Sexual health information for newcomers

We're pleased to have you with us today. As we come together in this virtual space, I wish to recognize that we are all on the traditional lands of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. Today, I am calling in from Ottawa, which is built on unsurrendered and unceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory. 

I'd also like to acknowledge that December 1st was World AIDS Day and that this week is Indigenous AIDS Awareness Week. These are not only important opportunities to celebrate the advancements we have made but bring attention to the work that still needs to be done, especially knowing that the impacts of HIV are felt disproportionately among Indigenous communities. As we work together on ending HIV as a public health concern and as we have these conversations here today, let us remember to embrace approaches that are grounded in intersexuality, ones that place people and their lived and living experience at the center of care. 

A short disclaimer, today's webinar includes content from those external to the agency and may not reflect the views of the Public Health Agency of Canada. Following today's webinar, a copy of the presentation deck and a recording as well as a feedback form will be sent to you. This webinar will be conducted in English. 

Simultaneous interpretation in French can be accessed through selecting the interpretation button in the menu at the bottom of your screen. A few more technical notes. Your audio has been muted to reduce noise, and the video has been disabled for this webinar. 

If you are having technical problems and need assistance, you can reach us through the chat function. Please feel free to communicate in either English or French. If you have a question for the presenter, please submit the question using the Q&A function and we will answer them during the panel discussion at the end of the webinar. 

Note, you may check send anonymously if you do not want your name attached to the question. I will now introduce the speakers for today's webinars.  

Ada Madubueze is a Project Manager at the Sex Information & Education Council of Canada (SIECCAN), where she leads the Sexual Health Promotion for Newcomer Youth project. With a Master’s in Epidemiology and driven by a deep commitment to sexual and reproductive health, she bridges research and practice to create practical, evidence-based tools for educators, health professionals, and policymakers to advance inclusive and transformative programming in sexual health. Her work includes leading the Educator Guide for Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Prevention and contributing to the Guidelines and Benchmarks for Integrating GBV Prevention within Sexual Health Education. 

Mauricio Oviedo is the Service and Partnership Coordinator at Capital Rainbow Refuge. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology, where he developed a strong commitment to community service and support. Mauricio brings extensive experience from his work with Nurses Without Borders Canada. He is dedicated to advancing social causes focused on refugee resettlement, community welfare, and education related to STBBIs and HIV, particularly within racialized communities.   

I'd now like to introduce Ada and let her start her presentation.  

Ada Madubueze: Hey hi everyone. Thank you all for coming to the webinar today. 

My name is Ada Madubueze and I go with the pronouns she her and I'm a project manager at SIECCAN, the sex and information council of Canada. I'm calling from Calgary which is located at the traditional lands of the black foot confederacy, the Tsuut’ina, and Stoney Nakoda Nations. This area is covered under treat 7. 

I'm very grateful to be with you all today and to share resources and give you an idea about what SIECCAN does and our current project which is sexual health promotion for newcomer youth in Canada.  

Next please, at SIECCAN we are a non-for-profit or a not-for-profit charitable organization that seeks to promote sexual and reproductive health in Canada. We work with educators, health professionals, and others to create resources to help build the knowledge and capacity of those who are developing and implementing sexual health education. 

Next, please. Next, please. So our priority is comprehensive sexual health education with focus on the prevention of sexually transmitted and bloodborne infections prevention of GBV, gender-based violence, incorporating relevant topic areas ensuring it is up to date in terms of media literacy and technology and ensuring that programs address the needs of specific groups of youth particularly marginalized and underserved youth.  

So this is like a picture of Meera. So picture Meera. 

She's 17 years old. She arrived from Cameroon just a few months ago. She's now in grade 12. 

sorry about that. Please can you go to the previous slide? Oh so picture Meera. 

She's 17 years old. She arrived from Cameroon just a few moments or few months ago. She's now in grade 12, adjusting to a new school, a new culture, and a new life. 

She's in a new relationship and thinking about having her first sexual experience, but no one ever told her that condoms in high school bathrooms are free. She doesn't know where to go for STI testing. She's unsure what's confidential. 

And in her culture, talking about sex was never encouraged. So now imagine navigating all of this or all of that while also navigating a new language, a new health care system, and new social expectations. For many newcomer youth, discussing sensitive topics like sexual health can feel overwhelming. 

How would you even begin to navigate that?  

