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Abstract
The increasing number of undocumented African immigrants in America has led to more services being provided by immigrant-serving nonprofit organizations. However, research rarely focuses on immigrant-servicing nonprofit organizations, especially those that provide support for undocumented African immigrants. Because of this limited research into the experiences of nonprofit administrative experiences, a generic qualitative inquiry was conducted to answer the research question: “What were nonprofit organization administrative staff’s experiences of accessing community health resources for undocumented African immigrants from 2017 to 2022?” Ten practitioners who have worked with undocumented African immigrants for up to five years were interviewed. Data for this study were collected through semi-structured interviews. The participants responded to 10 open-ended interview questions. Thereafter, the responses from the participants were proofread and transcribed. After that, the information was coded and analyzed using thematic analysis. Four major themes were revealed in the practitioners’ experiences in accessing community health resources for undocumented African immigrants: (a) Inequitable access to healthcare (Subthemes: Policy limited practitioner’s ability to help clients, Collaborations with private health centers to help clients, Building empathetic relationship with clients); (b) Cultural barriers created challenges for practitioners (Subthemes: Language limited practitioners ability to help clients, Clients’ religious loyalty created challenges for practitioners, Clients’ food preferences created challenges for practitioners); (c) Organizational emotional support (Subthemes: Organizations provided mental health support to practitioners and Emotional support enabled the practitioners coped with stress); (d) Individual emotional support (Subthemes: Flexible work schedule helped practitioners coped with stress, Family provided support for practitioners, and Practitioners engaged in recreational activities as self-care). The research findings showed that practitioners built collaborative relationships with diverse community organizations, local government authorities, individuals, professionals, and philanthropists to access community health resources for their clients. Additional conclusions are that nonprofit organizational management and practitioners focused on their coping mechanisms by providing mental health support and engaging in recreational activities to reduce the impact of stress and burnout.