Impacts of COVID-19

In 2020, CYRRC funded five research projects to look at the impacts of COVID-19, recognizing that refugee children, youth, and families may experience the COVID-19 pandemic in unique ways and that service provider organizations (SPOs) were encountering challenges and innovating solutions as they adapted service delivery models to clients’ needs during this health emergency. To open a project’s page, click on the research title in the table below.

Jump to: Publications & Reports

Research Projects

Project TitleLead Researcher(s)Research Partner(s)PublicationProject Status
Weathering the Storm: How African Families with Refugee Backgrounds Coped with Online Schooling during the 2020-2021 COVID-19 PandemicStacey Wilson-Forsberg
Adventure 4 Change (A4C)N/AComplete
COVID-19 and Refugee Families in Montreal: Strategies for Reaching Hard-to-reach Populations in Health EmergenciesNicole Ives
Montreal City MissionAvailableComplete
Newcomer Refugee and Immigrant Youth’s Experience with COVID-19Reza Nakhaie
YMCA of Western OntarioAvailableComplete
The Impacts of COVID-19 on Newcomer Serving SPOs in CanadaHoward Ramos
Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia (ISANS)AvailableComplete
Communicating Through COVID-19: Experiences of Multilingual Families who are RefugeesAndrea MacLeod
Multicultural Health Brokers, EdmontonAvailableComplete

Publications & Report

IconPublication
Browne, D. T., Smith, J. A., & Basabose, J. D. D. (2021). Refugee children and families during the COVID-19 crisis: A resilience framework for mental health. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34(1), 1138-1149
Gordon, N. Demers, C. Chehayeb, R. & MacLeod, A.A.N. (2022). Parents’ perceptions of barriers and facilitators to their children’s multilingual language development before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadian Ethnic Studies Special Issue: Pandemic Perspectives: Racialized and Gendered Experiences of Refugee and Immigrant Families in Canada, 54 (3).
Ives, N., Hajjar, O., Alqawasma, H., Hanley, J., Rabiau, M., & Ngami, J. A., (2022). COVID-19 and refugee families in Montreal: Strategies for reaching hard-to-reach populations in health emergencies. Centre for Research on Children and Families, McGill University.
Nakhaie, R., Ramos, H., Vosoughi, D., & Baghdadi, O. (2022). Mental Health of Newcomer Refugee and Immigrant Youth During COVID-19. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 54(1), 1-28.
Nakhaie, R., Ramos, H., & Fakih, F. (2022). School Environment and Academic Persistence of Newcomer Students: The Roles of Teachers and Peers. Journal of Teaching and Learning, 16(1), 64-84.  
Alamgir, A., Usmani, S., Bhuiyan, S., & Janczur, A. (2021). Structuring a Communication Framework to Address the Challenges of Vulnerable Communities for Building Trust and Ensuring Access to Emergency Health Messages for Compliance during COVID-19. EC Emergency Medicine and Critical Care, 5, 07-16.
Smith, J. A., de Dieu Basabose, J., Brockett, M., Browne, D. T., Shamon, S., & Stephenson, M. (2021). Family medicine with refugee newcomers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 34(Supplement), S210-S216.
Ramos, H., Fox, S., & Atallah, N. (2021). Focusing on people and adapting to change: A report on the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia during the first year of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia.