The Lived Experiences and Insights of Korean American Social Service Professionals in Korean American Nonprofit Community Agencies in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background and Purpose: Korean Americans (KAs) could experience challenges in accessing social services due to English language and cultural barriers. Korean American community-based social service agencies often are the hub for KAs to solve problems while connecting them with resources. Yet, a dearth of research exists that examines the experiences of KA social/human service professionals and the functions of Korean ethnic-specific organizations, especially during the pandemic. To fill the gap, we adopted narrative inquiry to examine the lived experiences of KA social service professionals working at Korean ethnic-specific organizations. Through the eyes of the professionals, we explored the COVID-19 pandemic impact on KA community and KA organizations’ everyday social service delivery.

Methods: Study participants were recruited using purposive sampling from five non-profit KA community social service agencies in the metropolitan areas (i.e., Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington D.C.). Sixteen bilingual KA professionals who provided direct services to KAs during the pandemic participated in the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted on Zoom videos either in Korean or English, depending on the professionals’ preference. The interview transcripts were analyzed using the framework analysis and inductive thematic analysis, in which researchers identify themes, index codes, and discover patterns and connections of themes/codes across cases. To enhance trustworthiness of the study findings, two researchers independently coded the interviews and then engaged in discussions to further analyze the data until an agreement was reached.

Findings: The professionals were mostly women (69%) with the mean age of 47 years old (SD=10.11). Several professionals reported financial hardships KAs underwent and increased mental health issues among children during the pandemic. The pandemic amplified KAs’ challenges in accessing social/health services as most providers switched to noncontact-based operations. In such cases, many professionals reported witnessing their clients experiencing delayed or no services due to cumbersome steps to be connected to interpreters. The pandemic added new roles to KA organizations to meet clients’ needs. For example, unlike pre-pandemic, an agency that focused more on human rights advocacy work began involving more on providing direct services as KAs needed immediate assistance with economic hardships. While KA professionals shared their intrinsic rewards helping KA communities, they reported exhaustion from intense work during the pandemic. Some professionals reported receiving calls days and nights during the pandemic as many KAs had financial and health crises but there were few service organizations that could assist them in Korean language or were familiar with Korean culture. The professionals in the study also reported new opportunities the pandemic created. Korean American professional network has been expanded as they collaborated in distributing limited safety measures (e.g., masks) and sharing COVID-19 safety protocols in the KA community.

Conclusion and Implications: This study highlights the crucial roles of KA professionals and their organizations in helping the KA community with various issues. The findings imply the need for improved language interpretation services for KA. Furthermore, KA professionals reaching out to social service organizations that are not Korean-ethnic specific is important to educate them about KA culture and the community’s needs.