BRYCS What’s New Updates for February 2021

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

• BRYCS illustrated parenting handbooks now available in Swahili! BRYCS Raising Children in a New Country handbooks were created for agencies serving refugees and immigrants to support their efforts to ensure that newcomer parents have the basic information they need about U.S. laws and parenting practices. The booklets are broken down by age: early childhood, adolescents, and teenagers. These resources are targeted to newcomer parents and the service providers that help them adjust to parenting in the U.S. and address several themes includes family well-being, safety and protection, guidance and discipline, cultural identity and more! Additional translations along with audio recordings and pre/post tests can be found in BRYCS Refugee Portal under Parenting/Family Strengthening.
• Refugee Youth After School Program, run by Catholic Charities Atlanta, assists 30 refugee youth and their families at an elementary school in Clarkston, GA. The primary focus of the program is to develop the cultural concepts and skills these children need to successfully integrate into the classroom.
• Charting a Course to Rebuild and Strengthen the US Refugee Admissions Program, a report from the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) and Refugee Council USA, is the result of the three national listening tours convened by RCUSA in the fall and winter of 2019 and follow up survey conducted by CMS commonly referred to as “Resettlement 2.0”. These tours and survey represent a first-of-their-kind effort to bring together refugees, resettlement workers, and community and government partners to reflect openly and honestly on the present and future of the US refugee resettlement program.
• The New Annual Survey of Refugees (ASR), a scientific study funded by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and conducted by the Urban Institute and SSRS, collects information about how recently resettled refugees are adapting to life in the US. The data collected will cover a wide range of issues on the refugee resettlement experience, including but not limited to public assistance receipt, employment, English language acquisition, health insurance coverage, and permanent residency status. The new ASR will more effectively capture refugee self-sufficiency and integration by collecting information on additional factors affecting resettlement experiences, such as experiences before arrival, social connection, health, and other topics.

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EVENTS/CALL FOR PAPERS

• Helping Young English Learners at Home: Simple and Fun Activities to Strengthen Language Development, a webinar developed by RELs West, Northwest, and Northeast and Islands, hosted by REL Northeast and Islands, will take place February 3, 2021 at 3–4:30PM PT. The event is designed for district and school staff working with English learner students in grades K–5 and their families. It will highlight the 2014 What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guide, Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and Middle School and share activity sheets based on the practice guide as well as an associated Educator’s Guide.
• Enhancing Interpretation during Cultural Orientation, a Cultural Orientation Resource Exchange (CORE) webinar, will take place February 3, 2021 at 8AM EST and again at 2PM EST.  CORE will provide guidance on using the new Multilingual Cultural Orientation Glossary to enhance session interpretation. The webinar will also highlight other resources to improve collaboration between Cultural Orientation providers and interpreters. CORE created the Cultural Orientation Glossary to harmonize the translation of terms across the overseas-to-domestic resettlement continuum.
• Cultivating Connections Remotely: Building Social Capital with People from Refugee Backgrounds during the COVID-19 Pandemic, STARTTS webinar, will take place February 19, 2021 at 9:30AM-1PM. The COVID-19 pandemic and related social restrictions place individuals and communities at higher risk of social isolation. This is especially true for individuals and communities from refugee backgrounds. It is now more important than ever to identify ways to build and maintain connections, while remaining safe. This workshop unpacks the concept of social capital, its heightened importance at this time, and how social capital is impacted by the experiences of torture, trauma, resettlement, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It also explores innovative ways in which social capital and feelings of connectedness can be cultivated remotely, particularly within the resettlement context.
• Cross-Border Families under Covid-19 will take place June 22-23, 2021. The workshop will explore the impact of the Covid-19 crisis and its regulation on cross-border families. Deadline for abstract submission February 28, 2021.
• A Virtual Forum for Migrant and Community Health, hosted by The Northwest Regional Primary Care Association, National Center for Farmworker Health, and North Carolina Community Health Center Association, will take place the week of March 22, 2021. Stay tuned for more updates and information regarding the call for Proposals/Abstracts submissions.
• Save the Date! Catholic Charities USA’s 2021 Annual Gathering will take place September 20-23, 2021 in San Diego, California.

