that relationships among agency personnel were strained due to ideological differences between those who "have a Marxist ideology and some [who] just want to work in a capitalist society." There were also feelings of isolation on the part of the staff located at the Immigrant Women Into Electronics (IWIE) Program physically located in Humber College, some distance from the Centre. Staff meeting minutes note that the training program staff felt that the Centre's Christmas Party was inappropriate for its clients, many of whom were not Christian. (Although the clientele for the settlement programs and support groups were Portuguese and Spanish speaking women, the training programs were not limited to clients of any one ethnoracial group.)

The change in organizational structure and a streamlining of management processes resulted in funding increases from a number of the Centre's core funders.

The role of the centre

The Centre, as do most organizations, has enumerated a set of organizational goals which have not changed significantly from those articulated in 1976, with the exception that earlier organizational goals referred only to immigrant women and did not specify Portuguese and Spanish speaking women. According to the 1995/96 Annual Report the Centre’s mission is to provide immigrant women with opportunities to improve the quality of their lives through self-development and community action. The objectives of the Centre are:

· to act as a resource for the immigrant women's community as a whole;

· to facilitate the participation of Portuguese and Spanish speaking women in the community through counselling, settlement and support services;

· to increase employment opportunities for immigrant women and particularly Portuguese and Spanish speaking women, through the provision of language and skills training programs;

· to advocate on behalf of immigrant women for changes in policies affecting their lives; and

· to work with community agencies and organizations to ensure that the current and future needs of immigrant women are met.

Concretely the Centre attempts to assist clients by: meeting basic needs (housing, income, food, clothing); reducing isolation, loneliness, fear; assisting them to become self sufficient and exit social assistance programs; building self confidence and esteem; supporting them in coping effectively with life and family difficulties and transitions; training them in English language acquisition; and helping them to education, accreditation, and career planning assistance.

When asked about their perceptions of the role of the Centre and ISOs generally, the responses of staff and Board members were most often couched in terms of service delivery to newcomers:

settlement services - providing needed information/orientation to Canadian society

Settlement counselling sounds like a very specific thing, but there's this whole aspect, the human aspect. So it's very hard to say, ‘Okay you walk in here with your practical problems, your forms and your issues of work, and your issue of applying for a SIN [social insurance] number but everything else you just leave outside.’ It doesn't work like that and I think that's one of the things that government funding, or funders sometimes have a hard time to understand.

...support, counselling, advocacy, integration, and settlement...Unfortunately there is very little understanding of what these things mean to workers and agencies. For example, everyone should be given an orientation of how the Canadian government works. Adaptation and integration are different for immigrants and refugees. Government has a role to play. When people arrive at the airport they should be given an information package advising them to go to certain agencies that will be able to help them.

Other functions mentioned included client outcomes such as: the political representation of constituents - "representation of immigrant women's issues through advocacy and lobbying"; the provision of personal counselling services - "support for clients who and are now unemployed after years in the workforce: the Centre cannot provide jobs but they are able to provide emotional support"; "personal counselling to assist women with family crises and situations of abuse"; the provision of role models - "to give them [clients] the optimism also that we made it so they can make it too"; empowerment - "by listening to women, helping them make changes, and teaching them the skills to negotiate Canadian society, they develop their own voice"; and mediation - "You are in between the needy and the powerful (workers in welfare, housing, etc.) who can really provide the answer for the needs."

For staff there is the opportunity for on the job training - "staff employed at the Centre in training positions have acquired skills enabling them to get better jobs." From Board members we hear about indirect outcomes:

· the orientation to and experience in decision making processes - "participation on the Board of the Centre provides the opportunity to learn ‘how to do business here in Canada...how things work’"

· development of political leadership skills - "community organizations give women, like [two Liberal Members of Parliament], a chance to learn skills and knowledge of the political processes that may allow them to integrate into the political arena"

· the opportunity for voluntarism - "the opportunity to help your community"

· a new area of work - after obtaining help from one of the counsellors, "I started volunteer work at the Centre and found it was quite important for me, because it was a place I could go and find people who spoke my language, and who understood my background as a refugee and as a woman. It was a very important step in my life in Canada. I continued to do some volunteeer work and had the opportunity to do some training...I became very interested in the work...I took a position on the Board of Directors and finally with all my learning, I was able to secure a job as a counsellor at [another Centre]. I think the Centre was really important in helping me get a job in that area"

· the chance to pursue social change strategies such as community economic development - "working locally with issues that get you at the global issues of economic systems and exploitation of people and the earth..." and "that takes into account the work that women do."

One role the Centre has been unable to realize is that of community development understood as the formation of groups of individuals/clients able to articulate community demands, especially in political terms. According to a non-Portuguese, non-Spanish speaking staff member:

We have not been successful at developing communities’ abilities to secure their own interests. They need help to build leadership. The Centre’s efforts in building leadership have been through individual counselling, group work especially in the Portuguese community, developmental support to the Seniors’s group and through role modelling when clients who have made gains take on leadership roles through committee work, facilitating groups, organizing events.

Board members reiterate:

We have been unable to politicize clients despite delivering needed services due to underfunding. The staff are busy, there is no time. We are responding not initiating. Like many immigrant communities we don’t hold leadership meetings for clients, organize political events, or engage in active lobbying. We have been more successful in bringing some of them onto the Board. Although we work with women in groups, most of the work is individual work; efforts to form groups or link them with pre-existent groups have not been so successful.