Next, please. So newcomer youth in youth in Canada come from very diverse regional, cultural and religious backgrounds. 

Because of this diversity, their understanding of sexual health relationships and the healthcare system can be very different from what is typically taught in Canadian schools. They also face several barriers. Barriers like systemic and individual such as stigma, strong gender role, gender norms, difficulty navigating the health care system and concerns about confidentiality and privacy. 

These barriers create real risk and research shows that newcomer youth experience high rates of sexually transmitted and bloodborne infections, lower sexual health literacy and reduce access to sexual health services. So this clearly tells or clearly tells or tells us clearly that one size fits all education is not enough as there is a big barrier to accessing information about sexual health and that there is a need for information related to what services are available and your sexual reproductive health rights.  

Next please. 

So this brings me to one of our current projects funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada under the community action fund. The project is aimed at developing sexual health promotion resources for newcomer youth in Canada. This project had two main goals. 

First, to examine the sexual health information needs and real life experiences of newcomer youth and second to use that knowledge to develop and share meaningful practical sexual health promotion resources for youth as well as different service providers that work with them such as settlement workers, educators and health care professionals. In other words, we want to learn directly from youth and then turn that knowledge into action. So for this project, our definition of newcomer youth was anyone between ages 16 to 29 years old and not born in Canada. 

Next slide. So we carried out two different studies to examine the sexual health information needs of newcomer youth to Canada. In the first study of phase, we held focus group discussions that centered on the voices of youth themselves, asking them directly about their sexual health education needs and drawing out the nuances of their lived experiences. 

The second study built on existing work in literature by surveying a large group of Canadian youth allowing us to gain more generalizable insights.  

Next, please. So, in phase one, we first partnered with two youth and community organizations to conduct five focus group discussions with 24 participants, youth participants. 

The discussion focused on understanding the sexual and reproductive health needs and concerns of youth, their cultural and religious influences on their sexual and reproductive health and their support systems and recommendations. We also conducted three discussions with key interest holders including youth organizations and settlement and community organizations. So this phase was highly collaborative. 

Youth were not just participants. They were partners in shaping the conversations, identifying priorities, and confirming what truly mattered to them.  

Following the next slide, please. 

So, following the focus group discussion in phase 2, the national online survey comprised of over 3,000 youth across Canada and 955 were newcomer youth. This survey was based directly from what was or what we learned in the focus groups, impute from interest holders and findings from existing research. Before launching it nationally, the survey was pilot tested with three separate youth groups to ensure it was clear, relevant and youth friendly. 

Some questions we asked were about youth sexual health education, their experiences and concerns and their health, sexual health supports and barriers.  

Next slide please. So we will dive into real stats to make this relevant and actionable. 

The ages of youth who participated in the survey were between 16 and 25 years old. There was relatively even distribution across gender, ethnicity, and length of time in Canada. 49% of this participants identified as having immigrant status showing strong representation from the population this project aimed to serve. 

For instance, the top four four birthplaces of recent immigrants were India, China, Philippines, and Nigeria. 

Next slides please. So across both methods the result followed four themes and it was first theme was comprehensive sexual health education information needs and concerns, barriers to accessing sexual health services, support systems and recommendations. 

Next please. So youth identified several core areas where they need better information and the top five areas were one healthy relationships for example communication skills nonviolent conflict resolution and second safe sex methods such as condoms and dental dams. Third was how to navigate the health care system such as STI testing, confidentiality and privacy rights. 

Fourth was sexual sexually transmitted infections like STI that you can get through sexual contact with a partner who has had an infection and fifth sexual consent which included ethical and legal aspects. So what's important here is that youth were not only asking about biology or disease. They were asking about communication, boundaries, safety and relationships. 

This shows us that sexual health education must go beyond anatomy to include real life decision making and relationship skills.  

Next slide please. And this section we know that youth want what this section we know that youth want and need STI information but many also don't know where to or how to access sexual and reproductive health services. 

So we asked about the key barriers to sexual health supports like barriers to information, barriers to health services and the common barriers included financial cost, concerns about privacy and confidentiality, shame and stigma associated with sexuality, concern that family will find out and not knowing where to go for support.  

Next slide please. So when youth were asked about awareness and access to key and reproductive health services or key sexual and reproductive health services, the gaps were significant. 

Only 56% were aware of reproductive health services and less than half knew how to access STI testing and treatment services as well as HIV testing and treatment services. So this tells us that services may exist but many youth simply don't know how to find them, trust them or access them safely.  

