Context, commitment, and competency: a refugee-community partnership model for smaller urban communities in the United States

ABSTRACT

This article introduces the Refugee Community Partnership Model (RCPM), an easily accessible and applicable model for addressing the challenges smaller urban communities face in responding to the unique needs of refugees in the United States. Social service delivery in municipalities with limited numbers of refugees is impacted by broad geographic boundaries, perceived capacity of gateway service provider organizations, mix of urban and rural service delivery regions, varying degrees of ethnic and cultural diversity of geographic area, and the existence of minimally defined and recognized non-place-based social networks. In short, some communities may have differing levels of readiness to welcome new refugees. The combination of well-established community assessment framework constructs and best practices gleaned from relevant literature on resettlement challenges offers comprehensive tools for strengthening rights-based and refugee-centered social service delivery specific to the size and uniqueness of smaller urban areas. The resulting blueprint in the form of the RCPM provides much needed direction. This model aims to assist social service providers, planners, educators, social workers, health care providers, and community members in meeting the social service needs of refugee populations as well as the needs of communities assigned to resettle refugees.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugee
• resettlement
• community
• social services
• planning
• urban

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.