BRYCS - Bridging Refugee Youth and Children's Services

ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Intersection of Migration and Child Welfare: Emerging Issues and Implications is the newest edition of Protecting Children from the American Humane Association. The articles in this volume were written by several BRYCS consultants and colleagues from the Migration and Child Welfare National Network (MCWNN) and include topics such as violence in immigrant families, tools to assist with culturally competent child welfare practice, common issues for public child welfare administrators, Latino children of immigrants in the Texas child welfare system, and immigrant children in federal custody. To order your copy, see page 6 of the catalog.

International Issues in Dependency Court Cases is the most recent edition of The Judges Page from National CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). This edition includes articles on family reunification, immigrant parents in the child welfare system, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, and more. Like the journal above, many of these articles are written by BRYCS Consultants and colleagues from the Migration and Child Welfare National Network (MCWNN).

Rise, a magazine by and for parents involved in the child welfare system, just released an issue on immigrants titled Raising Children in a New Country. Illustrating the varied needs immigrant and refugee families face when coming to the United States, especially in relation to the child welfare system, this issue highlights BRYCS’ parenting interviews, as well as interviews with BRYCS Consultants Ken Borelli and Ilze Earner.

EVENTS

Ethiopian Community Development Corporation (ECDC)’s 14th National Conference on African Refugees and Immigrants: The Optimism of Generations will take place in Arlington, Virginia on May 5-7, 2008. Sessions will address how U.S. federal, state, and local programs are helping newcomers achieve their aspirations and many workshops are targeted especially for refugee and immigrant attendees. BRYCS staff will be part of a joint session with ORR Technical Assistance providers. We hope to see you there!

Prevent Child Abuse America National Conference 2008 will take place May 19-22 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Conference Registration Book is now available to download; it includes descriptions of all conference sessions and events including a presentation by BRYCS’ colleague, Sonia Velazquez, on Wellbeing and Immigrant Families: The Intersection of Migration and Child Welfare. To register, click here.

American Humane’s 2008 Conference on Family Group Decision Making will take place from June 3-6, 2008, in Tucson, Arizona, and includes a number of sessions addressing cultural competency. Family Group Decision Making (FGDM), a model of child welfare practice that can be particularly useful for refugee and immigrant families, was highlighted in a previous BRYCS Spotlight article.

The 27th Annual National CASA Conference will take place June 7-10, 2008, in Washington, DC. This conference is appropriate for juvenile and family court judges and other child welfare professionals. The conference will have four tracks, including a “Cultural Competency” track, in which BRYCS staff will take part.

The American Professional Society of the Abuse of Children (APSAC) 16th Annual Colloquium will be held in Phoenix, Arizona from June 18-21. BRYCS’ audiences may be particularly interested in the workshop titled “Assessing Child Maltreatment in Multicultural Populations,” which will address how religious rites and cultural practices can be misunderstood for child maltreatment, and conversely, how parents can claim that a practice is cultural as an excuse for maltreatment.

Childhood & Migration: Interdisciplinary Conference 2008 will be held in Philadelphia on June 20-22, 2008. It will be put on by the Working Group on Childhood and Migration and is open to researchers and policy advocates from all disciplines and all areas of the world whose work focuses on the ways that increased migration affects children and the cultural, legal, educational, medical, and psychological perception of childhood. For more information, contact Rachel Reynolds at rrr@drexel.edu or 215-895-0498.

FUNDING

ING’s Unsung Heroes program gives awards for innovative classroom projects. All full-time K-12 education professionals or classified staff employed by an accredited U.S. K-12 public or private school located in the United States are eligible to apply. The deadline to apply is April 30, 2008.

Wilson/Fish Alternative Programs, from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), proposes
alternative approaches to providing integrated services and cash assistance to refugees. Proposals will be accepted under either of two categories: (1) Projects to establish or maintain a refugee program in a State where the State is not participating in the refugee program or is withdrawing from the refugee program or a portion of the program; and (2) projects to provide an alternative to the existing system of assistance and services to refugees. Applications due April 30, 2008.

Grants to Tribes, Tribal Organizations, and Migrant Programs for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention Programs are now available through the Department of Health & Human Services Administration for Children and Families. Funding is to support child abuse prevention activities and family support services such as voluntary home visiting, respite care, parenting education, mutual support, family resource centers, marriage education, and other family support services. The deadline for submission of applications is May 12, 2008.

Target is offering grants for early childhood, arts, and family violence prevention programs in communities with Target stores. Nonprofits, schools, libraries and public agencies are eligible to apply; the deadline is May 31, 2008.

FOR REFUGEE AND IMMIGRANT YOUTH

Lost No More: Immigrant Teenagers Tell Their Stories, is a collection of stories from immigrant youth that address both positive and negative aspects of the immigrant experience. These stories were accumulated as part of the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians Project Bridging Cultures, a program that helps students who come from all over the world succeed in school, learn English, make friends, and plan for the future.

State Farm is accepting applications for Service-Learning Youth Advisory Board Members. If you are between the ages of 17 and 20, you are eligible to serve as an associate board member on its diverse youth advisory board. Youth board members will be responsible for identifying pressing issues that have direct impact on communities, overseeing the site selections and grant making process, providing technical assistance to the site grantees, and assisting with communication and outreach. Deadline for application is April 18, 2008.