Community development is a community that cares for itself. That doesn’t happen much. You just do your everyday service and go on...They [the Centre] do do a lot of networking but not a lot of community development.

These Board members clearly demarcate between themselves and clients as members of the community.

Community networking and advocacy efforts continue unabated especially in the areas of wife assault and employment training. In terms of programming, the provision of settlement services continue to constitute a major component of the work. In an evaluation of the settlement services program in 1994 staff identified difficulties such as: how to realize the empowerment of clients; the lack of services to refer clients (e.g., in-depth counselling) which affects the counsellors’ case load and necessitates training for counsellors if they are to continue seeing these clients; discriminatory attitudes in clients, workers, and mainstream society; the need for English language training for workers to enable them to do translations for clients and to write letters required by clients; and client needs for employment counselling.

When asked about unmet needs in 1996, staff and board identified economic issues as primary: jobs, community economic development, and recognition of qualifications. Related to the high level of unemployment, one board member spoke of the need for a drop-in centre for parents and children to reduce isolation (and, therefore, depression). As well, the composition of the area is changing as new immigrant groups with their own service needs move into the neighbourhood. For older immigrants, that is, the Portuguese, their needs are for information around service entitlements such as the Canada Pension Plan. Legal services in the language of the clients were mentioned by both a Spanish speaking staff member and the Spanish speaking clients. The need for childcare spaces for women in the home daycare program (discussed below) was also mentioned.

Responding to the labour market needs of clients has remained a central focus based on the understanding that without jobs and earned income clients are without access to economic power and the consequent ability to affect personal and even political changes (given the association between low income and low levels of political participation in Canada) . Regarding employment counselling, however, workers are sceptical:

One of the clients I remember very clearly. She said, ‘You know I didn’t speak English, so I took English classes. So when I finished with the English I knew English but I didn’t have any formal training in any profession, or area.’ So she went and got a certificate in hospitality. And she says, ‘to do that I got an OSAP [Ontario Student Assistance Program] grant and loan. And then when I was finished that I was almost worse off than before because before I didn’t have any English but I didn’t have any debts. Here I was with English proficiency, with a certificate in my hand, unemployed, on welfare, and with a debt.’

In 1993/94 the Centre offered a training program for non-English speaking men and women in Building Maintenance/Superintendent Training in conjunction with a college. However, the concept for the program originated not with the Centre but from the local Canada Employment Centre which circulated a Request for Proposals inviting bids by organizations wishing to develop and offer the training program. Ten men and three women graduated. By undertaking to deliver a government initiated program the Centre expanded its target group to include men. A Board member presented her reasons for supporting the program: high levels of formal education and English skills were not required and if women lived and worked in the same building, they could be at home with their children. Cuts to the federal skills training budget meant that the program was discontinued.

However a joint federal provincial training initiative - Home Daycare for immigrant women on social assistance - did proceed. The Coordinator of the program described reactions to the Home Daycare program from staff in other training programs:

People got into this stance of, ‘We’re not training women any more to be anything where they are going to be decently paid...The dollars for training women to do auto cad or computer drafting, that kind of stuff is drying up. It’s like let’s get women back into the kitchen and back into the homes and look after kids where they can’t make a decent living...They have to work long hours.’

Subsequently the funding for the Home Daycare program was cancelled. The Centre has been able to run the program again by replacing federal and provincial funding with a combination of private funding from foundations and municipal support for childcare. From the perspective of the Centre, the Home Daycare means that: the training period is shorter; women could operate as their own businesses and work for themselves or they could work as an employee of a home daycare provider; by providing childcare in their homes women with young children will be able to remain with their children while still earning an income, albeit a limited one; the program builds on skills and interests the women already have; high levels of English were not necessary if the women provided care to members of their own community; and research indicated that there was a demand for home daycare. Being less costly than technical training programs it was therefore possible to find replacement dollars for the federal and provincial training funds. Both of these training programs took into consideration the realities of the women’s lives, that is their level of fluency in English and their roles as mothers.

The history of the agency's development reflects Shragge's (1990) description of ASOs in Quebec to an uncanny degree. Offering alternatives to traditional programming, the Centre's services focused on nontraditional initiatives for women such as the electronic tester program, the (unsuccessful) attempt to set up a dressmakers’ cooperative, and even the Home Daycare program which includes business training to enable the women to operate as small businesses. Support groups encouraged personal empowerment for women as did participation in marches for the labour and women’s movement. In their organizational form, as a collective, the Centre attempted to be as nonhierarchical and democratic as possible allowing for staff participation in decision making. The hiring of clients and community members as staff, and recruitment of Board members from the clients allowed for community participation. However, as Agnew (1996) noted, social class, more specifically class skills, are clearly operant in determining which community members and clients go on to become staff and Board members: for example, one respondent mentioned that during the 1980s three staff members were completing graduate degrees. At the present time most of the service delivery staff have college diplomas/university degrees. The 1995/96 Board members interviewed were all middle level white collar workers, three of them working in government and one in post secondary education. Middle class boards help secure funding and provide needed skills.

Shragge summarizes the phases of development of ASOs from an initial period when the organization is engaged in social change activities, to a transitional period when more attention is paid to organizational accountability. In the later state, traditional accountability procedures have been put into place, and more professional staff have been hired. This is partially evident at the Centre in that a vertical management structure was put into place; however staff qualifications have not changed. He posits that an individual approach may replace more collective strategies; however, the organization retains its commitment to its original client group. For Shragge this bureaucratization results from the power of funders to shape agency activities. In this case changes in the Centre’s operation stem from external influences such as the requirements associated with securing funding, as well as internal factors such as divisions among staff, and the need as a growing organization to streamline administrative procedures. There is no evidence of a decline in collective modes of service delivery; support groups continue to be a preferred way of working and the Centre provides support to at least two groups for which they have not received funding support.

