To ensure a safe and caring environment for children and youth
What's New
- NEW!!! BRYCS and the Office of Head Start's National Center on Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness (NCCLR) have partnered to create "Raising Children in a New Country: Supporting Early Learning and Healthy Development," an illustrated handbook for newcomer families parenting young children! Building on the original BRYCS publication, "Raising Children in a New Country: An Illustrated Handbook," this new handbook addresses the following themes: Family Well-Being, Safety and Protection, Guidance and Discipline, Healthy Brain Development, Early Learning and School Readiness, and Connecting to Early Care and Education. The handbook is now in English and will be available soon in Arabic and Spanish, all for free download from BRYCS Head Start Collaboration page and Head Start's Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center! Stay tuned for more publications from this collaboration, including an online training. For more information, please contact BRYCS or the NCCLR.
- June 20 is World Refugee Day! Every year, people across the U.S. use World Refugee Day to raise awareness about the needs of refugees. Organize an event in your area for this annual day of recognition.
- A number of refugee youth from cities throughout the U.S. were recently named Dell Scholars! Dell Scholars receive $20,000 to complete higher education over six years as well as technology, a private scholar networking community, resources & mentoring. Congratulations to these youth!
- The American School Counselor Association's annual conference will take place in Philadelphia, PA on June 30-July 3. BRYCS' audiences may particularly be interested in the sessions on Culturally Proficient School Counselors, School-Family-Community Partnerships, and Trauma and Recovery for Students.
- The 27th Annual Conference on Treatment Foster Care will take place July 28-31, 2013, in Nashville, TN. The conference will feature over 70 workshops highlighting the best practices being applied in the field.
- Save the Date! The 9th annual National Refugee and Immigrant Conference: Issues and Innovations will take place on October 10-11, 2013 in Chicago. The goal of this conference is to identify issues, emphasize best practices, and highlight innovations by providing those who work with refugees and immigrants an opportunity to learn from and network with one another.
- Individual Development Accounts Grant Opportunity, from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), aims to establish and manage Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) for low-income refugee participants to help them reach their specified Savings Goals such as home ownership, education, business capitalization, etc. Applications are due June 17, 2013.
- Allyn Family Foundation Grants for Nonprofits support organizations concerned with health, education, and welfare in communities. Applications are due June 30, 2013.
- US Airways Community Education Grant Program supports nonprofit organizations that serve children 18 years of age and younger through educational programs that focus on learning and academic achievement for economically disadvantaged or developmentally disabled children and programs that increase student interest and academic achievement in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Applications are due July 1, 2013.
Cultural Orientation/Integration
- Forced Displacement and Protection Needs Produced by New Forms of Violence and Criminality in Central America, from the Internacional Centre for the Human Rights of Migrants (CIDEHUM), aims to analyze the national and international protection needs of victims of organized crime and establish the possibilities for institutional attention (governmental, international and civil society) in these areas.
Child Welfare/Families
- Unauthorized Immigrant Parents and Their Children's Development: A Summary of the Evidence, from the Migration Policy Institute, examines the emerging research and discusses policies and programs that reduce or mitigate the developmental risks for children with parents who are unauthorized.
- Social Media Tips for Foster Parents and Certified Relative Providers, from the Department of Human Services in Oregon, were designed for foster parents to assess the risks, benefits, and safety issues of using the Internet.
- Preventing Child Maltreatment and Promoting Well-Being: A Network for Action
2013 Resource Guide, from the Child Welfare Information Gateway, focuses on the six protective factors, which have been proven to reduce the risk of abuse and neglect, and provides tools and strategies to integrate the protective factors into existing programs and systems. The guide includes bilingual Tip Sheets for Parents and Caregivers, which are designed for service providers to distribute to parents and caregivers to address a particular parenting concern or question.
Early Childhood
- Sharing Knowledge with Infant-Toddler Teachers and Home Visitors, a series of lessons from the Early Head Start National Resource Center, focuses on early development and quality services. The series contains information and opportunities for reflection and includes a Trainer's Companion manual that provides additional information and ideas for training activities. (Description from source)
- "Play as a Resource for Children Facing Adversity: An Exploration of Indicative Case Studies," from Children & Society, suggests that the ability and opportunity to play affords children a natural resource to meet intellectual and emotional challenge. Analysis of case studies focusing on interventions with children caught in the bombing of Beirut, children abandoned to the state system in Romania, and the street children in Rio de Janeiro and Cali is used to support this view. (Description from source)
- Instructional Practices that Support ELL Children in Los Angeles Universal Preschool Classrooms, a research brief from First 5 LA and Mathematica Policy Research, looks at strategies designed for teaching and supporting English language learners in preschool settings.
Education
- No Bullies, a multilingual video from the Hillsbourough County (FL) Public Schools, identifies characteristics of bullying and explains district procedures for preventing and reporting bullying. The video includes eight languages: Arabic, Burmese, English, French, Haitian Creole, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese. You can find this video by clicking on "parent resources".
- Comprehensive Assessment of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students, from the National Association of School Psychologists, includes a variety of tools and tests for assessing students from diverse backgrounds.
- Civil Rights in the Classroom: Special Education, Discipline and Homelessness, a recorded Webinar from the Center for Safe Schools, provides information on how civil rights laws affect classrooms. The presenter discusses what important information school staff must keep in mind when planning and implementing programs. You must scroll down to view the session summary and recording.
- "Facilitating Intercultural Communication in Parent-Teacher Conferences: Lessons from Child Translators," from Multicultural Perspectives, aims to help teachers understand the complexities of translation and provides recommendations on how to facilitate parent-teacher conferences when students serve as translators.
Youth Development
- What Out-of-School Resources and Practices Facilitate African Refugee Students' Educational Success in Australian Rural and Regional Settings?, from Charles Sturt University, is based on preliminary analysis of data collected as part of a pilot study which investigated the out-of-school networks and practices that generated resources which contribute to educational success for Sudanese refugee young people.
Health/Mental Health
- Healthy Kids: A Parent's Guide, from the Children's Hospital at Westmead (Australia), includes culturally and linguistically appropriate fact sheets about anxiety, disruptive disorders, depression and anorexia nervosa. The fact sheets and audio files are available in Arabic, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin audio), Farsi/Persian, Filipino, Hindi, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese and English.
- Guidelines for Mental Health Screening during the Domestic Medical Examination for Newly Arrived Refugees, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provides suggestions and resources for primary care clinicians to conduct mental health screening during the domestic medical examination.
- "Voices of Dialogue and Directivity in Family Therapy with Refugees: Evolving Ideas about Dialogical Refugee Care," from Family Process, reflects on evolving ideas regarding a dialogical approach to refugee care.
Program Development
- Staff and Volunteer Management: Tip Sheets, Notes and Articles, from the Project for Strengthening Organizations Assisting Refugees (SOAR), includes resources on developing job descriptions, performance evaluations, staff recruitment and more.