BRYCS - Bridging Refugee Youth and Children's Services

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Check out Rain in a Dry Land by Anne Makepeace on PBS's P.O.V. series on June 19th at 10pm. The film chronicles the fortunes of two Somali Bantu families, transported by relief agencies from years of civil war and refugee life to Springfield, Massachusetts and Atlanta, Georgia. To check local listings, click here.

Did you know that the BRYCS Clearinghouse includes resources for those serving all vulnerable immigrant children? BRYCS now includes Web pages describing USCCB/MRS services to unaccompanied undocumented children in federal custody and child victims of trafficking, with many new resources specific to these populations. See the left side bar of the BRYCS home page for links to these new pages!

New refugee populations are on their way! See BRYCS' List of Highlighted Resources on the Burmese and Burundians.

BRYCS is developing a new Youth Arts and Voices section of our Web site! This section will showcase the artistic talents of refugee and immigrant children and youth living across the United States and will also include an expressive arts reference section. If you are aware of a local expressive arts program for refugee and immigrant youth, please let us know. For more information, read the announcement.

The Immigrant's Manual is a 25 page guide to life in America for newly arrived immigrants. Developed by the Maryland Advisory Council for New Americans, the manual contains useful tips on day-to-day living, from information on pregnancy and child care to advice on how to interact with the police. Although focused on Maryland, this manual should be useful to refugees and immigrants in all states, or easily adapted. The manual is also available in French and a Spanish version is underway (for more information, see the Maryland Office on New Americans - MONA - Web site at http://170.224.111.196/mona/).

A new collaborative undertaking, the Immigration Advocates Network (IAN), has been developed by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) and Pro Bono Net (PBN), in conjunction with eight leading advocacy, technical assistance, and legal services organizations. Go online June 6 for An Online Legal Support Network for Immigration Advocates and hear IAN’s creators discuss the power of this collaborative relationship and networking tool.

The Urban Institute has recently released its first three policy briefs based on ground-breaking research regarding immigrant families and the U.S. child welfare system! These first briefs describe findings from the Texas state system regarding relative placements, types of abuse, and Title IV-E funding for foster care placements according to child generation and ethnicity, focusing on immigrants from Latin America. Look for more briefs from The Urban Institute from the "Identifying Immigrant Families with Child Welfare Systems" series soon! These briefs are available for free download from The Urban Institute's Web site:

CALL FOR PAPERS

The 2007 Refugee and Immigrant Conference organizers are accepting proposals for workshop sessions, which will be held in Chicago in October. This conference will offer groups and individuals assisting refugee and immigrant children and their families a national opportunity to network and learn about issues affecting refugee and immigrant children and their families, schools, health, and health care, along with the challenges of cultural adjustment. The proposals are due June 15.

Protecting Children, the Journal of the American Humane Association, is issuing a call for papers that address the emerging impact of migration on child welfare services in the United States. Manuscripts are due June 15, 2007. Click here to read more about the topics and scope of this issue. For author instructions, click here. (Description taken from the Web site.)

The International Association for the Study of Forced Migration is currently accepting papers from prospective presenters for its conference in Cairo, Egypt on January 6 -10. The deadline for submissions is June 30.

EVENTS

UNHCR’s annual World Refugee Day is June 20. This year’s theme is “A New Home, a New Life.” Visit USA for UNHCR’s Web site for a schedule of events and other details.

11th Annual Birth to Three Institute will be in Washington, DC on June 25 – 28. This annual conference provides participants with opportunities to learn new skills and best practices in working with infants, toddlers and their families.

Child Indicators: Diverse Approaches to a Shared Goal, a conference hosted by the International Society for Child Indicators and Chapin Hall, is taking place in Chicago on June 26-28. The conference will explore how child indicators can be used to improve the development and well-being of the world’s children. Review the conference agenda and other conference details.

A training on “Selected Issues In Family-Based Immigration” will be held in Portland, Oregon on June 28 -29. CLINIC and Catholic Charities Of Oregon will review topics such as establishing qualifying relationships for family-based petitions, adjustment and consular processing procedures, the Child Status Protection Act, changes in affidavit of support, inadmissibility grounds, strategies for filing waivers, and relief for victims of domestic violence.

The Office of Justice Programs' National Institute of Justice (NIJ) will hold its annual conference in Arlington, VA on July 23 -25. The conference will bring together criminal justice scholars, policymakers, and practitioners from across the country to share the latest evidence-based practices and policies. This year’s conference will address topics such as girls and delinquency, juvenile re-entry, causes and correlates of delinquency, and disproportionate minority contact with the juvenile justice system. In addition, subjects such as gangs and teen dating violence will be discussed.

