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Cultural Care Compass

Mitigating Domestic Abuse and Relationship Violence in Immigrant and Refugee Communities

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Meet the Team

Yosamin Esanullah

Jeena Javahar

Amrita Mosale

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Background

Also, studies show that those with less than a high-school education and lack of literacy in the language of the receiving country face more financial challenges and end up earning very low wages. Immigrants without documented legal status are more likely to live in poverty and other stressful situations like isolation and marginalization that increase the risk of experiencing intimate partner violence (Li & Skop, 2007; Min, 2013).

Qualitative research has identified unique vulnerabilities of migrant women surviving DV, which are underreported and thus underrepresented in Canadian statistics and support systems.
Relationship violence has been described through theories that connect the extenuating circumstances of post-immigration situations to the prevalence of domestic abuse.

Isolation, cultural changes, barriers, marginalization. Lack of social networks or support systems.
New couples who move into the country often have to learn new languages, start new careers, and experience financial stresses.
Cho (11) suggests that in heteosexual relationships, men who are at high risk of violence might act more violently towards their partner.

All this goes to say that DV in migrant households is an extremely complex issue that requires support from professionals profound knowledge, first-hand experience within each of these specific cultures to address.

88 percent of DV cases in the Greater toronto area were also from newcomers.

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Background

The problem with this solution is that there is a lack of connection between connecting social work providers with relevant experiences to the immigrant households that require them the most.

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Domestic Abuse Occurs

Police Intervention

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Referral to Local Social Services Agencies

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Social Service Agencies Provide Social Worker Representatives

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Problem Statement

Immigrant and refugee women in Canada face heightened risks of domestic violence due to isolation, cultural barriers, and financial struggles. Current support systems often lack cultural competence, leaving these cases underreported and inadequately addressed. A solution is needed to connect clients with professionals who have relevant cultural expertise to provide effective support.

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Our Solution

We have developed a back-end system tailored for administrative use that matches clients with employees based on input data such as gender, age, ethnicity, and culture and can be customized to meet the specific needs of any organization.

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Our Solution

Pre-designed hybrid recommender backend system that is meant to be integrated with administrative UIs.
Applicable for therapy clinics, social services offices, where they can match their practitioners/providers with vulnerable marginalized communities.
This solution aims to pair clients with employees who share similar backgrounds and experiences. This fosters a sense of safety and mutual understanding, enhancing communication and trust in client-employee interactions.

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AI Used : Hybrid Recommendation System

For our Cultural Care Compass, we decided to use a recommendation system as the AI software implemented within the code. This is an established algorithm with longevity.

Hybrid

Collaborative filtering
Content Based filtering

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Technical Details

FastAPI, SQLite SQLAlchemy
Pearson correlation
No third party will have access to this data for safety reasons

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Use of AI in the Development Process

ChatGPT:

Brainstorming
Boilerplates
Creating the presentation

Amazon Q:

In-line code-modifications

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Future Implementations

Develop a front-end system that can customize client and provider data fields for organizations

Implement better search functionality

Add support for more detailed input variables / NLP processing

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“Navigating Connections, Cultivating Trust”

Cultural Care Compass is dedicated to fostering meaningful connections by matching clients with culturally compatible employees, enhancing trust and understanding within marginalized communities.

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Thank you!