BRYCS EMAIL
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A joint project of:

Lutheran
Immigration and Refugee Service
(LIRS)
http://www.lirs.org/

and


United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops/
Migration and
Refugee Services
(USCCB/MRS)
www.usccb.org/mrs

BRYCS
888.572.6500
info@brycs.org

TRY THE DETAILED SEARCH

SPECIAL FEATURE:

Promising Practices
for Refugee-Serving Programs

In this fourth Sidebar Series on "Promising Practices," BRYCS highlights the Strengthening Refugee Families Program (SRFP) at Catholic Social Services of Central and Northern Arizona. SRFP is the umbrella program for three projects-- Refugee Marriage Education, Relationship Intelligence, and Intergenerational Education--all of which offer culturally and linguistically appropriate educational workshops designed to promote the importance of strong and healthy families.

BRYCS is highlighting this program for several reasons. First, the SRFP is clearly a strengths-based approach that has been successful in identifying and building on the assets of refugee families and their communities. Second, SRFP's services encourage a great deal of engagement and participation by the refugee community in shaping these services. An on-going participatory assessment is used with each project, and has allowed the program to develop a sense of flexibility in meeting program participants' needs. One outcome of this participatory approach was the creation of a new service, the Intergenerational Education Project, which targets grandparent-grandchild relationships. Third, the SRFP has built successful collaborations with the local community, including ethnic-based organizations, the public schools and other mainstream agencies, in order to better serve and support refugee children and their families. Finally, the SRFP Coordinator has instituted evaluation mechanisms and collected outcomes, particularly for the Intergenerational Education Project, that provide information on the effectiveness of these services.

Read more about this month's featured program Strengthening Refugee Families (SRFP) from Catholic Social Services of Central and Northern Arizona.

BRYCS presented this program as a "Promising Practice" at the Catholic Charities USA Conference in Phoenix on September 18, 2005. View the SRFP's PowerPoint Presentation.

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.

SUGGEST A
CLEARINGHOUSE
RESOURCE

The BRYCS project is acquiring and centralizing resources concerning refugee children, youth, and families.  We are interested in print and non-print resources, Promising Practices, descriptions of programs for refugee youth and children, and other resources of interest to the refugee-serving community. 

The resources we collect and present through the Clearinghouse are often accompanied by descriptions from BRYCS, and include, when available, the full text on the BRYCS website.  BRYCS will continue to update the clearinghouse as new materials are acquired, reviewed, and included.

Please join us in making this possible by suggesting relevant resources. Click on the “Suggest a Resource” link on the BRYCS homepage, or call toll-free 1-888-572-6500—press #3 after the prompt. Or send an e-mail to Outreach & Information Coordinator at clearinghouse at brycs.org.