Employment supports and best practices for hiring immigrants with disabilities

Francis: Welcome everyone to the idea speaker series um this webinar and my name is Francis Fung. I'm the engagement lead for IDEA and I'm also a manager with the skill development and employment team at March of Dimes Canada which is a national charity that provides supports to people with disabilities. So before we begin um a quick reminder that this uh session is being recorded and the recording will be made available on our idea website. Branch interpretation is also available for um this session. So for those of you who may not know much about IDEA, it is a social innovation laboratory focused on helping create stronger and more diverse labor markets that include persons with disabilities through knowledge to practice. IDEA is an uh acronym for inclusive design for employment access. Before we start with the webinar and for me to introduce our speakers for the day, I'd like to share a land acknowledgement relevant to the idea national office in Toronto. The national office of the idea social innovation laboratory is situated and has for thousands of years been the traditional land of the hiron wandat the senica and most recently the missagas of the credit. Today, this land is still home to many indigenous people from across Turtle Island, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to conduct our work on it. This acknowledgement is relevant to Toronto, and since we are gathered here virtually, we suggest that you think of the communities in your respective locations as well. This webinar series serves as an opportunity to hear the latest about current topics in the work disabilities policy arena and learn about activities underway within and beyond IDEA. During today's session, the last 10 to about 20 minutes of this webinar, we'll hold a question and answer period. You can type your questions in the Q&A box at any time throughout the presentation and we'll answer as many questions as we can at the end of the webinar. Our speakers for today are Dr. Tammy Bernowki, assistant professor of political science at Cape Breton University and Dr. Firat Sayin, associate professor of management at St. Marius University. Dr. Berneski has a PhD in critical disability studies from York University and using an intersectional approach. Her research is focused on understanding the impacts of oppression and developing pathways to empowerment. She specializes in addressing gender bias uh sorry gender based violence in disability community. My apology Dr. S's research focuses on workplace diversity, employment inequities, and occupational health and safety. Um, from a multi-level perspective, he explores the complex relationships between well-being and employment outcomes of workers with multiple identities at the societal, organizational, and individual levels. Thank you for joining us today, Dr. Bowski and Dr. Sain. I'll turn it over to you now.
Firat: Thank you very much Francis for the introduction. Hi everyone, my name is Frat. Um, thank you so much for joining us today. Today Tam and I are here to uh share our ongoing research titled employment supports and best practices for hiring immigrants with disabilities. And um first I will provide some background to our project and then I will pass it on to Tammy and she will be talking about uh some uh findings and recommendations based on our uh current findings. So about our project uh this project has uh uh been initiated as a se as a seed grant from IDEA uh and we have been partnering with different u uh community organizations but u our main partner has been immigrant services association of Nova Scotia uh it's for short is so to understand a to get a more holistic uh perspective on the employment uh issues of uh immigrants with disabilities. Uh we uh decided to take a multistake uh stakeholder perspective uh where we have been interviewing and uh recently holding focus groups uh with immigrants with disabilities but we have also been uh talking to service providers and employers. When it comes to service employers, of course, we have been talking uh to service employers who have been working with immigrants uh as well as service uh providers uh service providers who have been specialized uh in working with people with disabilities and of course uh we have uh been also uh talking to uh employers. Uh so uh this is really making us uh uh keeping us on track to have a uh have a more perspective uh from uh different stakeholders so we can understand the situation better and we can provide more uh sound recommendations. Uh in short we are really exploring barriers and facilitators to inclusive employment. If you could yeah thanks Dam. So uh why are we doing this research? Uh to be clear our uh this research is based on the seed grant as I mentioned. So uh we decided to just uh uh start with a smaller scope. So uh we are really uh focusing uh on the Nova Scotian context for now. Nova Scotia has the highest rate of disability in Canada currently with uh over 39% of Nova Scotians having at least one disability. On top of that, we also have a growing immigrant population. As you can see from the figure, uh even between uh only between April 1st, 2023 and March 31st, 2024, more than 11,000 immigrants arrived in Nova Scotia. So that's uh even with that one year frame that's more than 1% of the uh population that is of course uh getting on top of uh all the other immigrants that currently reside in Nova Scotia and we felt like there is a gap in research uh on the employment experiences of these groups.