Shragge concludes that ASOs are able to maintain their autonomy through successful programming, community support, building alliances, diversified funding, and a continued commitment to an alternative point of view. This agency clearly demonstrates these characteristics. Throughout its history to the present day this agency has embarked upon mostly successful training programs intended to foster the economic independence of women by avoiding the traditional low paying job ghettos (such as the ones described by Ng in her earlier study of an immigrant women’s employment centre). The Centre also initiated joint programming with community colleges many years before the recent emphasis by funders on service partnerships. The agency was a founder of, and has continued to be a key player in advocacy organizations and initiatives such as Women Working with Immigrant Women, as well as coalitions such as OCASI , Advocates for Community-Based Training & Education for Women, and earlier on, the Immigrant Women’s Shelter Advisory Task Force and the Charter Challenge on language training. Participation in ethnocracial networks such as the Hispanic Social Development Council and the Portuguese Interagency Network secures its ties to the these communities. Further the Centre has engaged in joint programming with other organizations to expand its services (for example, serving the African community by sharing a settlement worker with another agency) to other client groups. It has been able to obtain funding to replace dollars from government from nongovernmental sources such as foundations. Diversification of funding also circumscribes the control exerted by a single funder and their ability to exert political influence.

Client Perceptions

That voluntary organizations meet community needs is a presupposition about the sector. How those needs are met by this ISO is described by clients below.

The Spanish speaking clients who agreed to attend the focus groups were all participants in a support group that is sponsored by the Centre and receives staff assistance and meeting space but no financial assistance. Hence the six women spoke mostly about the group and only rarely of the other services they utilized at the Centre. Obtaining needed services such as housing (2), assistance with immigration matters (2), problems at work (1), and a son's disability were the reasons for first approaching the Centre:

When I came I did not start studying. The cultural shock harmed me a lot. I locked myself in my house. I didn’t want to go out. I would only go to see the lawyer and to immigration. But I went to the library to pick up tapes to learn English and the person that gave me the tapes told me about the English classes that the Centre had in the basement of the library and he told me about the other services of the Centre.

I saw the sign on the building, I had been in Canada for seven years at that time, but I had a problem and I came to look for help.

I came here two years ago because I needed help to apply for Ontario housing and I needed help in processing the immigration papers for my younger daughter. They are very good people, they gave me orientation. Then I started to volunteer with the women’s group.

After this initial assistance the overwhelming benefit of the Centre's programs and services was that of meeting other women, of gaining the support and understanding of other women through the group and maintaining contact with each other over the telephone; "when you're not working it’s easy to get depressed"; "men go out with friends, women are always at home and cannot express their feelings of unhappiness".

A preoccupation of the women is economics. Global and national restructuring has resulted in the absence of jobs and cuts to social assistance mean that making ends meet has become more difficult. Setting up a food bank or a community kitchen are ideas that are being explored by the group. They would also like the Centre to become more involved in job search programs, such as a job board and job placement program. Like the Ghanaian refugees described by Opoku-Dapaah, the economic disappointments experienced by these women contribute to their need for social supports from within their own community.

Intercessions by the settlement worker help the women in their contacts with mainstream services such as social assistance. Welfare workers are more attentive when the client is referred by the Centre and has an advocate:

The Social Services people respect the Centre very much. They are very polite. There is a difference in the service when the Centre is involved.

The women reported different experiences with their "workers." One worker was described as very helpful, visiting at home and bringing an interpreter, while another was suspicious:

People in the Welfare office think we are lazy and don’t want to work, but there are no jobs. I keep them informed when I work and then when I am laid off I get in touch again and the social worker is helpful.

Encounters with the government-provided social assistance program are clearly difficult. It is difficult to access welfare workers without the assistance of a settlement worker, and once accessed the women do not know whether the worker will be supportive or hold stereotypical attitudes about immigrants.

Individual interviews with two Portuguese speaking women were not informative in terms of the goals of this study. The women spoke in greater detail of their abusive relationships with their spouses attesting to the long term and profound impact of familial violence in their lives. (According to the Portuguese speaking settlement counsellor the majority of her cases are wife assault although women come first on the pretext of seeking settlement related services such as ESL.) Maria (a pseudonym), in Canada for six years, and married to an alcoholic husband, was depressed. She heard two of the Centre’s counsellors in an interview on Portuguese radio and took down the number. With the help of one of the counsellors her husband was able to get help from a doctor. However her marriage did not survive. Maria attended ESL classes as well as the women’s group for three years and still has the friends from the group. She quit the ESL classes in order to work. The Centre has also provided her with an escort to the welfare office, helped her obtain legal aid for the divorce, and assisted her in renewing her passport.

Ilda, also in Canada for six years, was in an abusive relationship and very depressed. A friend, also a volunteer at the Centre, recommended that she see a counsellor at the Centre. With the counsellor’s help she was able to find an apartment and moved out, eventually separating from her husband. She attends the support group for women and has volunteered with the Centre where she conducts orientation groups with newcomers. In both of these instances the Centre provided much needed support to the women to make changes in their lives, changes that were probably difficult to make in a new society and away from their traditional support structures.