Next slide please. 

So when youth do seek information or help, they usually turn to their friends, social networks, people at school, university health services, and community-based organizations. This reinforces the idea that trusted relationship matter. Youth are far more likely to seek support from people who they already feel safe with. 

Next slide, please. So, most youth reported that health care providers are useful and trusted source of sexual health information. Many youth also said they want to receive sexual health information directly within healthcare settings. 

And this truly highlights or just highlights how important it is that providers need to feel confident, culturally skilled and supported to have these conversations.  

Next slide. In the interest holder discussion with community organizations, we identify four key areas where providers need be better support. 

First in comprehensive training especially around cultural competence and immigrant health specifically integrating non-western health perspective. Second was community engagement. That's the development of multilingual sexual and reproductive health resources online was highlighted as crucial for accessibility. 

And third, improved access such as simplifying referral processes and expanding interpreter services were key recommendations for enhancing access to care. And lastly, in policy and advocacy such as pushing for systemic change, including longer appointments and expanded temporary healthcare coverage.  

Next slide, please. 

In general, youth were very clear rather about what they want. They want services that are accessible, culturally responsive, offered in multiple languages, confidential and respective respectful of privacy, comprehensive and stigma free and inclusive of gender-based violence prevention. These recommendations are directly from newcomer youth and are mutually beneficial to all Canadian youth and improve comprehensive sexual health education for all. 

This also provides a direct road map for program design and service delivery.  

Next slide. So these findings highlight a clear need for action to achieve meaningful change in sexual health education. 

Newcomer youth need tailored culturally responsive approaches to navigate available supports and access accurate relevant and sexual health information. This also means that our calls of action must focus on centering youth voices, practice cultural humility and competency, foster trust and respect and inclusion, and invest in ongoing training for service providers. The implications are clear. 

So imagine the ripple effect a single culturally sensitive interaction can yield. Partnering with newcomer youth ensures programs move beyond tokenism and truly meet their needs. So let's take it to Meera's journey. 

Meera's journey brings everything into focus. This means she would be able to easily access relevant sexual health information, STI testing and tools to prevent STI and build healthy relationships. To truly support youth like Meera, we must move beyond awareness and into action because at the end of the day, access to sexual health education is not a privilege. 

It is a right. And when we get a right, you young people like me don't just, you know, survive in a new country, they actually thrive. So changing the system for her means changing it for thousands of newcomer youth across Canada. 

So the next slide, please. The next slide. the question here is where do we go from here with all of this findings and recommendations and implications? 

Where do we actually go from here?  

Next slide. So this snap this is just a snapshot of SIECCAN’s project milestones. 

Using a strong knowledge to action approach, we moved from project planning to resource development. This ensured our work was shaped by live experience and evidence rather than assumptions.  

Next slide please. 

So at SIECCAN we are definitely turning our call to action into real impact. We are excited to that we're releasing our first series of resources from new for newcomer youth soon. and there are two fact sheets on STI testing and STI prevention which will be available in multiple languages like Mandarin and Punjabi. 

In addition, we're also developing practical scenario-based tools for service providers on sexual health tips to for newcomer youth so that they can truly connect with youth and empower them to make informed choices about their sexual health.  

Next slide, please. So these are two in infographics about research now published on our website and available in English, French and Mandarin. 

You can also maybe access these resources please next slide. You can also access these resources and stay up to date through SIECCAN website. Feel free to reach out to our resources to our resources on our website. 

and then to close newcomer definitely they're always telling us clearly that they need what they need and that includes safety, respect, culturally relevant care and real access to trustworthy information. So when we listen to youth and build services with them, they're not just for them so that we can create lasting change.  

Thank you all for your time and you know your commitment to supporting newcomer youth. 

Mauricio Oviedo: Thank you Ada.  

Can everyone see my screen? I guess so. 

Okay. So I want to start this presentation with a powerful message. We have to be visible. 

we shouldn't be ashamed of who we are. this is a message from Marsha Johnson. I just want to share with you because this is what we are trying to do at Capital Rainbow Refuge. 

So, I'm going to give you an overview about Capital Rainbow Refuge, what we do supporting refugees and newcomers in Ottawa and also I will speak about the sexual health project rainbow of care. About Capital Rainbow Refuge we are helping refugees and newcomers arriving and thriving in eastern Ontario. We are incorporate nonprofit charity founded in 2010. 

