Switchboard Blog
Switchboard’s blog posts offer a wide range of insights on the newcomer experience, including practical tips for navigating the resettlement process, resource lists tailored to community needs, case studies about relevant programs, engaging stories of successful integration, and more.
FEATURED BLOG

Challenging Community Conversations: Three Tips to Build Understanding and Support
Across the resettlement network, staff and partners are noticing an uptick in community questions about newcomers. Many people want clarity about who is arriving and how local services support them. These questions usually stem from uncertainty or limited information. When people have few opportunities to interact with newcomers or understand how resettlement works, conversations can…
Refine Search
This blog post accompanies a new toolkit developed by the Urban Institute as part of the Switchboard program: Data-Driven State Refugee Programs: Lessons from the field on managing, analyzing, and using data to improve refugee programs. What challenges do states face in tracking Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) program outcomes? States face a number of…
- Charles Shipman
This blog post accompanies a new toolkit developed by the Urban Institute as part of the Switchboard program: Data-Driven State Refugee Programs: Lessons from the field on managing, analyzing, and using data to improve refugee programs. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) recently delivered a series of webinar trainings on its updated ORR-6 report, which…
- Jaime Costigan
This blog post was written by Jessica Shakesprere and Ian Hecker of the Urban Institute. It accompanies a new toolkit developed by the Urban Institute as part of the Switchboard program: Data-Driven State Refugee Programs: Lessons from the field on managing, analyzing, and using data to improve refugee programs. Many states that welcome refugees lack…
- Urban Institute
Connecting clients with jobs is essential to their self-sufficiency, but it’s not the only way to promote economic security and success. Economic mobility and long-term integration can be improved by establishing broader economic assets such as a credit score, home equity, checking/savings accounts, post-secondary education, retirement savings, and access to tax services. To learn more,…
- Carrie Thiele
Have you been thinking about strengthening your monitoring and evaluation (M&E) processes? It can be challenging to plan out who on your team will be involved in collecting, entering, quality-checking, analyzing, and reporting on your program data, not to mention using the data to make program decisions! M&E plans are intended to guide monitoring and…
- Switchboard
Did you know that July 30th is World Day against Trafficking in Persons? The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime chose “responding to the trafficking of children and young people” and “highlighting the importance of government action,” as the focus areas of 2019’s World Day. To mark this day, Switchboard is highlighting anti-trafficking resources…
- Switchboard