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| BRYCS EMAIL
ALERTS |
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you like to hear about new BRYCS resources and Web
site features each month, by email? Just send an email
to info at brycs.org
and tell us you would like to subscribe to the BRYCS
Bulletin email alert. |
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Promising Practices
for Refugee-Serving Programs
In this month’s Sidebar Series on “Promising
Practices,” BRYCS highlights two programs
that promote and foster participation by refugee
parents in the education of their children.
The Manchester,
New Hampshire Public Schools
involve refugee parents in a number of
ways. They have Family Understanding Nights, refugee
parent panels, cultural competency trainings for
teachers, soccer leagues, and more! If you need
any concrete ideas for how to engage your district’s
refugee families, be sure to read this.
World Relief
Chicago’s Pambazuka Project
offers comprehensive services for refugee
families with children of any age – from babies
to high schoolers. The Family Literacy Program teaches
parents literacy skills and provides them with support
as they learn how to be their children’s first
teachers. For families with older children, they
are provided with assistance in developing their
relationship with the school through community liaisons
and more.
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BRYCS will continue to develop our “promising
practices” series in the coming months as we
share the innovative work being accomplished by programs
serving refugee children and their families throughout
the United States. Please be sure to visit BRYCS'
Targeted Resources for Program
Managers, where you will find a link to the complete
list of Program Descriptions in the Clearinghouse.
If you have a program to share, or are aware of
any creative efforts towards enhancing services
for refugee children, please contact BRYCS with
the details. We want to recognize and profile these
efforts, so that others can learn from them. We
are also interested in hearing from you about what
tools, resources or mechanisms that you would like
to learn more about. Email
info at brycs.org or call 202-541-3232 to speak
with our Outreach and Information Coordinator.
You may also submit
your program using our Web form.
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Bridging Refugee Youth
and Children’s Services (BRYCS) is a national
technical assistance project working to broaden the scope
of information and collaboration among service providers -
in order to strengthen services to refugee youth, children
and their families. Read more about our mission and services.
Who is a refugee?
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SPRING
2007 SPOTLIGHT
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In our culture [Somali], you
send the kids to school and they are the schools’
responsibility...Sometimes when the teachers have
a problem understanding the mothers, I help them
by translating for them. The first thing the mother
will ask is, “What is she complaining for?
Isn’t that her job? Isn’t she the
one who is supposed to fix the child? Why is she
telling me?” [1]
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Many teachers and administrators across
the United States are confused and concerned when they
host parent-teacher conferences, "Open Houses,"
or other events for parents and find that few of their
refugee parents attend. Sometimes, repeated failed efforts
result in teachers and administrators concluding that
the refugee parents in their district "just don't
care." [2]
Yet, that is rarely the case. Research consistently
shows that refugee parents do care about their children's
education a great deal. Yet, as the above quote demonstrates,
there are often a number of cultural issues at play. To
learn more about this topic, read the full Spring 2007
Spotlight on Involving
Refugee Parents in their Children's Education. In
addition, see the list of highlighted
resources, which provides the most up-to-date and
useful resources on this topic available for free download.
To see any of the past Spotlights
or lists of highlighted resources by topic, please visit
Resources by Topic.
1
- Nderu, E.N. (2005). “Parental Involvement
in Education: A Qualitative Study of Somali Immigrants
in the Twin Cities Area.” Proquest Information
and Learning Company. UMI Microform 3160164.
2 - Lightfoot, D. (2004).
“’Some Parents Just Don’t Care:
Decoding the Meanings of Parental Involvement in
Urban Schools.” Urban Education, 39 (1), 91-107.
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WHAT'S
NEW - APRIL 2007 |
ANNOUNCEMENTS
BRYCS and our partners in the Migration
and Child Welfare National Network (MCWNN)
invite you to join us at the upcoming National
Child Abuse and Neglect Conference in Portland,
Oregon on April 16-21. The MCWNN will be presenting
a mini-plenary session on April 20 where we will highlight
practice, policy, and research issues of concern to
child welfare professionals working with refugee and
immigrant children and their families. For more information,
please contact info
at brycs.org. We hope to see you there! |
Migration:
A Critical Issue for Child Welfare is
the report from a roundtable discussion held in July 2006
by the American Humane Association and Loyola University
at Chicago that provides an overview of the issues in the
field and recommendations.