We have two main cores of work. The first one is private sponsorship group and the second one, community support, that help, queer people living in Ottawa. 

So, I'm gonna just explain a little bit about each of them. I'm not going to take much time, but I just want you to have clarity about those terms. The private sponsorship groups, we have around 15 private sponsorship groups working under the umbrella of Capital Rainbow Refuge. 

There are like group of citizens between eight to 10 people collecting money to sponsor somebody living abroad mostly in Africa because of those horrible laws that criminalize and persecute queer people. This group of people apply for this person when the the newcomer comes to Ottawa. This group of people is responsible for this new newcomer for during one year. 

So they're providing housing, accommodation, they're they're showing them the the city. They are registering the new person at a school. And hopefully after this year, the newcomer is capable to survive on their own in Ottawa. 

And the second one is community support for LGBTQI+. we have people that comes here to Ottawa with a business visa, a visitor visa, a student visa and then when they are inside the country they apply for protection they change their status to refugee claimants. So this is the people that we are supporting dually. 

In Ottawa we have around 600 clients, refugee claimments and since 2010 we have been sponsoring more than 400 people through our private sponsorship groups. The community services that we provide in Capital Rainbow Refuge we guide LGBTQI+ newcomers that don't have enough support to to be in other so we have some people that comes here with like no English, no French, no family, no friends. So, Capital Rainbow Refuge is like the first point to them to integrate into the community. 

So, we have we have an initial meeting with them and we do a needs assessment and we provide information about legal aid, how to apply to legal aid. When they get approved for legal aid, we connect them with legal with lawyers that represent them on their case. we help them to apply to Ontario Works. 

We help them to get mental health support also language assessment with the collaboration of the YMCA and also writing and the resume and cover letter through the support to our volunteers. We have the QRHP toolkit in our website. If you go to our website, you're going to find the toolkit. 

So normally refugee claimants get access to this toolkit and they are answering a lot of questions. When they finish to answer all those questions from the toolkit, they have like a draft of their narrative. They can work a little bit more with the lawyer and submit this narrative to IRCC for their claimment. 

We have the community fund. We have up to $1,000 for name and gender change. We have we can cover extra medical expenses like cavities or root canals. 

We can pay 50% of their permanent resident application and also we can pay for diploma equivalents and translations trying to get the necessary information and qualifications for people to start working in Ottawa. And finally we have the rainbow of care project that is sexual health information that we deliver to refugees and newcomer. So Rainbow's care we start in 2010 we started in 2010 with this amazing project is a project of five years we target 1,200 LGBTQI plus racialized people and migrants we are delivering the information through 120 workshops we are leading the project in Ottawa but also we have some partners working replicating our work in Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver. 

We deliver accurate information and sexual health for LGBTQI+ migrants through many different activities. We have four main object objectives for this project. The first one is partnering with local agencies. 

A great example here in Ottawa is ACO or Bruce House that they're experts working in HIV topics. The second one is delivering information by training peer from our own community. The third one is training health care professionals and the fourth one is wellness slash sexual health activities. 

I'm going to speak a little bit more about that in the coming slide. Sorry. Okay. 

So I want to mention something about the unique needs of LGBTQI+ newcomers. We have like very particular challenges when we arrive here in Ottawa and one of them is the cultural stigma. When we speak about cultural stigma the first thing that come into my head come into my head is many of our clients are living in countries where they have to live a heteronormative life. 

They have to get married. They have to have like a traditional family. So when they come here and then they discover the freedom is something that shock their life. 

Also like internalized homophobia when they are just live in a country where masculinity is everything that they have to show up. They're like homophobia against everything that represent femininity. For example, trans people. 

They are not used to it and sometimes they are like making homophobic comments against our own community. Fear of the of the discrimination. This is one of the hardest one. 

For example, we can take the HIV status disclosure. Many of our clients come here and get positive because they don't have the tools and the necessary information. Also other clients come to kind of being positive already but they have to disclosure if they're having a sexual encounter with anybody because if not they can get charged of sexual assault and this is one of the most serious offenses in the Canadian criminal code. 

We have misinformation in the terminologies. I remember one of our clients asking if the prostate was a STBBI. So because of those kind of questions, we create a sexual health oneonone when we start like from the basics mostly with the new age people in Ottawa. 

