Department of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota.
Fam Syst Health. 2022 Mar;40(1):111-119. doi: 10.1037/fsh0000662. Epub 2021 Nov 22.
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.
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.
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.
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) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
美国的移民和难民家庭在 COVID-19 大流行中受到了特别严重的打击。在这场危机中，为这些社区服务的医疗和社会服务提供者一直是支持他们的重要力量，但他们也不得不调整服务方式。本研究旨在描述这些服务提供者所面临的挑战以及他们所做的调整。
我们的研究团队对明尼苏达州 10 个组织的 19 名服务提供者进行了半结构化访谈，这些组织被确定为服务于一个或多个移民和/或难民社区。我们对访谈进行了主题分析，并使用规范化进程理论（May & Finch, 2009）来理解服务提供者如何表现出韧性，以及能力差距是如何出现的。
适应 COVID-19 危机的适应机制包括工作人员承担更大的工作量，以新的方式利用现有的服务框架，将服务远程和/或实质性转移，以及利用他们随着时间的推移与社区和个人建立的信任。尚未完全克服的挑战包括社区需求的资金不足和对互动方式的限制。
主要影响包括为移民和难民家庭分配资金，与客户合作开发和评估新的服务模式，在危机时期为员工提供直接支持，并利用基于实践的证据来加速实施科学研究。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2022 APA，保留所有权利）。