Two New Videos Available! A New
Day: Refugee Families in the United States and Be
Who You Are: Refugee Youth in the United States are
two new videos about refugee youth and their families
from the Center
for Applied Linguistics (CAL). BRYCS was invited by
CAL to contribute to these videos, which were created
to provide cultural orientation overseas and cover topics
such as family adjustment, discipline, school life, home
life, and learning English. To order the VHS or the DVD,
visit the CAL
Web site.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launches a new
national program aimed at bringing school-connected mental
health services to children in need, with emphasis on immigrant
and refugee families: Recognizing the unique mental
health challenges facing growing numbers of immigrant and
refugee children, the RWJF is funding a new national program
to reduce emotional and behavioral health problems among
school children in low-income, immigrant and refugee families.
The program, Caring Across Communities: Addressing Mental
Health Needs of Diverse Children and Youth, has awarded
$4.5 million in grants to 15 projects in communities across
the country. ORR’s T.A. providers, BRYCS and the Refugee
Mental Health Program based at SAMHSA, have provided technical
assistance to this initiative. For a list of the sites,
see the News
Release.
EVENTS
We Are Here: (Im)migrant Youth at the Center of Social
Activism & Critical Educational Scholarship will
be held in Los Angeles on May 3. This symposium, by the
Spencer Fellows at UCLA’s
Graduate School of Education, hopes to serve as an interactive
forum to showcase and discuss critical perspectives in research,
teaching, and advocacy concerning immigrant youth. For more
information on submissions and/or attendance, please contact:
immigration.conference@gmail.com.
CLINIC’s
10th Annual Convening, Building Bridges, Not Walls,
will be held in Arizona from May 9-11. The Convening
will offer workshops and plenary sessions, designed to offer
practical information on selected topics of interest to
immigration practitioners. (Description summarized from
the website.)
The 2nd
Annual Conference on Unaccompanied Immigrant Children,
hosted by the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, will be
held May 17-19 in Miami, Florida. The conference will discuss
immigration relief and advocacy for unaccompanied immigrant
children.
Preventing
Lead Poisoning Among Refugee Children: A Midwest Regional
Training Workshop will take place May 18 in Chicago
at Heartland
Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights. This workshop
is for Refugee Service Providers (VOLAGs and MAAs), Refugee
Health Program Staff and Medical Providers, Lead Poisoning
Prevention Staff, CBOs, and Other Interested Persons.
The 2007
Survivors of Torture Empowerment Program (STEP) Conference
will be in Washington, DC on May 24-26. Boat People S.O.S.
will be hosting this event, which will unite Vietnamese
torture survivors to promote access to health, mental health
and support services. The Conference will also offer training
to caregivers, service providers, and government officials
on cultural competency and best practices.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s
2007
Annual Convention will be held in Washington DC from
June 8-10. This year’s convention, Toward a More
Perfect Union, will continue the legacy of the largest
annual gathering of Arab Americans in the United States’
capital. (Description summarized from the website.)
FUNDING
ING’s
Unsung Heroes program gives awards for innovative classroom
projects. All full-time K-12 education professionals or
classified staff employed by an accredited U.S. K-12 public
or private school located in the United States are eligible
to apply. The deadline to apply is April 30.
The
Family and Youth Services Bureau is accepting applications
for the Basic
Center Program (BCP). BCPs must address runaway and
homeless youth problems, as well as provide a safe and appropriate
shelter, and individual, family, and group counseling as
appropriate. Faith-based and community organizations are
eligible to apply. Applications are due by May 16.
Faith-based and community organizations are eligible
to receive federal funds to provide extra academic help
to students in certain schools that need improvement. Organizations
receive a fee-for-service through a contract with local
school districts. For more information about initiatives
in your state, contact your state
coordinator. In addition, visit the Center for Faith-Based
and Community Initiatives’ Web
site on this topic for more information.
Target
Corporation is offering grants for early childhood,
arts, and family violence prevention programs in communities
with Target stores. Nonprofits, schools, libraries and
public agencies are eligible to apply. The deadline to
apply is May 31.
The RGK
Foundation is offering grants for community, education,
and health projects, including human services, community
improvement, abuse prevention and youth development/educational
enrichment programs. Non-profits must first submit letters
of inquiry. The next deadline is June 1.
FOR REFUGEE YOUTH
Becoming
American: Teenagers and Immigration is a traveling
exhibition that highlights the experiences of teenage
immigrants in America. The tour began on March 10 in New
York City. Visit the Web site for the entire tour
itinerary.