RESOURCES

Cultural Orientation

1972 Burundians, a short DVD from UNHCR, provides service providers with background information on the Burundian population currently being resettled in the U.S. The DVD can be supplemented with CAL’s Refugee Backgrounder No. 2: The 1972 Burundians as well as the UNHCR Burundian fact sheet. To order your copy of this free DVD, email your mailing address to usawa@unhcr.org.

Child Welfare

Culturally Competent Practice with Latino Children and Families, a training curriculum written and developed by Alan J. Dettlaff, Cecilia L. Thomas, Harriet L. Cohen, and Teresa Buehler, is designed to train child welfare staff on culturally competent practice with Latino children and families. The curriculum is designed to build competency for work with this population using a “Systems of Care” model and includes both an instructor manual and training manual. For other similar curricula, see BRYCS’ List of Highlighted Resources from last quarter.

Family Preservation Programs, by the National Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice and Permanency Planning, provides any overview of the essential elements of these services and explains which types of programs fall into this category. This brief overview may be particularly helpful to refugee resettlement staff or other service providers working with refugee/immigrant families at risk of “breakdown” in order to connect them with appropriate family support services.

Children’s Rights: International and National Laws and Practices is a new multinational, comparative legal study on the rights of children from The Law Library of Congress. Highlighting both refugee producing and refugee receiving countries, this legal study represents the current status of enforceable laws in a number of countries. It aims to help readers have a more detailed understanding of the universal standards on the rights of children to make the relationships, between children and their parents, teachers, judges, lawyers, and adults in general, more conducive to a peaceful society. (Description taken from source.)

Education

Educational Handbook for Refugee Parents from the International Rescue Committee is now available on the BRYCS Web site! This handbook uses clipart and simple language to provide refugee parents with basic information about schools in the U.S. and is also available in Spanish, French, Burmese, and Somali. For similar resources, please see the final text box of BRYCS’ current Spotlight.

New Parent Outreach Publications are now available online! PACER Center has published a series of brochures and accompanying handouts to help school districts tell families of young children about early intervention and early childhood special education services. Besides English, the materials are in Hmong, Spanish, Somali, and Russian. For more information about ordering the materials, please contact Barb Ziemke at bziemke@pacer.org or by phone at (952) 838-9000.

Immigrant Integration Educator Resource Guide (2008), developed by the Colorado Department of Education and The Colorado Trust, identifies, explains and provides recommendations for promoting immigrant integration in schools. Intended primarily as a resource for district administrators, school administrators and teachers, the guide also provides an overview of the critical areas that influence immigrant integration in schools - from school enrollment and classroom instruction to family and community outreach. To order print copies of this publication, contact Laura Blancas, Colorado Department of Education, 303-866-6490, blancas_l@cde.state.co.us. (Description taken from source.)

Challenging Common Myths About Young English Language Learners from the Foundation for Child Development challenges six commonly held beliefs about the development of young children who are learning English as their second language and presents research evidence drawing from a variety of disciplines that can better shape education policies for all children. (Description taken from source.)

Parenting

Free Parent Education Handouts from the Washington Learning Systems are now available online. Handouts include parent-child activities in the PRESCHOOL age range and parent-child activities in the BIRTH-TO-THREE age range. These materials complement the Language is the Key video programs available in English, Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Filipino.

A Test of the Intergenerational Congruence in Immigrant Families-Child Scale with Southeast Asian Americans, from Social Work Research, addresses a common challenge facing immigrant families: intergenerational-intercultural conflict. The Intergenerational Congruence in Immigrant Families (ICIF) Scale was created for social workers to measure and assess this phenomenon and evaluate treatment effectiveness. This study assesses the use of the ICIF measure with 188 Southeast-Asian American college students with refugee parents.

Health/Mental Health

ECHO (Emergency and Community Health Outreach) is a collaborative Web site providing health and safety information in multiple languages during emergency and non-emergency times to people with limited English language skills. Click here for a list of past topics including: Back to School Immunizations, Calling 9-1-1 in an Emergency, Child Safety Seats, Early Childhood Screening, Lead Poisoning, Mental Health Help, How to Talk to Kids about Crisis, and more. Each topic is covered in video format and available in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Khmer, Hmong, Lao, and Somali.

Politically-motivated Torture and Child Survivors, from Pediatric Nursing, stresses the importance of healthcare providers recognizing behaviors common in children who have endured torture in order to create a safe and reliable treatment plan for such children and their families. Three vignettes taken from actual cases illustrate the way child survivors of torture are likely to present in educational, medical, or healthcare settings. Children or youth are resilient and can be helped to process their traumatic experiences and thrive emotionally and physically if providers are observant, competent and responsive. (Description taken from source.)

Program Development

Family Friendly Checklists, developed by The Family Support Council of Ohio, has produced two self-assessment tools to help families and agencies assess whether agency practices are family friendly. Together, families and agencies can use these checklists to help make an agency family friendly.

Using the Community Development Block Grant Program to Support Community-Based Youth Programs is part of a new series of products from the Department of Labor’s Finance Project which focus on tools, strategies, and resources for supporting and sustaining effective youth programs and policies.

Welcoming and Orienting Newcomer Students to U.S. Schools