Thank you. Now um as uh I indicated this research is about the employment uh and employment support and best practices for hiring immigrants with disabilities. So uh let me start with why employment holders because obviously we could be looking at it at different perspectives but employment we believe is a very important aspect of uh this issue. Um as I believe we would all agree uh work is important because it means income. Uh it gives us that uh independence. It gives us belonging uh because uh we uh drive some an important part of our uh identity from our work and uh relate in a related sense it also gives us purpose and dignity. So work of course uh means um quite a bit. It means a lot to us when it comes to immigrants or newcomers. It's of course also a primary route to social and economic integration uh social integration in that it helps us to socialize uh get to know people uh increase that sense of belonging and purpose. uh but as uh I think it's kind of it's obvious that uh it's also quite important for economic integration as it also helps us uh to gain income and be independent financially. On top of that we also know that inclusive labor market access is key to achieving the accessible Canada X 2040 goal. But um despite these facts uh we we we believe that uh newcomers with disabilities but also immigrants with disabilities in general might be facing poorer employment outcomes. If you could move to the next slide.
Thanks Tammy. So um right now uh we are looking at uh three different figures uh but let me give you a bit of a background. So when we are comparing for example uh immigrants we would uh I think it's it's quite straightforward that we would compare them with non-immigrants or um those born in Canada or Canadian born. So comparing immigrants and Canadian born. Good. And when we are for example looking at uh the employment outcomes uh of people with disabilities uh to make more sense of that data we would compare them with people with no disabilities. But when we are looking at intersectional identities such as immigrants with disability, if you can think of a by 2x two matrix, we would have three reference groups instead of just a single reference group. Namely, we uh should be comparing ideally immigrants with disabilities to Canadian born with no disabilities, immigrants with no disabilities and Canadian born with disabilities to uh have a better sense of where immigrants with disabilities stand. So that's the first thing. The second thing is when we are looking at uh the employment outcomes of any group, looking at only one single uh employment outcome could be misleading because employment is of course a multifaceted construct. Um the employment rate is important. How many hours uh uh we are uh allowed to work is important. How much uh we actually uh the level of income we the employment income in other words uh we get out of that employment uh is important. There are so many different ways of looking at it but we decided to at least uh look at uh three different uh employment related constructs to get a full picture. Now that uh we have that background let me uh explain what these graphs mean. So on the upper left side we have the employment rates. So the first bar is for Canadian born with no disabilities which stand around 85%. The second bar is immigrants with no disabilities which stand around 81%. The third bar is Canadian born with disabilities which stand around 68%. And the uh bar on the upper uh uh on the right would be for immigrants with disabilities which stand around 65%. So when we look at the employment rate, we see that immigrants with disabilities compared to rest three groups I just mentioned have the lowest uh employment rate compared to Canadian born with no disabilities, the difference is significantly uh lower. Uh but even when we compare it with immigrants with no disabilities or Canadian born with disabilities, we see that immigrants with disabilities seem to be experiencing significant disadvantage. Oh, also let me just add this. So this data comes from uh statistics Canada uh and the data was collected in 2024. So it it it's quite recent. So uh we see that immigrants with disabilities are experiencing uh the lowest employment rate across these uh uh four groups uh and it appears that both their immigrant identity and uh their uh disabilities could be shaping this. On the lower left we have the median hour wage figure and in a similar manner we see that immigrants with disabilities uh have the lowest median arrow wage. Okay. So here we see that immigrants with disabilities uh have about the same median arrow wage but uh Canadian born with disabilities and Canadian born with no disabilities seem to be having a higher median arrow wage. What this tells us is that immigrants with disabilities seem to be still at disadvantage but the main source of this uh disadvantage could be uh because of their uh immigrant identity. U it's also shaped by their disability but the main issue could be their immigrant identity. On the right hand we see weekly hours worked on average. On the left hand side again we have Canadian born with this no disabilities which have the highest number of hours. Um of course uh we should just uh underline that the number of weekly hours are quite really really close to each other. Uh but still we still see that immigrants with disabilities have the lowest hours of uh weekly hours. Okay. uh which is on par with Canadian born with disabilities which is and both Canadian born with disabilities and immigrants with disabilities seem to be having lower hour uh lower weekly hours compared to immigrants with no disabilities. So here the numbers could be indicating that uh having a disability having disabilities could be leading to lower weekly hours. So to just sum up, regardless of how we look at it, immigrants with disabilities seem to be having significant disadvantage uh when it comes to employment. Uh their employment rate or their likelihood of being employed or how many hours they can actually uh work per week or um how much uh they might be getting paid uh which might indicate their job quality. So uh because uh after looking at these numbers, it just uh I I hope I was able to convince you that uh immigrants with disabilities is a group uh worth examining and studying. Uh I'm saying this for two reasons. Number one, uh, immigrants with disabilities unfortunately receive very little attention uh from researchers or uh policy makers and this is and the second reason is um I don't think the reason is that uh it's because they are a small group because even back in tw uh 2012 uh the numbers statistics Canada numbers uh indicated that at even back and uh there were more than half a million immigrants with disabilities in Canada. So uh considering our aging population and the increasing number of immigrants, it's possible that the total number of immigrants with disabilities could be even higher now. So uh with their uh unique uh perhaps barriers or disadvantages or some advantages uh that needs to be explored. I think immigrants with disabilities uh is a very gives us a very u important and meaningful and uh interesting idea for research and doing it especially in Nova Scotia because of having the highest disability rate and the uh rapidly increase in immigrant numbers uh just uh made uh sense to me and Tammy. So uh given that having given that uh this background now I would like to pass it on to Tami who will be talking about our uh ongoing research and perhaps also give a little bit about uh what kind of research we are conducting and where we currently stand.
