**4. Results**

### *4.1. Agency Familiarity with Refugee Communities*

As noted above, the median number of refugees served annually among responding agencies was 20. A full 44.2% of respondents reported serving 10 or less refugees per year. It is important to note again that the sampling frame for agencies was 212 resettlement cities across the U.S., where refugee communities comprise a nontrivial proportion of the wider population, sometimes upwards of 50,000. Agency directors were asked to identify the top three refugee groups (country of origin) in their city from an exhaustive dropdown list. Respondent choices were then compared to the Refugee Processing Center data for their state's resettlement cities over the past 5 years.<sup>1</sup> Just over half of respondents (53%) did not correctly identify the country of origin of any of the top three groups in their area, and the remaining identified one (38%) and two (9%) groups correctly. No respondents correctly identified the top three groups according to the Refugee Processing Center data.

### *4.2. Culturally Responsive Organizational Practices*

A series of Likert scale questions asked survey respondents to rate the frequency with which various practices existed within their agency. Each item ranged on a scale from 1 = never to 4 = often, with higher mean scores indicating higher frequency for which the practices occur. When asked about agency values and practices, respondents indicated that their agency's sta ff were frequently knowledgeable about the cultural practices, values, and norms of refugee communities, but the practice of actively developing domestic violence leaders and advocates from within refugee communities was less common. Concerning agency sta ffing and programmatic practices, agencies most frequently responded that they promoted, mentored, and recruited bicultural and bilingual sta ff. Less often, however, did agencies report that they held multicultural events to promote cultural immersion or hire sta ff specifically from the refugee community to help with engagemen<sup>t</sup> and outreach. In fact, 2 out of 3 respondents (67%) reported they seldom or never hired from the refugee community to help with engagemen<sup>t</sup> and outreach. In terms of interagency collaboration, agencies reported that they more frequently worked to build relationships with other domestic violence service providers, as well as with refugee services o ffices, but they less often partnered with medical providers and faith leaders from refugee communities.

When asked about agency systems and processes for assessment, agencies reported more frequently assessing cultural competence practices, but less frequently reported that they use culturally relevant screening and assessment tools. When it came to accommodations and adaptations they make in their programs and shelter, the most frequent agency practice was establishing partnerships with legal service providers who have experience in working with the refugee community. In terms of addressing language concerns associated with working with the refugee community, agencies most often took measures to verbally convey necessary content to clients in their native language. Utilizing paid sta ff for translation purposes as well as providing translated hardcopy materials in accessible languages were other frequent practices among agencies. Agencies were less likely to provide multilingual libraries for clients in shelter or o ffer multiple refugee language options on agency websites.

<sup>1</sup> http://www.wrapsnet.org/admissions-and-arrivals.

Among all six domains of cultural responsiveness, agencies reported most frequently enacting culturally responsive agency sta ffing and programmatic practices. Conversely, agencies less often reported enacting program and shelter accommodations and adaptations. All individual items within each of the six domains can be seen in Table 2.

### *4.3. Language Concerns*

In addition, the respondents were asked to report whether or not their agency uses telephone translation services, and the overwhelming majority of agencies do (83.7%). However, only 47% of respondents could name the translation service their organization uses, and only 37% indicated that their agency dedicated a portion of their annual operating budget toward translation services.

### *4.4. Bivariate Results*

Correlation analyses were conducted to examine the extent to which agency characteristics were associated with various domains of agency cultural responsiveness. As described in the instrumentation section and presented above in Table 2, domains of cultural responsiveness were calculated as composite scores and thus, reflect all items within each category. A number of agency characteristics were associated with one or more of the six domains of agency cultural responsiveness. The number of years the agency has been operating was negatively correlated to agency approaches to language concerns and agency systems/processes for assessment. In other words, the longer an agency had been in operation, the less often they reported implementing culturally responsive practices in language and assessment. The number of paid sta ff and number of clients served annually at an agency were not associated with any of the six domains of cultural responsiveness, but the number of volunteers was associated positively with program/shelter accommodations and adaptations. The annual budget was positively associated with agency values and practices, but the annual translation budget was not associated with any of the six domains of cultural responsiveness. One agency characteristic emerged as a key characteristic associated with multiple domains of cultural responsiveness: the percentage of total clients who are refugees within an annual period was positively associated with agency values and practices, agency sta ffing and programmatic practices, and interagency collaboration and outreach. However, the strength of these correlations only ranges from 0.296 to 0.347. Nearly every cultural competence domain was highly correlated with each other. Please see Table 3 for additional details.


**Table 3.** Pearson Correlations among Agency Characteristics and Domains of Agency Cultural Responsiveness.

Note: \* indicates statistical significance at the *p* < 0.05 level; \*\* indicates statistical significance at the *p* < 0.01 level.

### *Soc. Sci.* **2020**, *9*, 176
