A Group Ends Immigration Work and a Community Reorganizes

December 15, 2010; Source: News & Record | NPQ is beginning to see the re-organization of services between agencies and this story is a good example. In the Triad, Lutheran Family Services had been providing resettlement services to refugees since 1979 but began to run into what sound like program quality problems last year and it stopped accepting new refugee placements in February, ended its resettlement services in June and its legal services in September. But the local network of community organizations has pulled together quickly to adopt caseloads and pieces of that program. “I think the community has reacted beautifully,” one nonprofit leader commented, adding that community members have been meeting for more than a year to improve services to the area’s refugees. They expect that a full plan reorganizing those services will be complete by January. “As a result of that, I think were going to have a stronger safety net for refugees than we’ve ever had.”—Ruth McCambridge