Good morning, Mr. Chair and all committee members.
Thanks for the opportunity to come here to talk about the best practices of Chinese Family Services and our settlement services.
I would like to start with an introduction of Chinese Family Services of Ontario and the existing environment in Toronto and how our agencies deal with the existing environment in Toronto, with a focus on the Chinese community and the challenges we have. And then we have some recommendations as well.
Since 1988 there has been a group of community members who are very dedicated to their community. They found that quite a lot of newcomers and immigrants in the 1980s and 1990s came from Hong Kong, and they found that people needed counselling services, but there were no counselling services to help these newcomer immigrants. So at that time they started the Chinese Family Services as a project, and it started with only one person. Some of the volunteers and board members had to donate their money to support the agency because there was no funding for this agency.
Now, after 20 years, with lots of advocacy and community involvement, Chinese Family Services is an accredited family services agency to serve the Chinese community in Toronto. This is the only Chinese family services agency in Toronto to serve the Chinese community. Ten percent of the community speaks English, but 90% of them speak different languages, such as Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghainese, Fujianese, and also Taiwanese. We have staff who can speak all these languages. They are all registered social workers.
This is the current situation that the Chinese Family Services of Ontario is handling. They are culturally sensitive to helping the 60% of clients we are serving who are newcomers, who have been here for just one or two years or a few years.
As you know, most immigrants move to either of two places, Toronto or Vancouver. In Toronto there are an estimated 500,000 Chinese who are newcomers. Even though it is said that the Chinese are very well off, in our agency we deal with Chinese who are marginalized, they are vulnerable, they lose their employment, they have poor families. They don't even have the money to use a phone to call for services. This is the situation we have.
Also, because most of the newcomers don't have their qualifications recognized, they get low-paying jobs. Even some of the professionals get low-paying jobs. Some of the immigrants are good and they create their own careers and they get better-paying jobs, but that is only a small population. For most of the Chinese newcomers we are serving, I'm talking about our experience, and they are very marginalized. Some of them have broken families or they are single parents. We also see child parenting issues, wife assault, violence; all these things are happening. We deal with all these things.
Because of these situations, we find that some individuals have emotional problems, whether they are employed or unemployed. But for newcomers the problems are even worse. Some of the newcomers, when they do find employment, if they have had family problems in their home country, because of adjustment issues when they come here their marital issues may get worse, or wife assault issues may get worse.
Also in our agency we are dealing with quite a lot of newcomers who are going through the second stages of immigrant processing. The research has found that the first stage of the immigration process is the honeymoon period. During the first months or first six months or even the first day they have a honeymoon period where there is curiosity and everything is fresh. But in the second stage they have difficult times. In the first stage there is an acceptance of being a Canadian.
In most of the cases we are dealing with, the immigrants are in the second stages. That means they are in difficult times. They have difficulty finding employment, housing, recognition--all these things. The psychological impact when you are in difficult times and are an immigrant means that some of them may blame Canada and glorify their home country. These are some of the things that come out. This is true, and it comes from research findings.
We are helping people to integrate into the community, to have a positive image of their communities, because of the crisis they are facing in the second stage of difficult times.
When they go through stage three, then it's “I am a Canadian. I have to vote. I have to do all these things....” These are all the things they have to deal with. This is a difficult time we have to work through with the newcomers.
In terms of best practices, we are the only counselling family service agency in Toronto. You can imagine...and you hear from the media and the public, occasionally there are some people who kill their wives or children and then themselves. Some professionals may jump from the 12th floor because they didn't get support or they got support from someone who says, in one example, “Don't worry. We'll take care of your daughter and wife.” Afterward, the man jumped, because he heard someone telling him not to worry, they'd take care of his wife and daughter, and he thinks “I can die.” This is a true story.
We find they need counselling services before the crisis comes into reality. Individual emotional counselling is not just one session and then everything is gone. It's not the way it works. That's why we have to deal with most of the family tragedies that happen in Toronto. Ninety per cent of the cases referred by the police for follow-up are homicide cases, wife-assault cases, and parenting issues or child abuse. It's when these things happen that they go through our agency. We have to deal with all these issues with very limited manpower. We have registered social workers. They are licensed and qualified, but we have to deal with quite a large caseload, which is difficult.
We have to provide evening services for people, because some of the people in low-paying jobs don't get paid when they come to our office during the daytime. We provide evening services for the poor people. They can come and receive counselling, and they don't have to take a day off, because if they take a day off they don't get paid.
We also provide them with a toll-free number. Whenever they have problems, they can call us, even from public telephones. Sometimes they just have mobile phones. They cannot even afford a home phone. They can call from anywhere, but with mobile phones you sometimes have to pay according to the hours used. We give them a toll-free number so they can call us whenever they have a crisis.
Also, we have to provide them with a friendly environment. When they come to our agency they feel like it's not just an office or an interview room. They feel that it's like a home. We provide them with a very supportive environment. Our facial expression and body language shows that we are the ones who can help them and who understand the newcomers' stress.
We also provide services for the lesbian and gay community. We have a friendly environment for them when they have a crisis. The can come and deal with their situations.
These are all the things we have done.
Even when people have their Canadian citizenship and are employed, they still have emotional problems. Newcomers, whether they are employed or unemployed, can have emotional problems. My first recommendation is that the government should pay more attention and be more focused on counselling services for newcomers.
Second, imagine if a family tragedy happens, or they have to get advice from hospital care, or from the judicial system, or if they have to go through the Don Jail, or they're dealing with child abuse, or need to get legal services; this is very expensive.
So if the government could think about it and pay more attention to counselling and other settlement services for newcomers, that would be good. If they reduce the number of family tragedies, that will reduce the need for more intrusive and expensive hospital care, legal services, the judicial system, lawyers, and all those things. You can save quite a lot of money if you just spend some time and give priority and pay attention to the counselling services for newcomers. For the time being, counselling services are not the priority.
Thank you.