Rethinking Trust in the Refugee Resettlement Process: How Service Providers Can Enable Refugee Agency Through Diasporic Connections

Abstract

Current guidance for refugee resettlement agency workers encourages the simultaneous pursuit of trust-building and administrative tasks (e.g., housing, transportation and employment). This dual goal is resource-intensive, and focusing on the former may come at a cost to the latter. The purpose of the current research is to challenge the importance of trust-building by resettlement agencies. Drawing from our qualitative data from in-depth interviews with resettled refugees (N = 20) and agency workers (N = 15), we adopt a grounded theory approach and find that the burden of responsibility for both caregiving and administrative responsibilities can overtax agency workers and create unrealistic expectations for refugee newcomers that can potentially have lasting negative effects on their resettlement. We explore the relationships among refugees and service providers and propose a self-efficacy focused rather than solely a trust-focused approach that prioritises opportunities of reciprocity for refugees that enables them to engage, contribute and be agents in their resettlement (self-efficacy approach). This primarily includes delegating some trust-building activities to diaspora to relieve resettlement agency workers of burdensome tasks for which they may be ill-equipped, so they may focus on tasks for which they are qualified and can be more effective. Ultimately, we argue that empowering refugees early on in their resettlement will reduce the likelihood that they will develop long-term reliance on governmental agencies rather than themselves and their new communities.