Tammy:Great. Thank you for that. Thank you for that uh great introduction and background. Um, so I'll just premise this by saying that we're not complete in terms of the study. We're in the midst of it. Um, and even we've done more interviews since we prepared for this presentation. So what we have here is based on a very small sample size. Um, so I just want to be clear that this is not uh the full set of barriers and recommendations that will come later and I'll get to that in just a moment. But um what I'm going to do now is talk a little bit about what we've heard from um immigrants with disabilities um employers and service providers. Uh we've been talking to service providers both in the immigrant sector and disability sector if you want to phrase it that way. Um and we've been talking to employees as well as employers. So, uh, the first thing I'll talk about are some of the barriers that, uh, individuals face in terms of, um, their experiences of immigrant and disability status in Nova Scotia as it relates to employment. Um, not surprisingly, one of the clear things that has come about so far is that there's still a lot of stigma related to disability. Um, unfortunately, this is still the case. And um given that immigrants with disabilities um carry with them multiple aspects of identity, this can be an additional barrier as well in terms of um in some context people might not um identify as having a disability but then in Canada uh their experience might be considered disability related. There's also um again this is not surprising a fear of disclosing disability particularly if it's invisible um for a number of reasons. It could be related to citizenship status and the fear around um losing whatever status they have now because of a disability. So there's a lot of uncertainty about what it means to have a disability. particularly um what we heard so far from both uh immigrants with disabilities and service providers particularly is that there's an unfamiliarity with accommodations, accommodation procedures, the fact that that's a right in Canada and also being unaware of qualifying for supports. So some people might not identify their disability to a service organization or to an employer. uh for service organizations, they might have access to additional supports for people with disabilities, but the individual might not know that because they don't know that they qualify based on disability. And then what we heard also is that there's still limited employer readiness and resources for hiring. And this could be for a number of reasons. There's already employer strains because of economy um and then resources for hiring addition additional people generally. Um, but then that interacting with the attitudinal barriers that exist might create a less likelihood that immigrants with disabilities would get hired into jobs in Nova Scotia.

Sorry, I'm just trying to move forward here.
Seems my screen is frozen. Oh, sorry about that. In terms of identity, we looked at immigrant and disability status. Well, it actually came up from the participants um in terms of navigating various systems. As we know with many policy lands landscapes, it can be very um complex to navigate systems. Generally, if you're looking at uh immigrants with disabilities, they're often trying to navigate settlement services, employment services, and perhaps disability supports. And often these are not housed in the same organization. So there might be settlement services at one organization, there might be employment supports within an employer situation itself and then disability supports might exist somewhere else. There are some organizations in Nova Scotia that are able to address both settlement and disability um services at the same time, but it is very complicated for people in terms of identifying those organizations and figuring out where to go for for different kinds of situations. Uh some people talked also about managing immigrant and disability identities. So some people have chosen not to disclose their disability because they don't want it to interact with their immigrant identity as well because of that stigma that we just talked about. So they're worried about having double risk um and even employer perceptions of risk of hiring immigrants with disabilities. And this is complicated because we know that um immigrant work permits um can be complicated because of changing rules at the federal level which can make it difficult for uh employers to trust processes around uh work permits and things like that. So what we heard so far is that there's a reluctance on behalf of employers to hire immigrants generally um because of the changing rules and and uncertainty around that. And then there's also that double risk of hiring um a person with a disability. So if you put that together, that becomes what we call a double risk. We know as researchers that the the risk of hiring people with disabilities is a misconception. And that's what we're working on in this project is to change that that idea that hiring uh im immigrants with disabilities would be a risk in the first place. We don't want that pres perception to exist.
