To ensure a safe and caring environment for children and youth
What's New
- May is National Foster Care Month, a time to recognize that we each can play a part in enhancing the lives of children and youth in foster care. Did you know that the U.S. has a specialized foster care system for certain categories of foreign-born children? The Unaccompanied Refugee Minor program is made up of culturally sensitive foster care programs across the country providing child welfare services to foreign-born children living in the United States. Consider fostering a foreign-born child today!
- Ethiopian Community Development Council's 19th Annual National Conference "Protection, Resettlement, and Integration: Trends and Challenges in Serving African Refugees and Immigrants" will take place May 16-17, in Arlington, VA. The conference is part of ECDC's ongoing effort to enhance awareness and support for African refugees and immigrants, to strengthen resettlement programs and services, and to promote cultural, educational and socio-economic development initiatives to help newcomers become productive members in their local communities.
- CLINIC's 16th Annual Convening will be held May 21-24 in Arlington, VA and will offer workshops and plenary sessions on selected topics of interest to immigration practitioners. Workshops will be on topics such as family-based immigration, asylum, T and U Visas, and more. A tentative agenda is available.
- 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.
- Refugee Home-Based Child Care Microenterprise Development Projects, from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), are aimed at assisting refugees in becoming economically self-sufficient by providing home-based child care services. Applications are due May 21, 2013.
- Fiscal Year 2013 Citizenship and Integration Grant Program, from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), aims to promote immigrant civic integration and prepare permanent residents for citizenship. This funding opportunity is for organizations that prepare permanent residents for citizenship by offering both citizenship instruction and naturalization application services. Applications are due by May 22, 2013.
- Field-Initiated Research and Evaluation Program, from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), will fund field-initiated studies that advance the understanding of how the application of a child and adolescent development framework to juvenile justice system approaches, policies, and programs impacts delinquency, juvenile justice system involvement, and recidivism. Applications are due May 29, 2013.
- The Refugee Microenterprise Development Project, from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), aims to assist refugees in becoming economically self-sufficient by owning and managing a small business, to provide seed money to refugee serving organizations to start and develop microenterprise programs, and help mainstream organizations develop the experience of serving refugee populations. Applications are due June 10, 2013.
- 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.
For Refugee and Immigrant Youth
- New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens chronicles a year in the life of a group of teenage newcomers. All of the youth attend the International High School at Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, which is like most high schools in some ways—its halls are filled with students gossiping, joking, flirting, and pushing the limits of the school's dress code—but all of the students are recent immigrants learning English. Together, they come from more than forty-five countries and speak more than twenty-eight languages. (Description from source)
Cultural Orientation/Integration
- Language Portal: A Translation and Interpretation Digital Library, from the Migration Policy Institute's National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, contains new national, state, and county-level data on the number, share, and linguistic diversity of Limited English Proficient (LEP) individuals in the United States.
Child Welfare/Families
- Properly Assessing Immigrant Children & Their Families to Best Meet the Complex Needs While in the System, presented during a National CASA conference, discusses several strategic areas for CASA involvement in cases with immigrant children and families. The questions raised and specific cases reviewed during and following the workshop session highlighted the need for more information and resources related to this topic for CASA volunteers and agencies as well as for the child welfare field generally.
- The Rights of All Children in the Context of International Migration, from International Social Services, outlines best practices from different regions of the world.
- "Special Immigrant Juvenile Status: Relief for Neglected, Abused, and Abandoned Undocumented Children", from the Juvenile and Family Court Journal, states that although immigration is a federal issue, Congress has directed that state juvenile courts make the factual findings that establish basic SIJS eligibility. Without these findings, children may never be able to legalize their status in the U.S. and become productive, contributing members of society. (Description from source)
Early Childhood
- Children And Parents Growing Up Together : (Sgaw Karen) A Parenting Handbook for Those with Children from Newborns to Age Six, from Drum Publication, covers the early stages of child development and serves as a guide to insure the physical and mental well-being of young children. Available only in Sgaw Karen.
- "War Trauma Lingers On: Associations between Maternal Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Parent-Child Interaction, and Child Development", from the Infant Mental Health Journal, analyzes the interrelations among maternal posttraumatic stress symptoms, parent–child interaction (emotional availability), and infants' psychosocial functioning and development among 49 asylum-seeker and refugee mothers and their children aged 18–42 months. (Description from source)
- Young Dual Language Learners: Gathering Background Information, a handout from the National Center on Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness, guides staff to gather information on a child's language background through conversations with families. It identifies six aspects of language background and several possible questions to use with families for each aspect. Available in English and Spanish.
Education
- Parent Handouts and Tip Cards, multilingual resources from the Fairfax County Public Schools, address general parenting and home-school involvement. Most are available in multiple languages.
- "Supporting Refugee Students in Schools: What Constitutes Inclusive Education?", from the International Journal of Inclusive Education, investigates the role of schooling and its contribution to the successful resettlement of refugee children.
- Communication Matters: Communicating Effectively with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families, from the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Communiqué, aims to raise awareness and enhance competencies of school psychologists in their work with students and families from CLD backgrounds.
Youth Development
- "Bullying and Affiliation: A study of Peer Groups in Native and Immigrant Adolescents in Norway", from the European Journal of Developmental Psychology, examines the extent to which native Norwegian and immigrant girls and boys bully others as well as peer groups to find out with whom pupils affiliate with when bullying others.
- Videos for Learning about Refugee Youth, from the Cultural Orientation Resource Center (COR), aims to assist refugees and refugee providers in learning about adjustment of refugee families and refugee youth to their new lives in the United States. Available in English, Farsi, Nepali, and Somali.
Health/Mental Health
- Culturally Competent Mental Health Services in the Schools: Tips for Teachers, from the National Association of School Psychologists, stresses the importance of school-based mental health services.
- "Remittances, Transnational Parenting, and the Children Left Behind: Economic and Psychological Implications", from The Latin Americanist, looks at the changes in parent-child relations in families divided by migration. Building on ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, surveys, and clinical cases, it analyses the interaction between the social meaning of remittances, family migration trajectories, and possible consequences of child-parent separations. (Description from source)
- "Religion in the Lives of Unaccompanied Minors: An Available and Compelling Coping Resource", from the British Journal of Social Work, shows how religious coping is both a 'relatively available' and a 'relatively compelling' way for these young people to deal with the challenges that they face. (Description from source)
Program Development
- "Facilitating Trainees' Multicultural Development and Social Justice Advocacy through a Refugee Immigrant Mental Health Program", from the Journal of Counseling & Development, shows that student involvement in an outreach program can strengthen multicultural sensitivity and advocacy engagement.