To supplement these interviews the Centre provided access to the data below that come from an evaluation questionnaire administered by a placement student at the Centre. Not hearing the women’s responses makes it difficult to interpret what meaning they made of the statements. There may have also been a desire on the part of the women to portray the Centre in a positive light when interviewed by personnel associated with the Centre. The questionnaire asked 30 Portuguese speaking women to indicate which of the following statements applied to them:

I have been able to:

· build social networks and peer support (15)

· increase understanding of dynamics of family violence (14)

· develop problem solving skills (14)

· practice leadership skills (14)

· improve parenting knowledge and skills (11)

· obtain information and education on specific issues of need (9)

· develop greater understanding of Canadian society (14)

Thanks to the help of the Centre, I now...

· have my citizenship (5)

· participate in community and political events (7)

· am involved in Centre activities, volunteer program or committees (10).

In sum the Centre has ensured access to services for Spanish and Portuguese speaking women as well as decreasing the isolation of the women arising from lack of work opportunities and family circumstances. Wife assault is a large part of the agency’s work whether it be through support groups, advocacy, service coordination, or individual counselling. As well among the Portuguese clients are many older workers who are no longer able to work because of some type of disability. High unemployment and lack of English language skills compound their difficulties while training is a daunting prospect for those who have had few years of formal schooling. Ongoing counselling for individuals experiencing stress as a result of unemployment is difficult to obtain due to the lack of Portuguese speaking (professional) counsellors meaning that "we are pressured to do even family counselling at times because there is no one to do it...And it is better...to do something than nothing."

Links with the Local Community

Relationships with the broader Spanish and Portuguese speaking community, that is other than service deliverers, are largely nonexistent. However in the area of services, agency staff and occasionally Board members, participate in numerous advocacy, interagency, and networking bodies for the purposes of improving service delivery. There are community representatives on the Board, many of them middle class, with activist backgrounds in the service area. Outreach initiatives include community radio station and newspaper interviews which profile the organization. Small scale client surveys to determine level of client satisfaction with programs, and counting of clients (thereby meeting accountability requirements,) are more common than formal needs assessments and evaluations.

Funding Relationships

A primary focus of this study has been the extent to which ISOs have the leeway to pursue their own goals in the context of high levels of governmental funding. Some authors suggest that government funding has resulted in a skewing of the priorities of voluntary organizations such that governmentally defined needs rather than client-defined needs take precedence in service delivery (Shragge, 1990). This possibility was remarked upon by a Board member who wrote in 1982:

Now is the time for the Centre to start long term planning in policy, services and funding. Although the United Community Fund (UCF) is not the most progressive funding source it is a secure funding source which would probably enable the Centre to serve more immigrant women in Toronto. Will the UCF change the nature of our services? This and more questions can only be answered after long debate and discussions by ex-clients, staff and Board members.

Others have argued that extensive reporting requirements have influenced the work such that Board members and administrative staff of the organization become part of the administrative processes of the state (Ng, 1988). Certainly the funding officers interviewed seemed very much concerned with an organization's ability to complete grant applications and fulfil its financial reporting obligations in an efficient and timely fashion. In this respect the Centre received high marks, largely due to the skills of the Executive Director. Board members were unanimous in characterizing the agency's relationship with funders as excellent, meaning that funding levels were perceived as adequate and relationships with funding officers were cordial. The agency's status with funders is such that they have been consulted by funders prior to new programs being established.

Funders like the Centre because it is well run (financially accountable with good quality programs), has a twenty year history, and has been able to secure multiple sources of funding. Nevertheless a Board member who has worked in immigrant services characterized the relationship with funders as nonexistent in the sense that the preoccupation with accountability precludes any real interest in the services and how the community is benefiting from the services.

This was not true for the two funding officers who were interviewed. The provincial funding representative was described by a staff member as "wonderful", in that she was available to clarify matters when needed to the point of coming to talk to trainees about why certain information was being asked of them. In the case of a trainee who became ineligible for the program sometime after the program started, the funding officer's response was, "Keep on supporting her until you officially hear. She can stay in the program after that even though we can't spend dollars [for childcare] on her."

However, on the occasion of an agency visit by a major federal funder I found the perception of "bean counting" to be accurate. A respondent from one of the mainstream organizations commented:

In this kind of thing [project] you have a project officer and depending on the individual project officer, that could be either a good experience or a horrible experience. Some are much more hands on than others and again that could be good or bad. If you've got someone who has an understanding of training and service delivery and is very client oriented, it can be something that adds to the program. If you've got someone who has a very bureaucratic focus, you can then spend all of your time explaining why you charged $8.75 for object X.

According to the Centre's Executive Director, government funding is in some respects more desirable than private funding from foundations, or agencies like the United Way, in that the funding process is open to influence. 1986 Fundraising Committee minutes describe the incident of a client of the Centre who had been interviewed by a newspaper journalist. The client spoke of being insulted by a Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) driver because of her lack of English language skills. Subsequent to the story appearing, an "upset" United Way funding representative contacted the Centre dismayed at the negative portrayal since the TTC was a large contributor to the United Way campaign.

Lobbying government can have an impact, and cutting funds cannot be done without some consideration of the political implications. In one case, as a result the agency's advocacy efforts, relations with a provincial funding officer deteriorated, but in general, "I don’t think it’s been a dilemma to knock the government while getting the money."