In terms of best practices, uh we've one of the goals of this project is to really be able to support um employers in becoming confident in hiring immigrants with disabilities, but also supporting um service agencies around best practices and and um tools that might help with supporting immigrants with disabilities around hiring processes. So we've we've come across in this qualitative study a few really great ideas around best practices in terms of highlighting success stories of hiring immigrants with disabilities. And this could really be public facing information. So on a website there could be a section on the website that really highlights the stories of um immigrants with disabilities and their successes within employment practices. Certainly within disability studies, I don't think it's a secret that uh the history of disability has long been erased. So storytelling is really important in terms of highlighting the experiences of people with disabilities generally so that we know that um disability is a good thing. Uh even when we talked about the percentages earlier that Nova Scotia has the highest rate of disability, whenever we talk about that, we're try we try to be very clear that we're not saying that it's a bad thing. um having disabilities uh often means that people are very resourceful and also very diverse. So it brings a range of experiences uh to the employment sector but also to other sectors as well. Um so highlighting those su success stories of immigrants with disabilities getting hired can do a lot of things. First, it can help um employers understand that there's a benefit to hiring immigrants with disabilities and and it can also show immigrants with disabilities who might be struggling that there are success stories out there and that it is possible to have a positive experience if they haven't had one already. And then uh one of the other things that was highlighted so far has been around building employee confidence in disclosing disability and seeking accommodations because we know that when people are able to get the accommodations they need, they can they can be as productive as is possible for them. And so we want to to make to make it comfortable for people to be able to disclose that they have a disability. they don't necessarily have to say what their disability is, but maybe it's just the idea of um disclosing that they need accommodations. Um and then also in terms of subsidy grants, so there's um there's been discussion around the fact that subsidy grants might exist for people with disabilities. Um but there's some challenges there around having employers access this grant and then keeping um the the employee on for a longer term. So one of the emerging best practices would be to utilize the subsidy grant but then combine that with a long-term retention plan so that the person with a disability that's hired under the grant is able to stay with the organization for a longer period of time. Uh I'm just going to go back here for a second to make sure I didn't Okay. Um then we looked at best practices for employers. Uh and again a number of things are coming out in terms of this area as well. So one of the things was looking at integrating inclusive practices for all employees. The best kinds of employers are the ones that are fully inclusive and have a wide range of inclusive practices not just for people with disabilities but for everybody. I think it creates a good model for people feeling comfortable in the workplace and feeling truly included. It also removes the onus or the responsibility from employers to seek employees sorry to seek accommodations. So often in terms of getting accommodations in multiple settings, people with disabilities feel a responsibility for seeking it and that can create some tension for them. So if you have a workplace where uh inclusive practices are the norm, it becomes uh it doesn't become an individual situation. It actually becomes um I guess you could say an organizational culture to have inclusion in all areas of life. Whether it's related to disability, we know that there's different kinds of accommodations that could happen whether it's uh parenting, disability, religion. There's all kinds of ways to be inclusive in terms of employment and employment situations. And then I guess one of the ways to ensure that that happens is to ensure that accommodations are offered at all stages of the employment process. So this would be from recruitment. So having in your ads um all of the accessibility and accommodation procedures that are in place and that making it clear that the ad is also opened to individuals and uh immigrants with disabilities and then uh also in terms of after the recruitment happens the employ uh the interview process is really important. So making sure that accommodations are set up for the interview itself. Uh this could be as simple as having um the questions uh provided ahead of time for employees um to having ASL interpretation or other kinds of interpretation that might be needed and then of course having uh accommodations within the employment um within the environment as well once the person is hired. And then it's a good idea for employees, employers, sorry, to work with agencies to enhance hiring confidence. So service agencies often work with immigrants with disabilities and they have experience and supporting them to be productive and to be included in the work environment in a way that's meaningful for them. So it make it just makes sense that employers would work with those service agencies to build their confidence around hiring. And so um service agencies could have a lot of good ideas around that process. And if an employer is able to work with the service agency, they would have access to those uh success stories, but then also to um things like uh if they need recommendations on how to make things more inclusive. So really just partnering with organizations to ensure that your your employment setting is inclusive.