The Somali Studies International Association 10th triennial conference will be in Columbus, Ohio on August 16 -18. Many topics will be discussed including those related to Somali refugees in the United States. The second day of the conference will be a Community Development Workshop with a focus on Diaspora issues. The director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and the director of the National Somali Bantu Project are among the invited speakers. Scholars and professionals across disciplines are invited to attend as well as to present their work at the conference. Click here to register.

FUNDING

YouthBuild program grant money is available from the Employment and Training Administration. YouthBuild programs assist at-risk youth to obtain education and skill training and advance towards post-secondary education and career pathways in construction and other high growth, high demand occupations while building affordable housing in their communities. Applicants may be a public or private nonprofit agency or organization. Average individual grants will range from approximately $700,000 - $1.1 million; $47 million is available. For full details, see the Federal Register. The deadline is July 3.

The Staples Foundation for Learning provides funding to programs that support or provide job skills and/or education for all people, with a special emphasis on disadvantaged youth. All non-profits with 501(c)(3) status are eligible to apply. The next deadline is August 3.

Access to Artistic Excellence, a grant from the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, funds projects that provide short-term arts exposure or arts appreciation for children and youth, as well as intergenerational arts education. The deadline for applications is August 13.

FOR REFUGEE YOUTH

My Name is Bilal by Dr. Asma Mobin-Uddin is about a young boy, Bilal, and his sister who transfer to a school where they are the only Muslim kids. They learn how to fit in while staying true to their beliefs and heritage.

The United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict and UNICEF are requesting input from children and youth, particularly those affected by armed conflict, on a strategic review of Graça Machel's report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, originally released ten years ago. For questions, contact Karina Freudenthal, Machel Team Assistant, at freudenthal@un.org.

RESOURCES

Cultural Orientation

Healthy Eating, Healthy Living Flip Chart by United States Committee on Refugees and Immigrants is for case managers, ESL teachers, health clinic staff, trained volunteers, and other service providers to share nutrition information with refugees. The flip chart is illustrated and ideal for clients who do not read.

Integration

WelcometoUSA.gov is a new inter-agency Web site constructed on behalf of the Task Force on New Americans. It offers information and resources on a range of resettlement-related issues from a number of federal entities.

ImmigrantIntegration.org is the Web site of the New Americans Executive Order of the state of Illinois. It is meant to facilitate an all-inclusive conversation about the integration of immigrants in the political, cultural, social and economic fabric of America. The site features the report For the Benefit of All: Strategic Recommendations to Enhance the State's Role in the Integration of Immigrants in Illinois issued by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

At Home with Refugee Housing: Resettlement to Integration (17.6 MB file) from Mercy Housing, ORR’s Technical Assistance provider on refugee housing, documents innovative approaches that address local challenges in refugee housing. It provides those working with refugee families with a cross section of stories of ordinary agencies and everyday people, working creatively and collaboratively to accomplish
extraordinary results in refugee housing. In addition, see their Web site for previous publications.

View an online video about one of the “Lost Girls of Sudan,” from Mapendo International. Typically, we hear about the 4,000 or so “Lost Boys” who were resettled in the U.S., but this is the story of one of the “Lost Girls,” who is living in Massachusetts with a foster family through the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program.

Child Welfare

¿Que Significa ser Padres? (What Does It Mean To Be Parents?), from the National Institutes of Health, is a free Spanish-language publication geared toward Hispanics who are seeking advice on parenting. The booklet gives practical suggestions for successful parenting that parents can adapt for their own lives and situations. It also includes real-life examples of how some parents have incorporated these strategies into their own day-to-day parenting activities.

Children in Immigrant Families - The U.S. and 50 States: National Origins, Language, and Early Education, by Child Trends and the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis of the State University of New York at Albany, reveals that children in immigrant families are deeply rooted in the U.S. (four in five are American citizens) and nearly one-half speak English fluently and another language at home. At the same time, many young children in immigrant families would benefit from quality early education programs to further their integration into American society. (Description summarized from the Web site.)

The Disproportionate Representation of Ethnic or Racial Groups in the CPS System is a Web page from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which explains their state’s challenges with addressing disproportionality in child welfare. A recent report, Disproportionality in Child Protective Services – Policy Evaluation and Remediation Plan, describes how CPS has enhanced cultural competency training for service delivery staff and management, developed collaborative relationships with community partners, increased staff diversity, and improved targeted recruitment efforts for foster and adoptive families.

