This Systems for Action webinar, SAFER: Systems Alignment For Effective Resettlement (SAFER): Engaging Refugee-led Organizations and Empowering Refugee Voices to Advance Equity in Refugee Resettlement, on Wednesday, Dec. 18th at 10 am introduces a new study exploring opportunities to strengthen a systems alignment approach to the refugee resettlement process in Virginia. The process is overrun with systemic racism as barriers to housing, healthcare, employment, and education negatively impact refugee health and well-being. The current consultation process to coordinate refugee arrival and resettlement inadequately addresses these barriers while also failing to meaningfully include representatives from the medical, social, public health, and community sectors.

The research team at American Institutes for Research (AIR) will identify modalities for fortifying the systems alignment of the resettlement process and create a working group to address resettlement barriers. They will examine existing haps in the operations of the Virginia Community Capacity Initiatives Consultations (VCCI) and incorporate the voices of local refugees and refugee-leg organizations within medical, social, and public health systems. The team will assess the procedural, logistical, and budgetary feasibility of a systems alignment approach through three meetings of the working group and a feasibility assessment survey.

AIR will create an implementation guide that provides practical recommendations for building a working group, identifying and addressing systemic racism and structural barriers, as well as strategies for aligning systems in resettlement services.

This one-year pilot study will be completed in partnership with the American Institutes for Research, Virginia Department of Social Services, Virginia Department of Health, and the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.

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This webinar is hosted by Systems for Action (S4A). S4A is a signature research program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) that is housed in the Department of Health Systems, Management and Policy. S4A research builds a Culture of Health by rigorously testing new ways of connecting the nation’s fragmented medical, social, and public health systems.