The agency has cultivated relations with federal, municipal and provincial political representatives which has had its rewards. The provincial funding officer reported that the NDP Minister who represented the Centre's riding took a keen interest in the status of the Centre's project application. Further evidence that the funding process is pervious is demonstrated by the decision of the former provincial government, in the last months of its existence, to forego the usual funding allocation process of 45%, 45%, with a 10% holdback. Instead the approved training projects were given 90% funding upfront with a 10% holdback.

Government funding officers see themselves as having the same goals as organizations, that is "to work together to serve clients" and "make the best use of the taxpayers’ dollar." They also serve as conduits between front-line service providers and policy makers, and according to a funding officer, provide a needed "reality check" since policy makers "sometimes miss the point." As a staff member observed, "At the staff level they are always friends. They end up usually agreeing [with us about program criteria]. Or they say that to keep their position comfortable."

There is of course a distinction to be made between the policy makers and the funding officers who implement funding policies. In the words of a funding officer:

...our world is too complex not to have people interpret systems for us. So you need to make a contact on a human level so that you can interact with a certain amount of trust. Once that's accomplished the other pieces begin to fall into place. I get what I need for my system. She gets what she needs for her system. The women get what they need for their systems... I don’t think it was a conscious effort but it is at some level a knowledge of how we interact as people.

And so corporate office maintains its separateness in order to be more analytical, more open to make decisions for dollars and impacts...I think that segregation is quite planned so that each of those areas can do what they need to do most effectively.

In an environment of decreasing funding and less staff resources, a federal funding officer of language programs admits that fledgling organizations who require developmental assistance suffer while the more experienced agencies benefit. According to a provincial funding officer, in the area of skills training for social assistance recipients (now defunct) both the provincial NDP and the federal Liberals had agreed to the funding of:

innovative new projects that could accomplish the task of reentering the labour force...And they made it as loose a criterion as possible so that agencies that might not have the wherewithal to apply for formal funding process would still be able to apply...

In the past, staff have attempted to circumvent accountability measures. A staff member recounts that ISAP purchase of service contracts entailed that specified services be provided to newcomers who had been in the country for three years or less, excluding refugee claimants. Yet up to 50% of the clients served by ISAP workers were refugee claimants who had been in the country for more than three years. Consequently, to maintain the funding for the two workers, ISAP eligible clients were recorded as extremely needy in terms of the services and counsellors’ time required. A current settlement counsellor remarked:

Realistically, because I do not think this is going to the Settlement Services unit in Ottawa, I can tell you the truth. In reality what I do...is very little in terms of settlement issues. I would see my position more as a social worker, counsellor rather than settlement issues...what I call brief solution focused counselling.

The Department of Citizenship and Immigration has not been unaware of these improvisations. A recent costly and unsuccessful attempt to computerize record keeping at the sectoral level was probably based on the Department’s suspicions that its funds were being used to support ineligible clients. However the rationale for the record keeping was allegedly to allow tracking of service needs and thereby service delivery planning.

Summary

As suggested by Gidron and Kramer (1992) and Kuhnle and Selle (1992) conflictual relations between government and voluntary organizations are not necessarily the order of the day. The data presented above suggests means by which the Centre has been able to negotiate the funding process in pursuit of its objectives. First, interpersonal relationships between agency and funding representative are cordial. While recognizing that individual relationships do not ameliorate restrictive policies, there is a practical benefit in illuminating how particular agents in particular situation act to resolve their situation. As scholars of immigration policy have pointed out, there are significant liberal elements within the bureaucracy who have at times played a greater part in influencing immigration policy than has public opinion (Dirks, 1995; Parkin, Hardcastle, Simmons, & Suyama, 1992).

Secondly, successful funding relationships ensue when, first and foremost, financial accountability requirements are satisfied. The organization's history in delivering successful programming also enhances the funder’s perception that program goals will be met. Also Kuhnle and Selle's (1992) observation that ideological affinity between the government of the day and the agency will enhance the relationship is borne out.

Notwithstanding critiques of the federal language training program (over eligibility, for example), funding levels for the LINC (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada) provided financial stability for some agencies by contributing to a portion of their administrative costs. As well, clients who came into agencies seeking language training would then be referred to settlement and training programs within the agency thus boosting program numbers.

In Ng's (1988) case study she noted the impact of funding on service delivery, observing the change from group to individual counselling, group work being a desired tool for building solidarity among clients. Ironically the ISAP program, as a cost saving measure, now contracts with agencies to provide information through group sessions. Of course information provision is not the same as consciousness raising groups.

Agnew’s (1996, p.171) contention that community groups adopt a pragmatic and uncritical approach (i.e., they do not phrase their opposition in terms of race and gender bias) in order to keep their funding was specifically refuted by Board and staff members who cited a number of advocacy efforts they have been involved in from the Charter Challenge on Language Training for Immigrant Women, to coalition efforts, to individual lobbying with governmental ministers. (Of course some may argue that denying/forgetting/ eliminating contradictions maybe people’s strategies of adaptation to structures of domination.) Agnew’s point is that these critiques are phrased in terms of program criteria, funding levels, etc. Or as Fraser (1989) would put it, an administrative vocabulary is the predominant one for pressing claims. Yet at the 1995 ISAP Conference settlement workers voiced their opposition to the imposition of the $975.00 Right of Landing Fee asserting that the policy was racist.

The terms in which oppositional claims are framed have very much to do with the understandings of those advancing the arguments. Evers (1993) has suggested that transformations in the voluntary sector may stem from socio-economic and cultural changes like pluralization and individualization or to public discourses below the level of distinct political strategies. Agnew has described the range of interpretations of feminism within community organizations. Why would their analyses of racism not vary as well? Further the debates concerning the links between gender, class and ethnicity exacerbate the issue. Is ethnicity independent of, prior to, reified by, or coincident with class and gender, if indeed these largely academic debates reach the community level?

