Table 4.

Example quotes for thematic domains 5 and 6.

Theme 5: Cultural brokers give practical support to address root causes: connecting, navigating, information brokering, fostering cultural continuity and autonomy
Thematic domain	Example quotes
Flexible, wrap-around care	But like weekends, weekdays, it doesn’t matter. I do make sure that they know that I work from nine to five but we go back to we’re with human need and you don’t know. Like I have received phone calls at three a.m. in the morning and I feel so bad because I know there are children involved and you pick up and you never know if it’s family violence or you had an accident or you’re in the middle of the street.
Basic needs	Our work is holistic …if they don’t have a family doctor, we can help to have a family doctor. If they don’t have food, we apply for the Food Bank. If they don’t have clothes or basic needs, we help them. If they are looking for housing, we apply for housing for them. We also can go with them on the consultation when they go to their doctor. Most of the times I accompany them because I feel like okay, I told them that they could so I’m coming with them to see if they actually receive the support or they actually took the time to go through all the documentation because sometimes you see a bunch of papers and you don’t want to do anything, especially when it says photocopy, print and fax. I don’t have a photocopy here. I don’t know how to print and neither have money to fax and so I go step by step and I assess the family and I usually target whatever is needed the most at the moment. It is usually food. Is usually food and diapers and milk and … Is the first thing. Like to survive you need that.
Existential needs: companionship, fostering social connection, fostering independence	My role there was to support her, guide her and hold her in a sense,(…) I was there to kind of remind her that she was still a human being that needed to be okay.(…) So my role was to support her, to be very compassionate and unconditional support, you know(…) I tried to like let her understand that she had support. She had support here. There were people that were looking after her, caring for her and God was with her and then we go back to all of what she believed in and she was able to somehow change a few things but it’s the culture. It’s what is expected from them, right? You know, when we do the parenting groups, we talk about health; that is one topic. We talk about life, stress, because newcomers, when they come here they have a lot of challenges.(…) So holistically, as a Broker, we are helping those to minimize to go to mental health because if we didn’t take care of that, these people they would go down to (have) mental health (challenges). If they go to (have) the mental health (challenges), obesity will come because they don’t know what they are eating. And so part of our work is not just filling out forms, right? It’s connecting families with others. You know, showing them the city, showing them around, connecting them with other agencies where they can find the same or kind of like support that we provide so they don’t feel like they depend on me because I like to empower them and for them to go home and I will be happy to see them one day in the street, right?

Theme 6: Long-term, hands-on support for at-home management and healthy living
Long-term follow-up and supporting at-home management	The follow-up for us is not a day or two. Follow-up for us is a year or two. So they stick to us like crazy until the next day will come and until the next issue comes. They never leave us. That’s reality, I’m pretty sure. That’s good Brokers Sometimes when they have medication, I have to follow up with that medication, because you know some clients—they don’t read and write. They need reiteration, reinforcement. I take that role very seriously. So, yeah, and then educating her, supporting her emotionally, and also discussing with her diet too. Like, what are some foods that are cheap and that she can eat. That’s also my role. And then when moms with diabetes have, you know, also my role is making sure that she is following the appointments because our moms, sometimes they don’t adhere to the appointments. Checking that she is doing her sugar and, yes, the morning walk and all that. You know, it’s just general holistic discussion that we have to address this. What we are doing is a prevention. We don’t want an intervention later.(…)It is not easy for when you are talking about eating things. It is very hard, especially, people who are…if the mother is at home and cooking the food, it is different than the mother who is going to school or working two shifts or three shifts. That is another problem. It’s a challenge how to do it, when to do it, what to start, all that.
Supporting cultural continuity in alignment with at-home management	Like, at home, back home at night, all we eat was the red beans for supper instead of bread and all that. Yeah. That was rich, so we keep on reminding the families, you know, what different kind of food that we had and was really so rich. Very rich. And we can do it here. Or maybe our children don’t like it because we don’t cook it often. It’s a culture that’s put behind.
Fostering peer-support fostering independence	We see a lot of change because when the ladies come into our program, mothers and young mothers and new mothers or newcomers who have teenagers and little ones, we talk about that. It’s not something that we are saying that you have to do or must do it. It is something awareness we are talking about ourselves and to remind ourselves(…)But teaching them because some of the parents we were talking about, how they can bring their…. They said, ‘ok you guys, you said not to use this sugar, don’t use this oil, don’t use the fried things. What are we going to send with the kids to school because we don’t know anything’. That’s what we created, our own recipe and saying, you know, this is what you can send with the kids. This is what you can do.
Brokers’ need for partnership with primary care to support their role	We invite Dietitians. I have done this many, many times for many years. Dietitians would talk about what is the sugar content(…)Then people are like, ‘whoa…’ you know, (Canadian coffee shop chain) ‘whoa…’they have this reaction. So those ones are really very…effective…although the thing is, you can only find some Dietitians that are available on Saturdays.