Innovation and partnership in Philadelphia

By CVT intern Madelyn Nelson

It’s a familiar story for many service providers for victims of torture: a client walks into an office wanting help and the organization must find and administer the most appropriate medical, legal, psychological, and/or social help available. At the Philadelphia Partnership for Resilience, however, there’s a catch. Many service providers have an expected client base. While some organizations intentionally focus on clients from a particular region or country, others are aware that the demographics of their location will lead to a high percentage of clients from a particular area of the world. At the Philadelphia Partnership for Resilience, there is no such certainty. On any day, their clientele varies dramatically, ranging from Bhutanese, Eritrean, and Jamaican individuals to LGBT people from francophone Africa.  This diversity is due to the presence of an immigration court in Philadelphia, the city’s location midway between New York City and Washington DC, and its relatively cheap cost of living.

So what’s an organization to do? It seems nearly impossible for any group, even with the best of intentions, to anticipate and meet the needs of such a rapidly changing and diverse client base. In fact, it is the innovative solutions of the Philadelphia Partnership and their parent organization, the Nationalities Service Center, that make this organization unique. Imagine that a new client arrives at the Philadelphia [[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_original”,”fid”:”986″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image media-image-right”,”height”:”500″,”style”:”width: 175px; height: 250px; float: right; margin: 10px;”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”width”:”350″}}]]Partnership  able to communicate exclusively in their native language. The staff at the Partnership, unfamiliar with the language, are not fazed. Having planned ahead, they are able to use a telephonic system for immediate translation. This system offers the client support and reassurance that the program is able to understand and meet his or her needs. To further improve the translation experience, the Nationalities Service Center, in conjunction with partner agencies HIAS Pennsylvania  and Lutheran Children and Family Services Pennsylvania, offers visual surveys regarding the clients’ perception of the quality of translation; incomplete or inaccurate translation can provoke stress and cause clients to miss important instructions.

Once the client’s initial intake has been completed, some individuals are placed into a case management program.  In this program, the client works closely with their case manager to create a unique, client-focused plan featuring both long and short-term goals and using a strengths-based approach to help people integrate into their new community. The responsibilities for implementing the client’s case management plan are divided between a network of participants, including the Philadelphia Partnership, the Nationalities Service Center, the client themself, and associated community programs.  Since the Philadelphia Partnership is unable to provide every service for every client, the Nationalities Service Center has created an extensive network of community partners that includes the Philadelphia Partnership. For example, the Nationalities Service Center works with The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, an organization that provides legal services, and Lutheran Children and Family Services, an organization that provides mental health services. It is through extensive collaboration with other organizations and innovative responses to an ever changing client base that the Philadelphia Partnership for Resilience and the Nationalities Service Center achieve success.