| |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| BRYCS EMAIL
ALERTS |
| Would
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. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
REFUGEE PARENT INTERVIEWS
In order to gather first-hand accounts
of parenting and resettlement challenges
and successes, BRYCS staff are conducting
a series of interviews with refugee parents.
Each interview summary will be followed
by several discussion questions, so that
refugee serving agencies can use the interviews
as a staff development tool. A new interview
will be added monthly, so check back!
Interview
with Tou and Mee, Hmong Parents
|
|
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.
|
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.
|
|
|
|
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?
|
|
|
|
SPRING
2007 SPOTLIGHT
|
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]
|
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.
|
|
|
|
WHAT'S
NEW - FEBRUARY 2007 |
BRYCS and our partners
in the Migration and Child Welfare National Network
invite you to join us for a series of exciting events
on migration and child welfare at the upcoming
Child
Welfare League of America’s 2007 National Conference
in Washington, DC:
- Monday, February 26, 3:30-5:00 pm: The
Intersection of Migration and Child Welfare
panel discussion will highlight practice, policy,
and research issues of concern to child welfare
professionals working with immigrant children and
families.
- Tuesday, February 27, 5:00-7:00 pm: The
Migration and Child Welfare National Network
will host a reception [click
here for an invitation] for those who wish to
meet others working in this area or who just want
to learn more about this issue. This reception is
sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
- Wednesday, February 28, 8:30-12:00 noon:
Reaching Excellence in Serving Migrating Children,
Adoption and Foster Care super session,
will focus on delivering culturally competent child
welfare services. Immigrant and refugee youth leaders
will kick off this session by sharing their experiences
in foster care.
For more information or to RSVP, please contact info
at brycs.org. We hope to see you there!
|
EVENTS
The 16th
National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect will
be held in Portland, OR on April 16-21. BRYCS and our partners
in the Migration and Child Welfare National Network will
be presenting a mini-plenary session on April 20. Please
mark your calendars and look for more details on our Web
site in March and April.
Northwest
Conference on Celebrating Educational Opportunities for
Diverse Students will be April 27-29 in Seattle. The
Washington State School Directors' Association is joining
with the school board associations of Idaho, Nevada and
Oregon to put on this conference, which will present innovative
programs and strategies that have proven successful in strengthening
academic achievement across a variety of diverse student
groups.
Seven
Dimensions of Emotion: Integrating Biological, Clinical,
and Cultural Perspectives is a conference by the Foundation
for Psychocultural Research and UCLA on March 30-April 1,
2007 in Los Angeles. This interdisciplinary conference will
focus on seven emotions – fear, disgust, love, grief,
empathy, and hope – that are deeply embedded in human
biology, social life, and cultural environments. The conference
will highlight the areas of tension and points of interface
between emotion from the perspective of the brain versus
the perspective of culture.
FUNDING
Dollar
General Literacy Foundation is accepting applications
for adult and family literacy programs. Programs applying
for funding must have the following four components: adult
education instruction (adult basic education, GED preparation,
English for speakers of other languages); children's education;
parent and child together time (PACT); and parenting classes
that teach parents to be the primary teacher for their child.
Visit the Web
site for complete program information and application
procedures. The deadline is March 2, 2007.
Early
Childhood Care and Education Grants are available from
Rosie’s
For All Kids Foundation. Priority is given to projects
operated by experienced, community-based programs serving
children in low-income, major urban areas, where families
struggle to find affordable, high-quality early education
and care. The average amount given is $15,000 – 30,000.
Letters of Intent are accepted on a rolling basis.
The
Hitachi Foundation gives up to ten Yoshiyama
Awards each year to high school seniors from around
the United States, who have engaged in exemplary community
service and fostered long term community change. The Award
is accompanied by a gift of $5,000, dispensed over two years
and recipients may use the Award at their discretion. The
deadline is April 2.
Thinkquest
International 2007 invites students and teachers to
take part in collaborative projects to promote cross-cultural
learning by encouraging youth to team with peers in other
regions to build educational websites. The top ten teams
in each age division will receive laptops and $1,000 school
grants. In addition, the team that receives the Global Perspectives
Award will be awarded digital cameras. The deadline is April
16.
FOR REFUGEE YOUTH
Check out The
Illustrated Journey, a new project which is a project
bringing together refugee youth and comic book artists to
illustrate their stories. See here for a sampling
of the youth illustrations.
RESOURCES
Cultural Orientation
The Iowa Department of Public Health has many downloadable
resources for free, including a Diapering
Poster in English and Spanish, which may be appropriate
to use in Cultural Orientation classes with groups who are
unfamiliar with this practice or the way in which it is
done in America.