Mainstream Organizations

The Centre's relationship with generic or ‘mainstream’ organizations, mainly relationships involving cosponsorship of programs, was considered successful by representatives of both sides. In the case of a Centre program jointly sponsored with a large community college, the reasons for collaboration were numerous. In short term projects it is difficult for the college to pull in full-time staff from their permanent positions and the hiring of part time staff is difficult because of the short time frame between approval and start up date. In the college's unionized environment, staff salaries for a faculty coordinator are relatively high and would not be compensated for by the rates allowed in federal training contracts.

Hence a situation in which community based organizations administer a contract is beneficial to organizations like colleges. The agencies are less bureaucratized and hence more flexible in terms of turn around time for job postings and hirings, and salary levels are lower even in a unionized environment. Important also is the community agency's ability to reach immigrant clients and ensure a client focus for these students who often "get lost in the shuffle and for whom the environment needs to be modified to accommodate their needs." Agency staff then become advocates for participants in the program. Thus in the words of a college representative, her organization’s collaboration with community based agencies is:

worth it in terms of the college’s mandate which is to serve the community, worth it in the sense that it expands the accessibility of the college to people who would not otherwise perhaps be able to take advantage of it, worthwhile in the sense that it's part of the economic development of the community it serves.

In financial terms, the college was able to provide the technical training on a cost recovery basis by costing out the program at the same per diem rate that government was usually charged for other adult skills training programs offered by the college.

Despite these advantages, not all community-based organizations are perceived as desirable partners. The college official feels that some agencies convey the attitude that, "You’re a big college, therefore you don't understand our community, you don’t understand our clients..." However, for her, successful interorganizational collaboration means "...there has to be a basic assumption that your partner is sound, that the partner wants to do a good job and that you can communicate. And that there's some degree of trust between the two partners."

In this case the personalities of the Centre’s senior administrative staff as well as the capabilities of each organization meshed. The college official reports:

What I liked about the Centre’s approach was that they bring something unique to the table that we don't have. And a way of working and providing service that we don’t have. We bring to the table something that they don’t have and there seemed to be a good fit between us for this particular project.

Another instance in which mainstream organizations amended their practices to reduce barriers was recounted by a Board member. In assessing language skills for placement into a cosponsored training program, a community college utilized a process that was clearly intimidating for clients, so much so that many left without attempting the test. Others left halfway through the test and there were many complaints from clients. A staff person from the Centre discussed the situation with college staff resulting in modifications to the test. Clients were called back and invited to re-take the test.

In collaboration with a generic/mainstream family services provider, the Centre has been offering a seniors’ summer camp since 1984/85. The Centre translated outreach material, collected intake data, provided advice on the menu, and consultation on the camp's wellness educational program. Over time this generic/mainstream organization has been developing its capacity to work with diverse communities by staff training and the recruitment of staff with minority language skills or an understanding of the immigrant experience. A key learning for this generic/mainstream organization has been the assertion by the Centre's staff that "our clients are not homogeneous." Similarly commonly held stereotypes have been disproven: "the Portuguese and Spanish speaking seniors may be Catholic but they don't want to say Grace."

In sum these two programs demonstrate instances of successful collaboration where the Centre has been able to impact how services and programs are delivered in mainstream organizations. The Centre is an attractive partner to these organizations because of a) to its ability to access a hard-to-reach population and, b) the flexibility resulting from its relatively nonbureaucraticized structure.

Issues of Culture and Ethnicity

As originally conceived the ethnic origins of the groups served by the Centre was not central to the study. However in a review of agency documents mentions of intergroup conflict occurred frequently during the mid to late 1980s.

Minutes of staff meetings from the middle years of the Centre indicated that, within the Centre, there was a perception among the Portuguese staff that the Centre was dominated by Spanish speaking staff and Board members, and consequently the Portuguese community was under served by the Centre. According to a staff person who later joined the Centre, the perception was shared by Portuguese service providers at other agencies. Decisions regarding what services were to be offered and the ethnicity of new employees were always closely scrutinized during those years (and still is today to a lesser extent). At the Board level it appeared to be more difficult to recruit Portuguese speaking members. The explanation offered by present day staff and Board members is that despite similarities between the two communities in terms of language and religion, the circumstances of the two groups’ migration and settlement were distinct and necessitated different service responses.

The majority of the Portuguese speaking community emigrated to Canada from the Portuguese mainland and the Azores during the 1960s-1970s. They were mostly working class people who entered the workforce immediately and encouraged their children to do so as well. Recent recessions have meant high unemployment and many people have sought the help of the Centre seeking assistance in securing unemployment insurance or social assistance or finding out about their entitlements under the Canadian Pension Plan, etc. Many of them did not learn English since they tended to work in ethnically segregated sectors, in manual work such as construction, office cleaning, and garment making. In essence they may have lacked the class skills to participate on a Board of Directors.

In contrast, many Spanish speaking immigrants were refugees who were politically active, well educated in their countries of origin, who sought language training and skills training when in Canada and possessed the class skills to participate on the Board of Directors. According to the Portuguese counsellor the majority of her work with Portuguese speaking clients consisted of family counselling, including wife abuse cases. Many of the Spanish speaking clients are receiving "settlement services" such as information and orientation. Lack of job opportunities and the greater availability of language training classes mean that they are acquiring English language skills at an earlier stage in settlement than their Portuguese speaking counterparts.