So, as I said in the beginning, we're only we're probably about halfway through the study right now, maybe a little bit more. Um, there's been some challenges probably related to the attitudinal barriers that I mentioned in the beginning. Um also we shared our call for participants online and I I know this isn't directly related to um the topic but it is related to the study in that when we shared the study online we had some challenges with AI. Uh and I'm going to note that for for any researchers in the room that uh even though this is a qualitative study and it's not specifically we don't have a survey, we're doing uh interviews and focus groups. When we put the call out for participants, we got a number of fake emails from people asking to be included in the study. Um probably dozens, which really interfered with us being able to figure out, okay, who who's the real participants here? Who are the real participants? and uh which ones are AI generated. It's the first time I've come across this in all of the qualitative work that I've done. So, I wanted to point that out that it has created some challenges in terms of sifting through the responses to ensure that we don't miss anybody who wanted to be included in the study. Uh also disclosure concerns. Um the the importance of relationships uh is really highlighted for us in this project because it's really hard to just call an organization a cold call to an organization and say can we work with you and and then have participants show up because there's a still that perceived risk that I talked about in terms of immigrant and disability status. So there's still some disclosure concerns that we're dealing with. Um, and then we also recognize that there's limited capacity within community agencies. With the economy and society the way it is right now, agencies are really doing a lot a lot of work with little resources. And so we recognize that it can be hard uh in terms of capacity for community organizations. And we as researchers have very limited connection to employers who have either hired immigrants with disabilities or who have um been thinking about hiring immigrants with disabilities in Nova Scotia. So those are some of the challenges that we faced in terms of the research.
Related to the challenges are the successes though. Um what we've heard from people who have participated in the study is that this research is needed. A couple of people have asked us what what made you want to do this research and then us for doing the research. And certainly people have recognized that whatever comes out of this study will be helpful for the three groups that we mentioned uh immigrants with disabilities service providers whether they're settlement services, disability services or both and employers. Um so that's that's great in and of itself. And then also I want to recognize how essential it is to work with our partner is the immigrant services association of no Nova Scotia and other community organizations. Uh it's been really important to build relationships and trust with organizations um because direct recruiting is really important and also we want people to feel safe in coming forward to participate in the study and if they're coming through organizations that they have built a trust relationship with. It's been really helpful also related to the AI point that I mentioned earlier um because if we just put it out on social media for example um the the risk of not having authentic participants uh raises but if we do direct recruiting through organizations then that's obviously more helpful and then we're hoping um to be able to support organizations and uh we want this to be a reciprocal process so we're not just researching on people. We want to be able to uh in turn provide uh toolkits to those groups in terms of best practices and dispelling myths and that sort of thing. So, we're really uh committed to ensuring that it's a two-way process and that the organizations get out of this project uh as much as we do as the researchers.
And then in terms I'll just use my last few minutes here to talk about the next steps for our project. I I don't know if I mentioned this at the very beginning but this is a qualitative study. So we're very much focused on the quality of experiences of people. We are nearing um the completion of our interviews. We've been able to build those relationships that I just mentioned and we've been able to to recruit more si like I said since we've um put together this presentation. And so we're really excited about the partnerships, the community building, um, and also the participants that have been able to be involved in this study. Um, so I have presented all of this with the recognition that we haven't actually analyzed um, the interviews yet for formal themes. Um, but this is what we're hearing in in the research so far. So the next step will be to um analyze I hate to say analyze the data but look at the um the interviews and look for themes around the barriers to uh inclusive employment for immigrants with disabilities in Nova Scotia but also the facilitators for success. We'll also again uh develop a set of best practices for employers, immigrants with disabilities and service organizations. So out of those themes that we developed, that's our goal is to be able to um identify those best practices. So in short, uh I know that was a very brief summary of what we've done so far and I don't know if you want to add anything far to what I've said. Um you're good. I think that was my last slide. Yes, it was. Wow.
Francis: Um first of all, thank you very much Dr. Peski and Dr. San for your presentation. Uh personally I'm an immigrant to Canada and coming from a country in Asia where disability inclusion particularly social inclusion is much less advanced. I found your presentation very interesting and very informative. So we're going to move into the uh Q&A session now. Um and just a reminder uh for the audience if you're new to the Zoom platform there should be a Q&A button on the very bottom of your uh screen and if you click on it you can uh type in your um questions. Um we have quite a number of questions coming in. Um and uh we'll try to answer them as much as we can and uh I'm going to apologize ahead of time um on behalf of IDEA if we don't get to your question um we will try to um um make note of it and if you want to email us um uh your question uh so that we have a way to respond to you um that will be great. So um so um I understand that your research um is has not concluded yet and you're talking about um there's development of best practices and we have quite a number of questions that are are related to that as well. But let me start with this uh question here. Um the federal government limits immigration by people with disabilities. Um how does this policy affect a proportion of immigrants with disabilities? If you're um have any insights to share with us about that.