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FUNDING

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RESOURCES

For Refugee/Immigrant Children & Youth

• The Cat I Never Named: A True Story of Love, War, and Survival is the memoir of a Muslim teen struggling to survive in the midst of the Bosnian genocide and the stray cat who protected her family through it all. (Description from source)

General Cultural Competency & Migration & Resettlement Awareness

• Paper Children explores America’s refugee crisis by documenting one family’s struggle to seek protection build a better future in America as four siblings flee gang violence in Honduras.
• Rebuilding the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program, a paper from the Center for Migration Studies (CMS), offers a historic review of the U.S. refugee resettlement program. It spans the colonial era, to the establishment of the first distinct U.S. admissions policies for persons fleeing persecution in 1917, to the creation of the formal U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) in 1980, and following the Trump administration, proposes ways that a new presidential administration can rebuild this crucially important program and put it on more secure footing. (Description from source)

Cultural Orientation/Integration

• Understanding the Capitol Riots, a resource from USAHello, explains some of the background of what happened in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021 and is written specifically for immigrants and refugees. Available in English, Spanish, and Arabic.
• 5 Ways to Support Your Clients’ Financial Wellbeing, a blog from Switchboard, looks at the importance of building trust, providing financial capability training, learning what asses-building programs are available nationally and regionally, and cultivating employer partnerships.
• Supporting Clients Experiencing Housing Insecurity: Tips and Multilingual Materials on Housing Relief Legislation, a blogpost from Switchboard TA, shares eviction prevention and rent assistance information related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including multilingual information where available.

Child Welfare/Family Strengthening

• Connecting Cross-Border Families, a podcast episode from Child Welfare Information Gateway, features a conversation with International Social Service USA’s Elaine Weisman. The discussion provides insight on the diverse types of cross-border cases and the supports and information that may help State and local caseworkers connect cross-border families.
• Unaccompanied Children, UC Care Providers, and Planning for the End of the COVID-19 Pandemic, from the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), discusses the need for HHS to develop and implement policies that ensure availability, accessibility, and acceptability of COVID-19 vaccines for UCs and front-line staff at care providers. (Description from source)

Education

• “Democratizing Education at the Margins: Faculty and Practitioner Perspectives on Delivering Online Tertiary Education for Refugees”, from the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, reviews the implementation of an online pilot program that provided tertiary education to refugees in Africa and the Middle East, using a unique blend of brick-and-mortar and virtual instruction. (Description from source)
• Facilitating Access to Higher Education for Refugees with Limited Documentation, a webinar from WES Training, presents findings from a Canada-based 2017 WES pilot to provide credential assessments to Syrian refugees who lack access to official records from their home institutions. Presenters will also discuss the WES methodology for assessing and reconstructing credentials from limited or partial documentation. (Description from source)
• Using Computer-Adaptive Assessments of Literacy to Monitor the Progress of English Learner Students, from REL Southeast, examines how teachers and school staff administered computer-adaptive literacy assessments to EL students in grades 3–5 and how they used the assessments to monitor students’ growth in literacy skills.

Youth

• “Living in the Shadow of Political Decisions: Former Refugees’ Experiences of Supporting Newly Arrived Refugee Minors”, from the Journal of Refugee Studies, highlights the unique contributions of peer support to the integration process of refugee minors by mentors providing social support, sharing experience-based knowledge, and helping minors to navigate an often confusing and complex welfare system. (Description from source)

Health/Mental Health

• Convenient Vaccine Access to Communities, from National Resource Center for Refugees, Immigrants, and Migrants (NRC-RIM), looks at the importance of addressing barriers (e.g. time away from work, transportation, and complexity of navigating a medical system for appointments especially if your primary language is not English), to ensure RIM communities receive the opportunity to be vaccinated. Additionally, Vaccine Campaign Partnerships with Faith-Based Organizations, stress the importance of partnering directly with communities to identify these factors, facilitate trust, and guide vaccine communications and provision.
• Facts about COVID-19 Vaccines, plain language fact sheets from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are now available in Arabic, Spanish, Korean, Russian, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and English. This factsheet is located at the bottom of the What to Expect at Your Appointment to Get Vaccinated for COVID-19 | CDC webpage.

Anti-Trafficking

• Following the Money: Compendium of Resources and Step-by-step Guide to Financial Investigations into Trafficking in Human Beings, from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), reviews and synthesizes 23 leading publications and documents related to financial investigations and THB into one standalone resource; and  serves to assist in the establishment of an investigatory framework specifically targeted at dismantling criminal enterprises engaged in THB. (Description from source)

Program Development

• By Refugees, For Refugees: Refugee Leadership Beyond the Pandemic, a webinar from The Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), highlighted the critical role refugee-led organizations play as first responders during emergencies like COVID-19.
• What Works to Reduce Burnout and Vicarious Trauma among Refugee Service Providers?, Switchboard’s new evidence summary, assesses the evidence surrounding the effectiveness of several interventions to reduce burnout among staff, including organizational and individual approaches. It includes tips for organizations that are most effective in reducing staff secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and more. (Description from source)