They also may face some challenges asking for accurate information service providers with insufficient sexual health education and I remember this client HIV positive he went to the doctor he went to see the doctor to ask for medication and one of the doctor's question was like if he knew who was the person that infected him not in the doctor business. But those things is still happening in our society. Language barriers as I mentioned at the beginning some people come here with like no French and not English so it's a little bit difficult to access to the accurate information. And limited to access to family doctors this is not something that is happening just for for queer people. This is not something that we are facing as a barrier in capital refuge. 

This is our Canadian reality. I have a case scenario. we have a client, his name is Bruce. 

So Bruce is a newcomer in Ottawa. He grew up in a very religious family in a Muslim family. At age of 18 he engaged in sexual encounters with a male cousin but he stopped due the cultural and religious stigma around homosexuality. 

At age of 25 Bruce have was required to get married with a woman. Later due to safety concerns in their home country Bruce and his wife has to be relocating in Canada. Since arriving, Bruce discovered gay dating apps and he's been frequently having encounters with multiple male partners. 

Recently, he noticed an unusual something unusual in his genitalia and he's asking for support to get test for STBBI. When the health worker suggests him that his wife should get tests as well, Bruce refused because he only has vaginal sex with her with her and he believed that she's not at risk. So I have a question for all of you. 

What is the most appropriate option? What is the most sorry appropriate option to take attempt to contact the wife to let her know what is happening, do nothing and accept Bruce's refusal or continue providing Bruce with the information and support until he feels ready to share the information with his wife. We have a poll here. Please feel free to answer the question.  

Perfect. Yeah, we have we have a huge percentage in the answer three. 

Continue providing Bruce with the necessary information. And why it's important for us to keep providing him with the tools and the the information because we cannot obligate him to to tell his wife. She's going to have questions and we cannot take him out of the closet if he's not ready. 

We cannot invade his privacy. So there is nothing else to do. Keep working hard, keep educating people and keep providing them with the necessary information to address the situation. 

The recommendations and practices for the sexual health project. Effective communication strategies with the target population. Create an open and non-judgmental learning environment that foster community connections, empower community and peer facilitators. 

So key terminologies and deliver the information in their own language. With this project we are being delivering the information like obviously in English and French but also we are being delivering the information in Russia, Swahili, Spanish, Arabic. So people can get the information in their own language.  

Ensure representation. This is something super important in this project because like mostly most of our clients I'll say not 95% of our clients at this moment are coming from Africa and black Africans or Caribbeans they don't want to see like a particular person there on the stage letting them know what to do or what not to do you. 

They want to see somebody like them delivering the information once because like the language uses is going to be better and second because they're going to get the idea that in a future they could be the person delivering the information. So one of our objective is training peer facilitator from our own community and this is working amazing for us in representation and community. 

At the beginning of this project I remember that trying to get more people to our workshops. We were giving them gift cards and we were like getting gift cards but I it wasn't enough. 

I remember once we got those $50 gift cards for people and we got one person attending to our workshops. So then I was asking them through conversations directly with the community or like sending surveys and they wanted to build community. They wanted to have a community dinner. 

They wanted to have a party. They wanted to have a cinema afternoon. So when we started creating those spaces for them, we noticed that the numbers just like raise and this take me to the next next point and is delivery method interruptive. 

So once they were asking about like they wanted to see a drag queen and not a lot of people have the money to go to see a show because like many of our clients are living on their Ontario Works. So if they are paying the bus or if they are paying their rent there is not a lot of money to have fun. So we partner with this incredible drag queen local drag queen. 

we train her and she delivered the information in full drag and that day we passed from having one person in our workshops to having 70 people in the room. So it was something that works for us using plain language is always important not all the time people understand the terminologies. So we have to to use a plain language to them. 

Adjusting working hours to meet the clients is very important for us. we tried at morning it didn't work. We tried at the and at noon and we provide lunch to them and it didn't work. 

So what is working for us is delivering the information after working hours and not necessarily because our clients are working but they are working on their resume, they are having an interview, they are meeting their lawyer. So after working hours they have like the free time to attend to our workshops and this is working for us. So most of our workshops are delivering it at 6:00 p.m. 6:30 to secure more people at the room inclusive workshops and diverse so I remember at the beginning when we started with this project we partnered with an agency that was is an expert working with gay men and so for a little while all the information was delivered to gay men and then when we start getting messages from trans people, gender non-conforming people about like why we are not part of like the package. so it was like an all-eye opener for us.  