Firat: De are you okay with me having a stab at it? Okay. Uh well, thank you Margaret. That's a great question. Uh we know that of course uh what you say is not new. Uh Valentina Capuri has a great book, right? not good enough for Canada where uh they discuss how the uh Canadian immigration policies have uh limited uh the intake of immigrants with disabilities and I don't think it's uh that this is quite different. It's still we still definitely have the same agenda going on. Um so I really don't have data on this and it's I think difficult to get data on people who have not arrived here um or who might feel disheartened uh to even consider uh immigrating to Canada. Uh but I would say that um with our very limited uh number of participants the majority of them have invisible disabilities. Right? I'm an immigrant. Uh I also have family members uh who have gone through the uh medical uh process of immigration. And um if you have an invisible disability, I I I don't think I I don't think it's, you know, I I don't think you would have a problem passing the medical test, right? Medical exam, passing the medical exam should not be an issue. Um and if you have a a visible disability then you would probably have to disclose it at the time. So um in that regard I think immigrants with uh disabilities in Canada might be a skewed group. Uh the uh how the type of disability they might be having could be drastically different than uh Canadian born the type of disabilities Canadian born with disabilities uh have. Um so I don't want to speculate further on this but um I I would be surprised if this policy doesn't affect the proportion um uh of immigrants with disabilities and what kind of uh disabilities they have. I don't know if Tammy would like to add to that but no. Okay.
Francis: Well great thank you. Um so staying within the Canadian context um a question that we have uh coming in it's about the statistics Canada study uh showing the um the the respondents from their survey regarding having a disability um and it appears that the more recent study has um continue to have that increase percentage of people with disabilities. So um what do you think can help Statistic Canada um to get a more accurate number on on rep the the report regarding number of people with disabilities in Canada because there's certainly reporting issues and and this is kind of tied to the earlier question as well.
Tammy: Um, this might not be directly related to our our study, but I would say that the experience of disability is very different for everybody. In our study, we don't um we don't require proof of disability. I guess you could say everybody is self-disclosing or self-identifying as a person with a disability. And we very much follow the convention that treats disability as an evolving concept. I think to get more accurate numbers, uh, one way to do that would be to have more publicly facing webinars and things like that around what it means to have a disability to dispel the myths and the fears that might come with disclosing. So, I think that there needs to be more public awareness about um the importance of of self-identification. You don't have to have a medical diagnosis because we know that that creates a barrier for people in and of itself in terms of uh having um a disability. So I think making it clear to people that you can selfidentify as having a disability without having the required documentation to quote unquote prove um the disability and I think that would make a big difference again not directly related to this to this research but I think it would certainly around uh data for stats Canada I think it would make a big difference I don't know if you want to sense right
Firat: oh yeah um so uh I have some experience working with Canadian survey on disability and some other uh stat scan data that includes disability. I think one uh specific issue that uh could be addressed here when uh uh when uh you know collecting data and analyzing data on immigrants with disabilities is to understand that uh disability identity especially when uh it comes to selfidentifying has its roots uh uh in our cultural background. how each culture defines I think this also touches the point you you were rising uh earlier Francis how we define disability or what we consider a disability really is depending on our cultural background uh which country we are raised right so uh when you send these questionnaires to people from different backgrounds um some of them might read the questionnaire but perhaps they wouldn't even consider them having a disability. I'll just give a a quick uh example. uh one of our participants for example uh told us that uh they knew that they had ADHD that uh that limited them considerably uh in their uh uh task of or in their let's say pursuit of finding employment but they did not think about it as a disability until moving to Canada. Now they consider it a disability. uh that participant uh told us that oh I didn't really think of it as a disability but after coming here and after uh looking at it from a different perspective I I actually understand that that could be limiting me and then I started considering it as a disability. So uh the cultural component of it is important. Another uh point I could mention uh very briefly is Statistics Canada as far as I know is using social model of disability uh when defining disability. Uh this has uh its advantages uh but also some advantages uh considering some other models of disability uh for a more inclusive representation of people with disabilities with uh other social identities might also be useful.
Francis: See, we're going to shift the focus to more on the support side now. So, a question we have is that the the support is different in different provinces and and territories across Canada in terms of availability and and and service delivery as well. So, do you find that it makes a barrier for uh newcomers um that wants to disclose the the disability as well?