Integration
Second-Generation
Latinos in Nebraska: A First Look from the Migration
Policy Institute takes a look at Nebraska’s foreign-born
population. While the state has not always received as many
immigrants as the coasts, its foreign-born population grew
faster than that of any other Midwestern state between 1990
and 2000 – including many children. Most of the research
on second generation immigrants has been conducted in traditional
immigrant gateways, but this report begins to shed some
light on what immigrant incorporation and the second generation's
journey to socioeconomic adaptation may look like in the
country's heartland. (Description summarized from the Web
site.)
God
Grew Tired of Us is a new Hollywood film that follows
the resettlement of three young men uprooted as children
by the civil war in Sudan. This film, about the “Lost
Boys of Sudan,” won both the Grand Jury Prize and
the Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Listen
to the NPR
story about the film.
Child Welfare
Mutual
Self-Help Parent Support Groups in the Prevention of Child
Abuse and Neglect from the Ounce
of Prevention Fund of Florida, is now available. This
paper is based on the work of Circle of Parents and articulates
eight different justifications for why mutual self-help
parent support groups are an effective strategy for preventing
child abuse and neglect.
Child Care
The
Changing Landscape of Federal Child Welfare Financing
from the National
Conference of State Legislatures examines recent federal
legislation, which will have the effect of shifting more
of the cost of child welfare to the states and imposing
additional limits on state flexibility to spend federal
funds.
Who
are America’s Poor Children? by the National
Center for Children in Poverty states that the number
of children living in poverty increased by more than 11
percent between 2000 and 2005. Nearly 13 million American
children live in families with incomes below the federal
poverty level and as this brief indicates, having immigrant
parents increases a child’s chance of being poor.
Out of School Time
People,
Places and Possibilities: Integrating Mentoring and After-School
from the Forum for Youth Investment provides information
on the overlap between these similar types of initiatives.
Many after-school programs for immigrant and refugee children
include a mentoring component – read this short resource
on how to integrate the two, which includes program descriptions.
Finding
Resources to Support Workforce Development Services for
Youth from the Finance
Project focuses on helping youth make the transition
to adulthood. Workforce development programs can help youth
explore career options, build connections to the world of
work, and gain new technical and vocational skills during
school hours or during out-of-school time. These programs
are especially important for immigrant and refugee youth,
many of whom have limited formal education and enter the
workforce at an early age. (Description summarized from
the publication’s introduction.)
Education
National
Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems
is accepting applications for individualized technical assistance
on an open ended basis. The technical assistance requested
can be short or long term, and can focus on a variety of
activities, including curriculum review, professional development
and training, document review, strategic planning, improvement
plan development, data analysis and review, or evaluation
and research activities. The goal is to build the capacity
of states to develop culturally responsive educational systems.
Click here for the application.
(Description summarized from the Web site.)
An
Overview of Alternative Education from the Urban
Institute provides just that – an overview of what
alternative education is, the kinds of programs that exist,
outcomes, funding information, and relevant policies.
A
Toolkit for Hispanic Families is available from
the U.S. Department
of Education and was developed with guidance from over
1,800 Hispanic parents. In line with BRYCS’ current
Spotlight, this toolkit is a resource for Hispanic families
who wish to get more involved in their children’s
education.
Through The
Early College High School Initiative, small high schools
are developed from which students leave with a high school
diploma and a two-year Associate of Arts degree. Early College
High Schools focus on students for whom a smooth transition
into postsecondary education is now problematic: low-income
students, students of color, English Language learners,
and first-generation college goers. See if there is one
in your
area.
Program Development
Elements
of Effective Practice Toolkit from MENTOR/National
Mentoring Partnership, can help your program’s mentoring
program by providing tools for design and planning, management,
program operations, and evaluation. It is available in English
and Spanish.
Logic
Models in Out of School Time Programs: What are They and
Why are They Important? by Child
Trends describes the key components of a logic model,
identifies why logic models are useful, discusses different
types of logic models, the formats that they take, and the
resources available to programs for creating them.
Juvenile Justice
School-Based
Partnerships: A Problem-Solving Strategy from the
U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented
Policing Services discusses their school-based partnerships
program where law enforcement agencies partnered with schools
to address crime and disorder problems in and around middle
and high schools. The report focuses on three cities, two
of which have significant immigrant populations, and their
use of a specific problem-solving process to address issues
in their schools such as students and teachers feeling threatened,
illegal drug sales, and truancy. (Description summarized
from the publication.)
Guidelines
for Juvenile Information Sharing from the Office
of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention provides
comprehensive guidelines for State and local efforts to
improve information sharing among key agencies involved
with at-risk youth and juvenile offenders. Drawing on the
experience and expertise of leaders from youth-serving agencies
and information technology initiatives throughout the country,
the guidelines integrate the three critical components of
juvenile information sharing—collaboration, confidentiality,
and technology—into an effective developmental framework.
(Description taken from their Web site.)
COMING SOON:
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.
|
|
| |
|