We changed the method and we included all the people in the rainbow and now we we have like more people attending to our workshops. Building trust, ensuring confidentiality. The only thing that I ask to the people when they register to our workshops is their email because I have to get like a place to send them the survey after. but other than that, they can choose a preferred name, they can choose a nickname and we are not asking for any other personal information to them.  

And gathering a feedback is super important. I remember like we all always always send a feedback a survey after each workshop and we get information about like yeah what they learn but like not always is right after a workshop. 

Every time, every like two months, three months, we send like a random survey to ask what they want, what other topics they want to hear, what other topics they want to go deeper on. So, this is working so well for us. Yeah. For the next steps for the project we are consolidating five years information at this moment we are on the third quarter of the four year the project so we have one year more and we are finishing in 2027. 

For the next year, the plan is speak with the stakeholders to consolidate the information. 

We do it every year, but for the last year, we we have to we want to have like something bigger, decide which activities are working for us, and I have like a few for example not giving gift cards but creating community. 

This is working for us. About like for sure by the end of five year the year five we're going to have more information about that and communicate the impact with the project to donors yeah we are going to collect all the information even though if every year we collect all the information and we provide a report I'm pretty happy that by the end of the the last year we are going to exceed the expectation of the donor of this project. And for the last slide, I want to show you the left picture. 

This is in collaboration with ACO and in the right one this is a partnership with Bruce House and in the bottom this is an activity that we deliver Capital Rainbow Refuge deliver with our clients. We changed the activity that day. We provide each of the attendees with a canvas, painting and the question was like what sexual health represent to you? 

So we at the end we have like these beautiful paintings and while people was like painting we were like delivering information asking questions and making sure that everyone get the right information at the workshop. This is the end.  

Thank you very much. 

Jessica: Thank you so much, Ada and Mauricio, for your presentations. I think we all really appreciate learning about the specific needs and practices that can be used to overcome those really unique barriers that newcomers are experiencing when they're, you know, navigating the health care system and looking for that sexual health information. I can see the questions just rolling in already. 

So, we will move now to the Q&A portion of our webinar. as a reminder to our audiences, if you do have a question you'd like to ask, please submit it to the Q&A function located at the bottom bar of the Zoom toolbar.  

I think we'll get started off and Ada, there was a question about phase one of the research project and where the participants come from. Are you able to talk a little bit about the demographics of their their physical location?  

Ada: Okay, thank you for that. That's a great question. 

So we did most of the participants were sampled across different provinces in Canada. Most especially came from Ontario and then we sampled across Alberta. So it's a quite a representative national online survey. 

Jessica: Great. Thank you.  

And then Mauricio, I'm going to try and group a few of these together. 

There seems to be a few questions, related to the Bruce scenario and just wondering about at what point is there an obligation, to Bruce's wife and to preventing the further spread of infection. Is there a point in which that it would be appropriate to contact his wife?  

Mauricio: At this point we are going to have the right to communicate with her just if her life is at risk. 

Other than that even though if she gets an STBBI we have like nothing to do with this is their privacy. This is their relationship and we are going to supply him with the information to face the situation but we cannot go deeper in that. 

Jessica: Perfect. And and maybe a a quick question for you again. What are the other organizations involved in your alliance? 

Mauricio:  We are working with in Ottawa or like nationally? 

Jessica: I think nationally.  

So you're Vancouver, you're Toronto. 

Mauricio: Yeah, we are working with the end of the rainbow, we are working with MCC Toronto and we are working with Rainbow Refugee.  

Jessica: Okay, fabulous. 

Ada did do you want to speak a little bit about how you decided which languages to prioritize for some of your resources?  

Ada: Yes, absolutely. So what we did was that we were intentional about the languages based on this was based on the focus group discussion first of all our demographics. 

So top languages spoken were Mandarin, Punjabi, Spanish and then from the IRCC data from 2023 to 2025 landing data for newcomer youth the languages spoken at home were Mandarin, Punjabi. So these are like imputes from also settlement organizations and we decided to come up with this major language Mandarin and Punjabi. But we also have interest or not like interest but we plan to incorporate other languages based on evolving needs or migration needs to or expanding that in our list of languages to translate our materials into. 

Jessica: Great. Thank you. And perhaps a question for both of you. 