The U.S.
Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and
Cultural Affairs is accepting applications for its
Youth Leadership Program in Indonesia,
Venezuela,
Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Nicaragua . The program
will enable teenagers and adult educators to participate
in intensive, thematic, month-long projects. The deadline
for the Indonesia program is April 26. The deadline for
the other programs is April 20.
National
& Global Youth Service Day is April 20-22. National
& Global Youth Service Day supports youth on a life-long
path of service and civic engagement, and educates the
public, the media, and elected officials about the role
of youth as community leaders. Register your service project
on the website. (Description summarized from the website.)
RESOURCES
Integration
Strengthening
Immigrant Integration, from The Colorado Trust,
encourages conversations among community members who might
otherwise never cross paths. The article highlights the
organization, Dialogues, and its efforts to promote exchange
among immigrant and non-immigrant community members.
Citizenship,
Migration, and Social Integration in Sweden: A Model for
Europe? observes the development of the very
concept of citizenship. It examines the redefinition and
re-evaluation of this concept within the context of Sweden.
(Author’s Abstract)
Refugee
Resettlement in Metropolitan America examines
where refugees come from and where they land, linking
refugee resettlement to metropolitan areas. The article
highlights differences across localities and addresses
the implications for service provision and demographic
change within receiving areas. (Description summarized
from the website.)
One
Out of Five U.S. Children is Living in an Immigrant Family,
from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, highlights the 15.7
million children in immigrant families currently residing
in the United States. Eighty percent of these children were
born in the U.S. and are entitled to the same support other
U.S. citizen children receive, but are at greater risk of
growing up without the opportunities they need to succeed.
(Description taken from the web site.)
Overcoming
Language Barriers: Solutions for Law Enforcement
describes ways in which law enforcement practitioners
are looking to improve contact with people who cannot
speak or understand English well. The report offers a
range of practical steps and strategies that agencies
can adopt.
Child Welfare
Unaccompanied
Alien Children: Policies and Issues, a CRS Report
for Congress, highlights the numerous arguments and issues
regarding unaccompanied alien children. The article examines
the issues from the perspective of child welfare advocates
as well as immigration security advocates.
What
Makes Parenting Programs Work in Disadvantaged Areas?,
from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, explores factors that
influenced the effectiveness of a parenting intervention
in a poor, multiethnic part of Britain, which includes many
African immigrants.
The Kinship
Care Legal Resource Center was recently launched by
The American Bar Association Center on Children and the
Law. It addresses the needs of the significant number of
children living in families headed by grandparents or other
kin and is intended to serve as a toolkit for attorneys,
judges, and other child-serving practitioners working with
kinship families.
Is
Kinship Care Good for Kids? is a fact sheet on
kinship care from the Center for Law and Social Policy.
It provides research citations for how we know the value
of having children raised by grandparents and other relatives
when parents are unable to care for them.
The Nexus of Youth Homelessness and the Child Welfare
System (http://www.urban.org/Pressroom/thursdayschild/feb2007.cfm),
summarizes a forum co-hosted by the Urban Institute and
the University of Chicago's Chapin Hall Center for Children,
which discussed reducing youth homelessness. The forum focused
on two groups: youth who age out of the child welfare system
and those who never qualify for its supports.
Child
Rights and Emergencies, from the Children Rights
Information Network, includes multiple short articles
highlighting different issues of child rights in crises
and emergencies. It includes information on risks that
women and girls face in conflict situations, psychosocial
support, and youth-led programs.
Pathways
to Homelessness among Caribbean Youth Aged 15-25 in Toronto
seeks to ascertain patterns, trends and pathways related
to episodes of homelessness among Caribbean youth. (Description
taken from the Web site.)
Families
Promoting
Healthy Families in Your Community: 2007 Resource Packet
offers strategies for service providers to strengthen
families by promoting key protective factors that prevent
child abuse and neglect. Tip sheets to share with parents
are available in both English and Spanish.
Lessons
from Family Strengthening Interventions: Learning from Evidence-Based
Practice aims to help educators, service providers,
and local evaluators in schools, intermediary and community-based
organizations, and social service agencies become more effective
by highlighting the best program and evaluation practices
of family-strengthening intervention programs. (Author’s
Abstract)
Locking
Up Family Values: The Detention of Immigrant Families,
by the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and
Children and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services,
examines issues of family unity and the provision of legal,
medical and psychosocial services to families who are
in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security.
