LEWISTON — A group of city officials, residents and others will study what new immigrants and refugees need and how to help them settle more successfully.

“One thing that’s apparent is that people don’t always know what they don’t know,” City Councilor Kristen Cloutier said. “When you come into a culture with no knowledge about what it’s like, you don’t know where you are supposed to go to find information. One of the big questions that new Mainers have is just that: Where do I go to access services, like registering my car?”

Called the Immigrant and Refugee Integration and Policy Development Working Group, Cloutier said she expects it to begin meeting in August.

“We’ve heard from folks about immigrant and refugee issues about what can be done helping with language issues, finding jobs and those kinds of things,” Cloutier said. “I just want to take a look at that and see where we are and what we need to move them forward.”

Mayor Bob Macdonald appointed Cloutier, Councilor Isobel Golden and 21 Lewiston residents to the group. They include recent immigrants as well as city staff and police officers, representatives from Healthy Androscoggin, the YWCA, University of Maine, state legislators, the Somali Bantu Community Association and community members.

The group will study what services new immigrants need to thrive in the community and report back to the City Council in June 2017.

Cloutier said she expects the group will set its own tone and come with its own set of tasks.

“I don’t want to go into it with my preconceived ideas about what the needs are because I’m not a member of that community,” she said. “We have a lot of organizations who’ve been working at these issues for a long time but there might be places that overlap between them. And since there is such limited funding, we need to access that funding in smart ways.”

[email protected]