An astute observation was offered by a past client and eventual Board member who noted that the service needs of the Portuguese community did not meet the criteria for settlement funding and it was therefore difficult to secure funding for services for that community. Consequently funding policies have to be blamed for the perception that the Portuguese speaking community was not being served equally.

I almost think there is some legitimacy to the point of can you have...indefinite numbers of organizations existing forever? I think there is a time obviously in immigration levels, and stages communities go through when they enter the [Canadian] community but I don’t know if forever and ever...

You know I’m thinking about the Italian community because that’s where I'm from. And it’s been a while now. Although it’s just a generation. But there is still a need for Italian serving agencies. There are a lot of Italians and they don’t speak English and they won’t get the service they need culturally if it weren’t for organizations like COSTI [a large multicultural ISO]. So that’s the other side of the coin. It’s not so simple to say, ‘Okay for five years we’ll have an agency that works with the African community and then after that well they’ll all be integrated by now and their needs are met. And now mainstream organizations can meet those needs.’ That can’t happen. So I don’t know.

...I’m almost torn between communities wanting to retain their own identities and having a very segregated society...When I started working at here, everything became cultural. Everything I did became identified as a cultural issue. Because we're so conscious of it because that’s the work that we do. And people in this business are so aware of their own culture. Because that’s what they’re busy doing too that I almost start to feel that there’s a negative side to being too insular as community. And that sometimes we almost promote that kind of...I want to be careful about what I’m saying here because I’m not trying to get into a melting pot and assimilation into the majority society and stuff like that. But I just wonder whether we do enough to kind of work towards more interaction with communities as opposed to more insular kind of activities.

This staff member’s ( a first generation Canadian) suggestion of insularity was echoed by three Board members who remarked upon "a gap in the work of the Centre has been the lack of linkages with other communities." As early as 1982, a Board member had alluded to a trend she perceived, that of decreasing the number of ethnic groups served by the Centre to only two, Portuguese and Spanish speaking women.

Diversification of its staff through the implementation of employment equity policies, the employment of a counsellor to serve African clients, and the recent Building Maintenance training program for both men and women all witness the Centre's attempts to expand its programs and services. (The rationale is not purely altruistic according to a Board member, who sees the expansion as part of a survival strategy at a time of cuts in government spending. The current funding environment has also been the impetus for the organization to start building political alliances and service relationships with organizations in the surrounding area.)

The Centre is working on an employment equity policy which will open up the hiring for staff positions for which neither the Spanish nor Portuguese language is required, for example, administrative positions. "The particular issue that becomes very difficult...is when men apply for positions, how do you determine if they qualify, if the person has the sensitivity that is required?"

In February of 1996, the Centre was faced with just such a problem; the two top contenders for a temporary administrative position were a racial minority immigrant man and a white Canadian born woman. The hiring committee felt both candidates were equally qualified and took the matter to a staff meeting for a final decision. The staff were conflicted, citing almost equally, apprehensions: that, stereotypically men are the ones who do math and finance and women do the "soft caring stuff"; but that immigrants have a harder time here; that immigrants bring an immigrant perspective; that the ideology of the Centre is a woman centred ideology that a man may not support; and that a man might dominate the meetings. In the end their allegiance went to the immigrant male although there was a general agreement that they did not like it too much and would have preferred an immigrant female.

Are claims framed in terms of the cultural/linguistic needs of particular groups naive in their understanding of racism? Iglehart and Becerra (1995) conclude that, for service deliverers, ethnicity is an integral part of the ideology and technology of the agency. A senior staff member remarks:

It’s all the subtle nuance about how a service is delivered...that makes it appropriate for that cultural group. Everything from where it’s located, to how it’s set up, how it’s delivered, how the counselling is delivered, whether you have appointments or not, what it feels like, the environment, all those things.

At the same time socio-economic inequality has not gone unnoticed. In the view of a long time Board member, state sponsored equity programs ignore ethnicity (as opposed to race or phenotype) as a marker of inequality. Portuguese women are assumed to be at the level of the general population. Yet Portuguese women’s socioeconomic status indicators are low. Similarly for Hispanic women, although there are more professionals in that community and better education levels, they have not been able to secure jobs.

Critics might point out that, at times, the understanding of ethnic identity expressed by Board and staff alike appear to demonstrate a reliance upon a misconceived assumption of a common experience, even though as a staff member remarked, "the community is a vast number of people coming from all different places..." Yet as has been suggested elsewhere this "self-identification [as an ethnic person] proves a condition for agency" (Gates, 1990, p. 324).

Padolsky has remarked that:

Ethnicity, as defined and understood within Canadian contexts, seems to be functioning more as a conceptual catch phrase for such terms as ‘minority’ (visible or otherwise), ‘immigrant’ or ‘multicultural’ rather than in the more universal sense. (1990, p. 26)

That this usage has arisen is in part due to immigrant groups’ grounding of the notion of ethnicity in a reality that they "cannot not know" (Cornel West in Stephanson, 1988), that is, the immigrant experience of marginality, transition and loss (e.g., of culture and language):

we have the experience of what being an immigrant means, the difficulties we face...and we are very well aware of the needs of the clients we serve

we understand immigrants needs, language, culture, and marginal status.