The authors review the utility and appropriateness of
family detention, and recommend systemic changes.
Youth
Report
on Somali Youth Issues from the City of Minneapolis
Department of Civil Rights looks at crime and gang activity
in the Somali youth community in Minneapolis, identifies
difficulties faced by the Somali community and ways these
difficulties contribute to increases in crime committed
by its youth, and makes recommendations on how the City
of Minneapolis can work with the Somali community and
other agencies to address these issues.
The
Art of Community: Creativity at the Crossroads of Immigrant
Cultures and Social Services provides tangible
examples of the impact of arts and culture on the resettlement
process. Some of the programs highlighted describe the
positive development of refugee youth through the use
of art.
U.S.
Labor Department to Open Three New Job Corps Centers
details U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao's announcement
that Manchester, New Hampshire; Riverton, Wyoming; and Ottumwa,
Iowa, will each be the site of a new Job Corps center.
Issues
Confronting Newcomer Youth in Canada: Alternative Models
for a National Youth Host Program describes a
study that aims to develop three models of service delivery
for youth within Host and Host-like programs. The models
generated focused on schooling of young people, especially
those potentially at-risk; and a model that aims to provide
a ‘second chance’ to newcomer youth who had
experienced multiple risk factors.
Understanding
and Facilitating the Youth Mentoring Movement,
from the Society for Research in Child Development, reviews
current scientific knowledge on the topic of youth mentoring,
including what is known about relationships and programs,
and their interface with organizations and institutions.
(Author’s abstract)
Education
The Office
of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is
offering an online truancy
reduction tool kit for communities interested in instituting
a
truancy reduction program. The tool kit covers such
topics as truancy’s extent, causes, and connections
to dropping out of school and delinquency, as well as
lessons learned from the evaluation of truancy reduction
programs.
The East-West Center's Travel
and Teach: Cambodia and Thailand program offers
U.S. teachers the opportunity to develop meaningful real-life
connections to world cultures, religions, economies, ecologies,
and more through experiential professional learning. The
program runs from July 1 to July 25. Application deadline
is April 15, 2007.
Helping
Your Child Succeed in School: An Education Handbook for
Parents and Caregivers of Children and Youth in the Foster
Care System aims to give parents and caregivers
of children and youth in the child welfare system a better
understanding of the rights of the child or youth in their
care, as well as the rights of themselves. The handbook
also offers information to help parents and caregivers
better understand the education system. (Description taken
from the website.)
Rethinking
High School Graduation Rates and Trends, reviews
the available data on high school completion and dropout
rates and their historical trends. The study found that
high school completion has been increasing and dropouts
declining for over 40 years. The report addresses how
immigrants are counted and the impact of immigration on
graduation rates.
Who's
Counting? Who's Counted? Understanding High School Graduation
Rates, explores the existence of different graduation
rate formulas and statistics, addresses why states report
them differently, discusses the limitations and benefits
of each method, and defines policy changes needed to address
these issues. Like the publication above, it also touches
on immigrant issues.
The
Current Status of Mental Health in Schools: A Policy and
Practice Analysis states that efforts to enhance
interventions for children’s mental health must
involve schools, and that those interested in improving
education and transforming the mental health system in
the U.S.A. are taking a new look at schools. (Description
taken from the web site.)
Program Development
Culturally
Appropriate Programming: What do we Know about Evidence
Based Programs for Culturally and Ethnically Diverse Youth
and their Families? summarizes the growing body
of research that provides insights into the cultural appropriateness
of evidence-based programs for the prevention of juvenile
delinquency and other youth problems.
The Evidence-Based Program Database (http://www.alted-mh.org/ebpd/)
is a compilation of quality government, academic, and non-profit
lists of evidence-based programs. It is meant for practitioners
in the health and human services, mental health, child and
family service, juvenile justice, and other social service
systems that seek to change youth behaviors. (Author’s
Abstract)
COMING SOON:
For May:
Visit www.brycs.org
for information on positive youth development and crime
prevention with refugee youth, which will include a Spotlight
article, Promising Practices, and a List of Highlighted
Resources.
New publications this year by BRYCS will
include:
An illustrated educational booklet for refugees about
parenting and U.S. child protection laws available for free
download, on a CD, and in hard copy.
Monthly articles with highlights from interviews with
refugee parents on their traditional parenting practices,
their challenges parenting in the U.S., and helpful suggestions.
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