| Strengthening
Refugee Families Program
Administering Organization
Catholic Social Services
Immigration and Refugee Services of Central and Northern Arizona
Program Objectives and Unique
Needs Addressed
This program includes
three projects (Refugee Marriage Education, Relationship Intelligence
and Intergenerational Education) that offer educational, social,
culturally, and linguistically appropriate workshops designed
to promote the importance of strong, healthy family units. Strengthening
Refugee Families takes a strengths based approach to integrating
U.S. practices and customs into refugee homes and communities
while preserving homeland cultures. The SRFP helps families better
understand the many challenges they face during resettlement,
for example: role reversal, gender issues, and daily household
issues. This program offers educational, social, culturally, and
linguistically appropriate workshops designed to teach healthy
family functioning.
Program Description
The Refugee Marriage
Education Program (adapted from the Prevention and Relationship
Enhancement Program, PREP®, model) seeks to enhance and promote
healthy relationships. The program provides opportunities to develop
communication skills that help people to develop and encourage
happy and healthy relationships in all areas of their lives: with
spouses, children, extended family members, and within their community.
Relationship Intelligence,
as defined by Richard Panzer, the founder of “Free Teens”
(2003), is a review of ten curricula for teens on marriage and
relationships. These curricula focus on relationship building,
conflict resolution, and character development. The four sequential
program lessons (Relationships, Personal Leadership, Interpersonal
relationships, and Community Leadership) orient teens’ behavior
towards their future roles as husbands, wives, fathers, mothers,
and community leaders. The SRFP use of Relationship Intelligence
has focused on parent-youth workshops using parent-grams or facilitating
interactions during presentation scripts.
The Intergenerational
Education Project (IEP) was developed as a continuation of the
"Refugee Marriage Education Program" in order to utilize
the strengths of extended refugee families. IEP is a cross-generational
education project uniting different generations through dialogues
and shared stories. It comprehensively relates issues of relationship
skills and character development, defines gender roles in a family
constellation, and addresses rites of passage. Different sessions
focus on:
- Elderly and Youth
Mentoring Groups
- Parent-to-child
relationship issues
- Mother-to-daughter
Focus Groups and cultural links
Resource Materials Used in Program
Two main curricula are
being utilized: The Refugee Marriage Education Program (RMEP)
and The Relationship Intelligence (RQ).
The Refugee Family
Enrichment Program has developed a Family Dynamics Assessment,
which is used to foster communication between members in a family.
This tool identifies the individual strengths in each family member
and how each member contributes to a stronger family unit. (For
example, the assessment would ask an elderly family member how
sharing their experience or stories might assist refugee youth
and children in a new environment.)
Groups Served by Program
The SRFP serves refugee,
entrant and asylee families in Phoenix and the immediate surrounding
area. These local refugee communities include persons from Asia,
the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean, and Africa-with African
refugees comprising the majority of the population we serve.
Program Funding
This program is funded
through two sources: (1) the US Conference of Catholic Bishops'
Strengthening Refugee Families and Marriages Program, which is
supported by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, US Department
of Health & Human Services, and (2) the Arizona Department
of Economic Security, through the State Refugee Coordinator's
office.
Program Staffing and Required
Staff Training
Program staff have been
formally trained in the RQ model and PREP model for direct delivery
of the modified PREP program (Refugee Marriage Education Program).
The Coordinator of the program has the language and cultural diversity
to serve a larger group of refugee populations within the community.
The SRFP uses several
interns (generally from the schools of Social Work and Gerontology)
from Arizona State University.
Program Evaluation
SRFP is evaluated in
two ways. First, a satisfaction survey is administered quarterly
to a sample of program participants. In addition to using these
results for on-going program improvement, these results are also
compared to participant satisfaction with similar programs.
Second, to measure
outcomes (changes in knowledge, attitude and behavior), a single
subject design method is used to collect and measure outcomes
for individual families through pre-intervention and post-intervention
measures, whereby a baseline is established and progress is then
measured at the end of the program.
Defining Program Success
The program has generated
an active youth project which has received great compliments from
parents. It has created a youth and elderly support system, which
has fostered open dialogue. The SRFP is successful if participants
are able to increase their communication and problem-solving skills,
while decreasing the amount of familial conflict. The program
will be successful if it is able to maintain a coalition to address
the enormous needs of sustaining healthy refugee families.
Program Additional Comments
SRFP encourages participant
evaluation for developing program goals.
- Initially, SRFP
conducted a needs assessment and set up a forum for feedback
to help design the program curriculum that would fit the cultural
background and specific needs of refugee families.
- The curriculum
is flexible and topics covered flow from the families’
needs.
- Families have a
choice of various programs that best fits their interests and
current life circumstances (parent, youth, married, widowed).
- An intergenerational
component has been added at the request of different ethnic
communities to compensate for the loss of grandparent-grandchild
relationships, considered essential to many ethic communities.
Program Outcomes
- Improved family
cohesion through increased communication skills
- Increased public
awareness regarding refugees in the Phoenix area
- Increased public
awareness and commitment to the development and sustaining of
healthy marriages
- Increased number
of facilitators trained as healthy family educators throughout
the refugee communities
- Increased number
of mentor couples within the community that will assist, support,
and encourage new arriving refugee couples
- Involvement of
both parents in raising children
- Involvement of
elderly in the refugee family education program
Other Key Elements
SRFP models
relationship building and partnerships within the community by
working with neighbors, volunteers, parishes, and other community
structures.
- SRFP works with
other refugee resettlement agencies, national voluntary agencies,
ethnic organizations, schools, churches, hospitals, and the
larger community in general to better serve and support refugee
children and families.
- Volunteers are
available to teach refugees ESL classes on an individual basis,
share employment resources and provide transportation to and
from job interviews.
- SRFP offers cross-cultural
sessions on family values and laws.
Program Contact
Jeanne F. Nizigiyimana,
Coordinator
Strengthening Refugee Families and Marriages
Catholic Social Service
1825 West Northern Ave.
Phoenix, AZ 85021
(602) 997-6105
JNizigiyimana@cssaz.org
Program Dates
This program began in
2003; it is still operating. |
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