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(LIRS)
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BRYCS provides practical information for everyday problems. Learn how BRYCS can help you.


SPECIAL FEATURE:

Promising Practices
for Refugee-Serving Programs

In this month’s Sidebar Series on “Promising Practices,” BRYCS highlights two programs from the Denver area: Mercy Housing’s East 13th Avenue Community Garden and the Institute of Cultural Affairs’ East Montclair/Lowry Neighborhood Academy. These programs demonstrate many of the concepts highlighted in this month’s Spotlight on community building, and they serve as models for coordination and collaboration among service providers. Community building as a “strategy for transforming tough environments into family-strengthening neighborhoods” [1] is an evidence-based practice for improving the health and welfare of children. This strategy is evident in these programs’ step-by-step approach of working together with refugees and their neighbors in a meaningful and empowering way, resulting in positive changes to often very difficult problems, and ideally leaving community members with the relationships, skills, and confidence to continue to transform their communities.

The East 13th Avenue Community Garden was developed as an integrative community-building activity for the residents of Mercy Housing’s Grace Apartments (approximately thirty-five percent of the units are rented to refugees) and the immediate neighborhood. The East 13th Avenue Community Garden also proved to be a successful model of collaboration between multiple levels: community residents; neighborhood organizations; local refugee organizations; local and state governments; and national organizations, including the National Somali Bantu Leadership Council and BRYCS. The East 13th Avenue Community Garden was developed as a means for refugee residents to work together with other community members towards common goals, while providing a safe place for their children to play and also supplementing their incomes. Read more about Mercy Housing’s East 13th Avenue Community Garden project.

The Institute of Cultural Affairs, Neighborhood Academy program is an ongoing national program for youth and adults that helps them to develop strong leadership skills. Core approaches to learning include demonstration, practice, and supportive feedback on group facilitation methods, and the design and implementation of a practical project to improve their community. The participants of the East Montclair/Lowry Neighborhood Academy of Denver, Colorado (one-third of the participants were refugees) chose to address a traffic safety issue at a busy and dangerous intersection situated between the two neighborhoods. In order to resolve this issue, Academy participants held a community meeting with local officials and traffic engineers. Read more about the Insitute of Cultural Affairs' East Montclair/Lowry Neighborhood Academy.

Footnote 1: National Human Services Assembly, Family Strengthening Policy Center (September 2005). Family-Centered Community Building, Policy Brief No. 9, p. 1.
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 clearinghouse 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.
 
Click here for HURRICANE RECOVERY resources.
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?

JANUARY 2006 SPOTLIGHT


Community Strengthening with Refugees -
Community Building: Helping Refugee Families Feel At Home

What makes a house a home; what makes a neighborhood a community? For refugees who have experienced displacement, homelessness and resettlement in a new country, these are important questions. Developing a sense of home and community can be an important factor in any refugee’s journey towards integration in their adoptive homeland. This sense of security and connectedness can also significantly impact the well-being of children, both refugee and non-refugee, by creating safe, welcoming, active and thriving neighborhoods.

Over the past several years, agencies working in the fields of child welfare and social policy have been developing and refining the concept of “community building” as a more localized, resident-driven approach to strengthening families by also strengthening neighborhoods and residents’ connection to, and investment in, their neighborhoods.

This month's Spotlight and featured search highlight community building resources.  Last month's spotlight highlighting Family Strengthening Across Cultures: Parent Support Programs for Refugees is available in the BRYCS archive. The accompanying featured search is available through the BRYCS archive, along with past resource lists.

 

BRYCS' newest resource, Raising Children in a New Country: A Toolkit for Working with Refugee Parents, was our top publication for the third month in a row in December, reaching a record 12,000 total downloads.

The Toolkit is available free in CD-ROM with many of the referenced materials in full text, with over 600 CDs distributed so far. Contact BRYCS at clearinghouse@brycs.org to order the free CD or download the Toolkit from our Publications page.

 

WHAT'S NEW

  New Resources

Fostering a Positive Climate in Our Schools, from Maya
Vengadasalam, highlights her work with various Washington State School Districts and the Kent School District Alliance for Diversity and Equity in surveying parents, caregivers, students, and school personnel. Although focused on the experiences of South Asian students, the descriptions will resonate with those who are refugees or who work with refugees. In response to the question, "What is your biggest problem at school?", most students noted bullying and harassment as their #1 problem, and the division of students along ethnic/racial lines. The article, now available in the BRYCS clearinghouse, provides student recommendations to school officials for improving the school climate with regard to ethnic diversity.

Asylee Eligibility for Resettlement Assistance: A Short Guide, has been updated from Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. The guide is designed to give service providers the tools and information needed to address the barriers to resettlement and integration faced by asylees and to better assist their clients. The guide, updated to November 2005, is a free resource for service providers that can be viewed and printed in PDF format on the CLINIC website at www.cliniclegal.org.

Who Does What in US Immigration?, from Migration Information Source, provides a brief history of immigration in the United States, outlines the agencies that have immigration-related and immigrant-integration related functions and contains a very useful diagram of federal agencies with immigration and integration related responsibilities.

Building Culturally and Linguistically Competent Services to Support Young Children, Their Families, and School Readiness, from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, promotes early childhood development and school readiness. This tool kit provides assistance for communities in building culturally and linguistically competent services and practices for young children and their families.

Resources to Promote Social and Emotional Health and School Readiness in Young Children and Families—A Community Guide, from the National Center for Children in Poverty, provides information about resources and strategies that can be used to help children develop the social and emotional skills they need to succeed in school.

  New Research

Complementary Learning, from the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP), is a new approach to bridging the achievement gap, in order to increase the success of youth and children in school. Complementary learning is based on the idea that an array of learning supports beyond the schools are integral for students to succeed. This new section of the HFRP web site provides examples of complementary learning supports and links to related publications and resources.

  Funding News

Helping Outreach Programs to Expand (Hope) II, from the Office of Victims of Crime (OVC), through a cooperative agreement with the Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center Inc. (MVRC), funds the creation, expansion or improvement of victim services through faith-based and/or community based organizations serving underserved crime victims in high crime urban areas. The deadline for submission by email is 5:00pm January 31st, 2006. For more information and to download the RFP and Mandatory Profile, visit the MCVRC web site.

The Coming Up Taller Awards, from the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, recognizes and rewards outstanding after-school and out-of-school arts and humanities programs for underserved children and youth. The deadline for submission is January 30th 2006. For more information and to download the 2006 Nominations and applications visit the Coming Up Taller web site.

Youth Venture, empowers youth who want to have a lasting impact in their community, by providing them with a network of like minded youths across the country, training, and seed money to start an organization addressing a need in the community. The Youth Venture web site has a step-by-step guide to becoming a Youth Venturer, examples of successful projects and the applications, which are accepted on a rolling basis.

Federal Funds for Organizations That Help Those in Need, from the USDA’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, is an online grants catalog. This catalog is organized into categories, including workforce development and Refugees and Asylees, and has nearly 200 federal grant opportunities.

COMING SOON: 

February 2006 Feature on Education: Our Spotlight Article, Featured Resources, and Side Bar on Promising Practices will address issues in education for refugee youth and children, including the No Child Left Behind Act, teaching resources for children with little formal education, and ethnic/racial conflict in the schools.

Streaming Video: Those who use our Web site regularly are often surprised to learn about the depth and breadth of resources available from our Clearinghouse. For this reason, we are developing a streaming video demonstrating how to find resources on brycs.org. Look for an announcement soon!
 
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© Copyright 2005 Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) and
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BRYCS is a joint project of LIRS and USCCB/MRS and is supported by the
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