There seems to be an interest in in finding resources that are specific to the 2SLGBTQI+ community. Is there specific resources you would recommend that are available online that you always encourage folks to look at?  

Mauricio: I would say like if anyone like in capital room refuge we have like this resource list with a lot of partners and I would be happy to share with anyone if like anyone wants to contact me maybe we can write my email at the chat or something I'll be happy to share with you.  

Ada: Yeah, just to add to that, one of the interesting thing about our work at SIECCAN is that we do have like a more like a hub of resources. So, we call that the promising pod where we do have like vetted resources on to SLGBTQ sexually diverse and gender diverse groups. 

We also have like resources for newcomer youth specifically across different topics on sexual health education. So these are resources across various organizations produced by organizations in Canada. So feel free to you know delve into that hub of resources specifically to you know give you more access to you know accurate information on sexual health education. 

Jessica: Okay, perfect. Thank you. 

And I think maybe we'll collect some of those resources from both of you and we can add them to the follow-up email that will be sent to all presenters.  

Ada: Sounds good.  

Jessica: Okay, we have time for a few more minutes. 

So, one more question for you, Ada. if concerns about privacy and confidentiality are are barriers to accessing sexual health services, where might youth be going to get this information? 

Ada: Well, that's a great question. 

This came up in our focus group discussion. Youth did mention that they would first turn to their friends especially other newcomer peers and online resources. So they we heard that they use online spaces because they feel anonymous and easy to access. 

In the survey as well, youth did also prefer access to information from online sources or their parents and siblings or community if they're open to like having such conversations. if they feel safe and feel it's not a non-judgmental conversation. And then they also provided that recommendations like improving or establishing online support systems that can actually provide accurate sexual health information because you're trying to mitigate that risk of misinformation. And then improving diversity in health care personnels. So they can easily go to health care personnels who like can relate with them provided that confidentiality and privacy is of utmost priority.  

Jessica: Great. 

Thank you. Mauricio, somebody was asking if there has ever been situations where physicians or clinics were referring newcomers to, your program and does that relationship work well and and how might somebody set that up?  

Mauricio: Sorry, I didn't get the first part of the question. 

Jessica: So someone was asking whether or not there are situations or scenarios where clinics and physicians are referring people to the program and if there is that kind of connection process happening. 

Mauricio: Yeah. Yeah. It happened often, not as much of from clinics, but it happened with our partners like [unclear] but also from lawyers. Some queer people are like getting their process with like straight lawyers. 

So probably at some point of their process they mention that they want to build community. So many lawyers in Ottawa knows about Capital Rainbow Refuge and we get referred to them. At this point when somebody have a lawyer there is no legal aid that we can provide but at least we can create community with them that is like such an important part of their process. 

Jessica: Thank you. Ada we have time for probably one last question.  

So I was just wondering if you could speak to a little bit about how SIECCAN is working to get these resources you're developing into the hands of those who can most benefit from learning of this information. 

Ada: Yeah, thank you. Just a moment. So one of the key work SIECCAN does is partnership. 

So we do partner with organizations and partnership is key here. We intend or we partner with settlement organizations who do have like a community of practice where we can share those resources that would be relevant for service providers like educator, healthcare professionals, and those who are frontline workers who work directly with newcomer youth. 

And on our website too is also an avenue for us to publish those of like our resources on there as well as using QR code for you know newcomer youth to have access to such information. This could be posters in the community organizations, schools, library or even areas where like community areas where newcomer youth do often like visit or where we can easily find them to access those resources. So these are like fact sheets that are you know straightforward, easily shared. 

If you're you're you're a service provider who works directly with newcomer youth, you could as well just share that as a QR code and you know as it's now we're now in a in a digital space where it's easy to really access information through QR codes and they could read on those informations and find out about STI testing and prevention tailored to them specifically.  

Jessica: That's fabulous. Thank you so much. 

We are unfortunately at time. I know there are still many questions to go but I do want to say thank you to everyone who joined us for today. Thank you both to our presenters for their time and their insights along with the teams at SIECCAN and CRR who have been supportive in this webinar. 

As a reminder you will receive an email following this session with a recording, a copy of the presentation decks, and a short feedback form which we would appreciate if you would fill out. We really do value your input. On behalf of the Public Health Agency of Canada, thank you again for your participation. 

We look forward to seeing you in our future sessions. 

Take care and have a great day.