Abstract:

This conference will present the importance of collaborative work within a collaborative project about computer literacy, health and healthcare between the Faculty of Nursing Sciences at Laval University (Quebec, Canada), and the Reference service in perinatal care for migrant women in Quebec. (SRPFIQ), a community organization that works with pregnant women.

The importance of the perinatal service lies not only in the follow-up of immigrant families having socioeconomic struggles throughout the perinatal and postpartum process, but also in the humanitarian understanding of the cultural transformation of these families as they continue to live in Quebec. At the same time, these services create communal spaces where the immigrant mothers can come out of their isolation and hang out with other moms, offering them the emotional support they need to go through the process of adapting to new, welcoming environments. With their team of relay mothers, the project has the goal of creating a link between the reality of migrant families and the concerns of the health sector.

After 2020, as the pandemic evolved, community centers began to adapt to a new reality where the use of the internet and social networks started to be a critical characteristic of their service offer.

The SRPFIQ has adapted to the current situation by creating a space that allows immigrant women to have access to all needed information about perinatal process, post-partum, and general health. The organization has been researching digital communication alternatives such as the use of information and communication technology (ICT), allowing the SRPFIQ to be in constant communication with the mothers in case they cannot see each other face to face. However, its digital shift faces important challenges as, most migrant families live in vulnerable conditions, and many clients are newcomers in Quebec and are unaware of the local organizations that would help in aspects as healthcare, education, and employment, as well as to how they can access these services with the use of the internet.

In 2021, the SRPFIQ began a collaborative project with the Faculty of Nursing Sciences at Laval University, funded through the Engagement program of the Quebec Research Funds, to support immigrant mothers in their learning of using digital tools. The objective of this project is to help migrant mothers who come contact the referral service for perinatal help as a significant number of mothers are currently facing a big challenge, which is the lack of digital literacy.

This project builds on an interdisciplinary work with the community organization in order to introduce them to methods in order to conduct participatory research around the concept of digital health literacy and develop intervention strategies that are in phase with migrant mothers’ needs.

In this way, the collaborative work of these two organizations will allow us to provide answers to the issue of digital health literacy and, at the same time, will train the team at SRPFIQ on research methods to create a lasting effect on the targeted population. We hope to ensure that immigrant women do not experience isolation and loneliness by facilitating digital adaptation, letting them become more autonomous, and helping them to acquire the knowledge required to adapt to their new community, the Quebec society, and to self-actualize.

Keywords:

Computer literacy, Pregnant immigrant women, Quebec, Canada.