This ethnically-based understanding of oneself and one’s community as Portuguese, or as immigrant is political not ontological. That is, these self assertions represent an attempt to recuperate something that is almost lost in the immigration to a new society (Benhabib, 1992). The other part of the equation is, of course, the host society's contribution to the ‘othering’ of immigrants. But ethnicity cannot be subsumed entirely by theories of racialization. Gilroy's account of Britain describes the existence of different strands of antiracist solutions, including a group that is emphatically culturalist. In Ontario, Harney (1996) has also alluded to tensions between multiculturalism or race relations specialists and more forceful proponents of antiracism among minority civil servants.

Contentious Issues in The Immigrant Service Sector

Two issues, very topical in the sector in the current funding climate, were mentioned in the interviews. The first was the issue of efficiency and the related question of service outcomes. While the agencies are seen to be cost effective, in systemic terms there are those among the ISO community who hint at a lack of efficiency and coordination. A Board member was candid in her opinion that: the settlement services sector lacks coordination; there is duplication of services especially in the downtown area of the city; the lack of interest on the part of funders means that agencies are able to utilize funds for other than the intended purpose, thus public accountability suffers; and there is a general lack of knowledge about the effectiveness of settlement programs. In regard to duplication, a funding representative queried whether the relatively low registration in language training classes was attributable to the large number of providers in the geographical area. The absence of studies assessing effectiveness in meeting ethnoracial needs and assessments of service outcomes is reiterated by Reitz (n.d.) in a review prepared for the Multicultural Coalition for Access to Family Services (Toronto). In fairness it must be stated that follow-up with clients to assess outcomes is both difficult to do (i.e., it is often difficult to track down clients and it is costly).

The second topical issue concerned the role of mainstream service providers and was identified by a funding representative who spoke about language instruction and the conflict between expertise and access. Boards of education and colleges want more of a role in LINC instruction, not merely because of the dollars. Many of the program administrators were teachers and have had direct involvement with learners. They are concerned about expertise: assessment, teaching and curriculum standards. LINC assessment has been centralized because there was a perception that not all of the deliverers were equally competent in assessing language skills. However, from the point of view of access, volunteer led community classes originated because students from some communities were unwilling to attend classes in school settings. These classes eventually grew into ISOs and there continues to be a need for community based ESL because the nuances in different cultures and traditions required different service responses.

Conclusion: Integrating Data and Theory

The data provides support for a number of Iglehart and Becerra’s propositions about the ethnic agency and its practices in the United States:

· the agency is controlled and staffed by and provides services to specific ethnic groups;

· the agency appears to be a special type of voluntary, self-help, alternative, community-based service agency;

· the agency fills a gap left by the mainstream social service delivery system, or may respond to cultural barriers that impede a group’s use of mainstream services;

· the agency may augment rather than compete with mainstream services;

· the agency, like other kinds of organizations, is shaped by the larger social system;

· ethnicity is an integral part of the ideology and technology of the agency;

· the agency attempts to operationalize the concept of empowerment;

· the agency seeks to simplify the organization for the client;

· the agency attempts to protect its ideology and technology from bureaucratic intrusion;

· there may be limitations in the service delivery practices (p. 194).

There was little or no evidence to support Iglehart and Becerra's thesis that there is a tension between ethnicity and professionalism in the agency. Settlement counsellors were eager for training in order to meet the complex service needs of clients. Similarly their suggestion that the agency and its community share a symbiotic relationship is imprecise in that the Centre appears to be closely tied to one segment of the community--other service deliverers--through its networking activities. As Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1992) found in Britain, Board members representing the community have been drawn from a network of activists and service providers already employed or involved in similar organizations.

The following additional features are suggested by this case study. The agency:

· embodies a commitment to the political functions of representation, leadership development and community development;

· views the economic marginalization of clients as a central focus of its work;

· is adaptive to community needs through embeddedness in immigrant service deliverer and advocacy networks;

· increases client access to multiple programs through cosponsorship of programs, and advocacy and brokerage with mainstream service providers;

· coordinates and integrates services to clients through assessment and referral mechanisms;

· is to some extent limited by its historical origins as service provider to the Portuguese and Spanish speaking communities primarily, although there have been recent external catalysts that are expanding the agency’s constituency;

· is a resource dependent organization (on government funds and use of volunteers, placement students, etc. in the day to day running of the organization);

· is accountable to funders;

· is committed to efficient management processes;

· is perceived as cost effective and flexible.

Thus multiple processes of adjustment operate in the Centre. Community need, especially the needs of Portuguese and Spanish speaking women has driven much of the Centre's programming. At the same time government funding priorities are the backbone of the organization's work, primarily the provision of settlement services including language training. Current reductions in government funding are the catalyst for investigations into interagency collaboration. The past influence of the United Way on agency publications was noted. However the Centre cannot be accused of abandoning its goals.

Alternative modes of commitment were evident in the Centre's earlier attempts to implement Freireian pedagogy and in the present day concerns of counsellors regarding client empowerment. The desire to engage in community development strategies, despite the inability to do so, provides evidence that dynamics other than service provision drive the agency.

Evers’ (1993) definition of voluntary organizations as polyvalent and hybrid is a propos here. Intermeshing tasks, roles, and rationales are evident: the contract delivery of services (e.g., ISAP’s purchase of service agreements), advocacy (e.g., the Charter Challenge), reliance upon state funding, and private fundraising, universalism (i.e., ESL classes open to all immigrants) and particularism (settlement counselling and support groups primarily for the Portuguese and Spanish speaking communities); the implementation of financial management processes; and communal activities.

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Virtual Library		Updated February 09, 2004