Resilience in the System: COVID-19 and Immigrant and Refugee-Serving Health and Human Service Providers

Gretchen J Buchanan, Nusroon Fatiha, Jaime E Ballard, Soyoul Song, Catherine A Solheim

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

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. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1-9
Number of pages9
JournalFamilies, Systems and Health
Volume40
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported by a grant from the Department of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota, to the second and last authors. Additionally, the first author was supported by the National Institutes of Health?s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Grants TL1R002493 and UL1TR002494. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of either the University of Minnesota or the National Institutes of Health?s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. The funder/sponsor did not participate in any aspect of this study, including the decision to submit to this journal

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Psychological Association

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • immigrants and refugees
  • implementation science
  • normalization process theory
  • systems adaptation

PubMed: MeSH publication types

  • Journal Article
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

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