Tammy: Timmy, do you want to start? Then I can just um so we haven't compared provinces. Uh we know that supports I could have a very long conversation about how much I think disability supports are lacking across the uh the country. Um we haven't discussed it a whole lot in the interviews, at least the ones that I've been a part of. Um so maybe Far can add to this. Um, but I do think that there's an unawareness of what supports are available and also there's I would say barriers related to qualifying for those services, right? Because a lot of services you have to have medical documentation and that can create barriers um for people who don't have access to health care in equal ways as as others, right? And so I think there's already barriers there in terms of qualifying for disability supports. And I think across the country we can say that disability supports are not adequate. Um I do think it it does create a barrier but we haven't directly discussed it uh in this study. Fra do you want to add to that?
Firat: Um well if we are specifically talking about support agencies uh not only support as an institution uh one idea uh we have been thinking about uh it's very again u early development it's early development is that when we are talking about employment of immigrants with disabilities we are talking about support for immigrants or newcomers we are talking about support for people with disabilities And we are talking about support for employment. Uh in many agencies uh these could be uh basically different pathways. It could be under different departments. There could be different case managers looking into these uh in many cases organizations could be even different. one uh support agency could be specializing on people with disability another on uh let's say immigrants right so uh the intersectional nature of nature of the immigrants with disabilities shows us that what's intersecting is not only the identity right uh how we uh how the society thinks of immigrants with disabilities and how the policies and how uh the support is organized is also related to this intersection. So when we are thinking of intersections, we should of course be uh in for in specifically in our case uh looking at a specific uh person, a group of people. But that intersection starts with that person but keeps going all over the multi-layered u uh nature of our society stuff. for example, if they're employed or if they're on the job market. Uh you can just start with the individual and then family and then community and then there let's say workplace and then the labor market and then the policies. So I think it's important to u this this example of some recommendation of support agencies is also uh can be uh adapted as a uh wider uh best best recommendation for different stakeholders and we are also hoping to uh you know uh provide some suggestions to different stakeholders but again we are still in uh early phases of our research so this is really some uh early ideas that we are sharing now.
Francis: Yeah, thank you. I think you really highlighted the the the sort of the importance of the intersectionality, the understanding and and how it impacted supports and and employment in general. Um so speaking of health earlier, um one of the questions we have here is that health is often um or or sometimes recognized as one of the social determinants um sorry employment is um it's identified as one of the social determinants of health. So in in your study um have you looked into the impacts of um health outcomes and quality of life um at all?
Tammy: Uh I agree that employment and income generally is the I would argue the number one social determinative of health because it's connected to all of the others so strongly. Uh I'm very passionate about quality of life and measuring that. Um it hasn't come up in this study. That's not to say that we won't have that lens when we're when we're looking at the interviews and what people have told us. Um, we haven't asked I guess another to put this another way, we haven't asked questions directly related to health outcomes, but that doesn't mean we won't find it in the in the the interviews once we go through them. Um, but I very much take your point that it is really important to consider the the implications. And one of the reasons we wanted to do this in the first place is because employment and income is so important for people's quality of life.
Francis: Yeah. Sure. Okay. Um I'm going to hold into something more specific as well. Um with the neurody divergent um immigrants um they may face communication and more cultural barriers when they needed to explain their needs as well. Um did your research identify any ways that employers can maybe better understand that and and supports these intersection uh challenges?
Firat: It's an interesting question. Uh we uh definitely uh had uh uh a few participants uh who are neurody divergent immigrants. uh but we haven't really looked at uh what this specific group uh needs uh or how employers look at this specific group. Uh that's something we will definitely look at based on our data but uh so far uh there there isn't uh something that I can tell you right away. Uh it would be too speculative but that's a great question. This is very important especially as I mentioned uh most immigrants with disabilities uh could be uh having invisible disabilities uh which may include at least some of the neur divergent immigrants. So um I would be surprised if this uh doesn't come up as uh one of the uh findings and this is also I think a great uh question for a future study but uh we'll see what we find. Uh we will definitely be touching on this. Great question.
Francis: Thank you. All right. I see. Um what about locally now in um Nova Scotia? Have you noticed any uh gender differences amount employment um with uh immigrants with disabilities? And and are there any specific agencies that you're aware of that um maybe have their expertise to to serve immigrants and um and um people with disabilities together?
Firat: Right. Great question. So, um if Tammy, if that's okay with you, if you could share the very last, uh slide from our deck uh where I can talk a little bit about the uh gender differences and then uh maybe uh we can uh talk a little bit about the second question service agencies.