Meeting the Employment and Parenting Needs of Low-Income Families is a Web conference recording, which explores the challenges faced by families who are involved in both the child welfare and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families systems. Chapin Hall researchers discuss their report, which states that TANF applicants face barriers to employment that may compromise their ability to adequately care for their children. Other panelists discussed efforts currently underway in Colorado and Oregon to integrate welfare-to-work and child welfare programs.

New Spaces and Possibilities: the Adjustment to Parenthood for New Migrant Mothers from the Families Commission in New Zealand, documents international research that indicates parenting in a new country without support, networks, or access to information creates additional stressors. In order to explore the needs of migrant mothers, interviews were conducted with forty migrant women from five different backgrounds and are summarized in this report.

Education

Para nuestros niños: Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics by the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics provides readers with an overview of the state of early childhood education for Hispanics in the United States. The authors state that Hispanic children lag well behind their White counterparts on measures of school readiness when they start kindergarten, and subsequently achieve at much lower levels in the primary grades. For this reason, expanding and improving the quality of early childhood education for this population should be among the nation's highest educational priorities. Also see A Demographic Portrait of Young Hispanic Children in the United States by the same task force.

Out-of-School Immigrant Youth from the Public Policy Institute of California examines a little noticed group of Californians: young immigrants not in school and who receive few if any educational services. The authors also observe the federal Migrant Education Program (MEP), charged with helping this group. Using MEP and census data, the authors find that many out-of-school youth work, left school while quite young, and have very poor spoken English skills. Some are as young as 13, yet work and live without their parents. Many say they want to continue their education. If policymakers are to help this group, the authors say, strategies in addition to traditional education models may be necessary. (Abstract taken from the Web site.)

Writing to be Heard: Parents Speak Up and Out About Parents' Participation in Urban Public High Schools reports research done by Research Action in Philadelphia. Insight was gained into the ways in which some parents feel about what good parent participation looks like in an urban public high school. The majority of the parents would like to be more involved in their child's public high school; however, barriers were mentioned, including those that are cultural.

Missing out? Autism, Education and Ethnicity: the Reality for Families Today from the National Autistic Society of the UK states that children with autism from ethnic minority communities in the UK experience discrimination on two fronts - their disability and their ethnicity. This isolates them from the education system that should provide opportunities for success. This report provides an overview of the challenges diverse children with autism in the UK face and provides researchers, professionals, and service providers with recommendations.

Health/Mental Health

Resident Physicians' Preparedness to Provide Cross-Cultural Care: Implications for Clinical Care and Medical Education Policy, from the Commonwealth Fund, gives an overview of a national study of resident physicians in their final year of training. They found that few residents reported feeling unprepared in a general sense to care for patients from racial and ethnic minorities and from diverse cultures; yet, they felt far more unprepared to care for patients with specific cultural characteristics, including those who mistrust the U.S. health care system or who have health beliefs or practices at odds with western medicine. The authors provide recommendations for addressing this issue.

Trapped! Unlocking the Future of Iraqi Refugee Children from World Vision gives an overview of what Iraqi children have been facing. Years of daily violence continues to wreak damage to their physical and mental health. Without legal status, psychological rehabilitation, proper education and medical assistance, this generation is trapped with little hope for the future unless assistance is provided by the international community. For service providers and teachers who may soon receive Iraqi refugee children as clients and students, this report provides a brief overview of what they may have experienced.

The National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP) has recently been relaunched by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. This is a searchable database of evidence-based practices in prevention and treatment of mental health and substance use disorders. The NREPP allows users to narrow their search based on target populations, service settings, and desired outcomes.

Program Development

Two new guides are available from the Finance Project. Each guide provides options for financing, sustaining, governing, and managing programs, and many of these options are illustrated with real program examples. Finding Funding: A Guide to Federal Sources for Youth Programs provides general information about youth program funding and lists 103 Federal funding programs and Finding Funding: A Guide to Federal Sources for Child Traumatic Stress and Other Trauma-Focused Initiatives includes background information about financing trauma treatment programs for children and youth and identifies 69 Federal funding sources.

Putting Youth Engagement into Practice - A Toolkit for Action was designed by four agencies in the United Kingdom to assist organizations in finding ways of bringing in young people as genuine partners in their work. The aim is to create opportunities for young people to play meaningful roles at an operational level, as well as in the decision making structures of organizations, by making young people part of their governance.

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.

HELPING REFUGEE YOUTH FIND THE RIGHT PATH