Uh so just to be clear uh the figures that uh you are going to see now is not specific to Nova Scotia. Uh this is uh this is basically a Canada white data. I just wanted to uh we just wanted to include this uh in case anyone asks about some other social identities including uh sex uh or gender which is very very important. I also wanted to include this to uh uh basically uh make sure that uh we are all on the same page about immigrants and uh disability identities are very very important. Uh but in uh we all have also some other social identities. So again we have the same three figures uh from the uh earlier slide. On the upper left hand we have the employment rate. Uh uh lower left we have the median hourly wage and on the right side we have weekly hours. So these uh three bars in each graph uh only include immigrants with disabilities. On the left bar we have the immigrants with disabilities. In the middle bar we have the female immigrants with disabilities. And on the right bar we have the male immigrants with disabilities. Uh without going too much into the detail, as you will uh as you might see, male immigrants with disabilities have a higher employment rate. Uh they have a higher media hourly wage and they work more hours in general. So there's a very clear gender effect here, right? male immigrants with disabilities have a clear advantage when it comes to employment over female immigrants with disabilities. Again, this is a Canada white data. So, I don't have any specifics uh for Nova Scotia. This is just to give some uh background. uh but it is it is definitely I think sex and gender and other social identities uh like class or visible minority u ethnicity sexual orientation which are uh uh some of the social identities that uh we are uh touching on our research with our participants as well again uh in line with the intersectionality idea they all come together and when we are trying to understand someone's uh unique experiences uh their unique uh advantages, disadvantages, the barriers they face uh we need to be looking at from a more holistical perspective. So I think um this figure uh is a clear indicator of that. Um there was the other question uh I don't want to take it too much because we have limited time and maybe uh Timmy uh can also answer the second question. Was it about the service agencies in Nova Scotia and whether they provide service to immigrants and people with disabilities?
Tammy: Yes, it was asking whether or not there's organizations that support both uh that support specifically immigrants with disabilities. Uh, I think what's coming to mind for me is that there are organizations that that might support, for example, people with disabilities and employment, but because of the increase in the number of immigrants that have moved to Nova Scotia, more and more of the the population that they serve are immigrants with disabilities. It could be the case vice versa. I'm just not sure on that, but that that's what's coming to mind uh with that question.
FrancisL Great. So, we're almost out of time. So, um I'm going to give you an opportunity to um offer uh perhaps maybe one last things that you could uh maybe give us. So, IDEA is mostly interested in in uh building capacity um in the workplaces for people with disabilities. So if you can offer like one strategy, I know you're still developing sort of best practices, but if you can offer one strategy um related to how we can uh maybe build confidence for uh immigrants with disabilities or or offering to employers how they can integrate some of the things that you you said what would be the one thing that you you can say now?
Firat: Um let me start if that's okay Tammy. So just one thing we have limited time. Uh so uh this was something that also came up during the focus group we were holding yesterday. I would say um inclusive recruitment and on boarding practices. Uh that seems to be a really huge deal among immigrants with disabilities. I think um immigrants with disabilities um if we were to look at it strictly from a business uh perspective making a business case u they are a huge untapped uh group uh they are very talented they have unique experiences and unique strengths right because you could be looking at them as having uh double disadvantages right uh but with all disadvantage age also comes an advantage. They have unique strengths uh unique value propositions that they could bring and really benefit employers. Uh the first step of that is actually having them considered and letting them into the organization. Right? That's why I think inclusive recruitment and on boarding practices are important because uh immigrants are facing unique challenges when it's come to that. Um even uh using um a non-English or non-French first name or surname could be an issue as research indicates. Um but people with disabilities also experience unique uh issues, unique uh barriers as well. and immigrants with uh disabilities could be facing double barriers in that regard. So I would say I would recommend if I had to suggest one recommendation at this point I would say inclusive practices related to recruitment and onwarding.
Tammy: Uh I think we're at time but I would just quickly add that uh highlighting the success stories is really important and then also if employers are struggling with their confidence they should reach out to settlement and disability organizations that have experience in this area who can support them.
Francis: Well thank you very much Dr. Berneski and and Dr. San for very thoughtful uh responses for these questions as well. So for the audience uh reminder that a recording of this session will be available on our idea website. So please stay tuned. Um we are going to be taking a break from um the webinar series during the holiday season. So in the meantime though um do reach out to us if you have any questions or any suggestions for future topics. You can email us um at info@vare-id.ca.
Um, and I hope uh you enjoyed today's session and thanks everyone for spending the time with us. Also wanted to give a quick shout out and thank you to our uh Michelle, our French interpreter as well. And happy holidays to everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Bye.