“Children learn to communicate in the context of their home culture. Beginning at birth, children use their home language and culturally accepted communication styles to connect with others in a meaningful way, forming the secure relationships that are so intrinsic to healthy development. For the early childhood teacher, it is important to establish supportive, respectful relationships as well-with both families and children. These connections help teachers learn more about the strengths, needs, and culture of every child in their care. Collaborative relationships with families also provide teachers with the information they need to support children’s individual language and literacy development. By creating a richly diverse and welcoming environment, by remaining aware of their own cultural beliefs (and biases), and by identifying a variety of teaching strategies to share the magic of print and language, early childhood teachers can spark a lifelong love of reading in the children they care for”.

Related resource (and a Canadian one too!): mylanguage.ca.

Topics include:

Starting school can be scary for kids and parents ~ Tips to help parents prepare their children for Kindergarten and Grade 1.

What is the role of the Ministry of Education, school boards, schools, teachers and school councils? Who does what.

Parent-teacher interviews ~ How to make the best use of time with your child’s teacher.

Homework help ~ How to support your child in their homework.

Health and physical education and activity ~ Physical, emotional and mental health as key predictors of future quality of life.

High School courses and choices ~ Making the right decisions.

Solving problems at school ~ Tips for parents and children if problems arise at school.

Special Ed ~ All about special education programs for children with challenges and/or learning disAbilities.

EQAO ~ What are the EQAO tests? How can parents help prepare their children?

Tip sheets are currently available in the following languages:

Arabic, Chinese, English, Farsi, French, Korean, Punjabi, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tamil, Urdu.

Anti Bias Literacy Environments

In this workshop we will look at creating anti bias literacy environments that promote the concept of empathy. Supporting a child’s transition from home language over to English language learning will also be a focus of this workshop. Ideas for creating anti bias literacy activities will also be included through early authoring, book nook transformations and parent involvement. Small group brainstorming will identify challenges that we face and the successes that we share. A portion of the workshop will also be devoted to common myths around English language learners, and some mainstream ideas around home language preservation and the best practices in promoting bilingualism. Presenter: Alka Burman, Early Literacy Specialist, Region of Peel.

Listening to Families: Reframing Services

This interactive workshop will give participants an overview of the Listening to Families: Reframing Services project, which is premised on our belief that if service providers knew the rich and complex stories of the families they serve, they could reach out to more families who are not benefiting from their services, and increase the effectiveness of their work for families they already serve. Examples of family narratives will be shared with participants and a comprehensive bibliography will also be provided. Presenters: Mehru Ali, Patricia Corson and Elaine Frankel, Ryerson University. (Source: conference program).

For more info, visit the conference webpage or email conference2010@fsio.ca.

The conference, organized by Dr. Susan Chuang will be held Sept 30-Oct 1, 2010 at the University of Guelph, Ontario. The line-up:

Day One: Thursday, September 30

8:00 -9:00 Registration.

9:00-9:15 Welcome and introductions: Serge Desmarais, Associate Vice President and Susan Chuang, Organizer.

9:15-9:30 Dedication: Tom Luster. Strangers in a Strange Land: The ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’, Michigan State University.

9:45-10:35 Michael Ungar, The Social Ecology of Resilience: Culture, Context, Resources, and Meaning, Dalhousie University.

Morning concurrent sessions:

Beyond Stress: Immigrant women facing domestic violence, with Effat Ghassemi and Reza Shahbazi, Newcomer Centre of Peel and New Canadians’ Centre of Excellence, Inc.

Compassion fatigue: Warning signs and practical tools for prevention and resilience, with Jane Bradley, certified Compassion Fatigue Specialist.

Strategy for building resilience in immigrant youth Youth: A Two-tiered mentorship program, with Petra Okeke and Nashila Dharsh, The Calgary Bridge Foundation for Youth.

Achors Away, Anchors to Stay, with Rita Francis and Fadia Ismail, YMCA.

Parental exposure to life stress: Mechanisms of resilience in immigrant children, with Kelly Fife and Katholiki Georgiades, McMaster University.

Protection from the storm: Resilience and life satisfaction in US immigrant populations, with Vanessa Alleyne and Claire Wooloff, Montclair State University.

Early afternoon concurrent sessions:

Channels of mother-infant communication across task, development, and culture, with Catherine Tamis-LeMonda, New York University.

Mothers’ reports of fathers’ involvement with children in Mexican immigrant families in the US, with Ziarat Hossain, University of New Mexico.

Stress and resilience among Latino immigrant families, with Jo Ann Farver, University of Southern California.

The Promotion of resilience in the face of challenge among Chinese Canadian youth, with Catherine Costigan, University of Victoria.

Hostile hallways: Chinese American youth experience of peer discrimination in schools, with Erika Niwa, Niobe Way, and Desiree Qin, New York University and Michigan State University.

Ethnic composition of peer groups: Effects on Chinese Canadian and Euro-Canadian children’s adjustment, with Xinyin Chen, University of Pennsylvania.

More than a haircut: Building on strengths and mutual support at the barbershop, with Sarah Marsh, Lorraine Kirlew and Chevy King, Centre for Community Based Research, Macauley Child Development Centre, and York University.

Resilience in Sudanese Refugee Families in Canada, with David Este, Laura Simich and Hayley Hamilton, University of Calgary, and Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Immigrants raising citizens: Undocumented parents of the second generation, with Hiro Yoshikawa, Harvard University.

Later afternoon concurrent sessions:

Settlement in the early years: The Distinctive needs of young newcomer children, with Judith Colbert.

Paradoxical patterns in early academic trajectories of newcomer children in Miami, with Jessica deFeyter, Adam Winsler and Yoon  Kim, George Mason University.

Ready, Set, Go: A School readiness program supporting a successful start to kindergarten, with Sarah Liddell, Aisling Discoveries Child and Family Centre.

A Qualitative Investigation of Chinese Youth ‘Growing up in NYC’, with Uwe Gielen, Jonathan Palumbo, and Ting Lei, St. Francis College and Borough of Manhattan College.

Internal migration in Mongolia: The Meaning of being a proper Chinese citizen, with William Jankowiak, University of Nevada.

Dragon seed: A Visual tour of  NYC Chinatown, with Uwe Gielen, St. Francis College.

Fitting in: The Roles of social acceptance and discrimination among Latino youth, with Krista Perreira, Stephanie Potochick and Andrew Fuligni, University of North Carolina and UCLA.

School influences on levels of emotional-behavioural problems among immigrant and ethnic-minority youth, with Katholiki Georgiades, Michael Boyle, and Kelly Fife, McMaster University.

Day Two: Friday, October 1

9:00-11:40 Michael Ungar Workshop: Clinical interventions to nurture resilience among culturally diverse youth and their families.

Poster presentations:

Sudanese Families ~ In Honour of Dr. Tom Luster, Michigan State University.

The Influence of racialized experiences on the identities of Sudanese refugee youth, by Deborah Johnson, Andrew Saltarelli and Desiree Qin.

“My culture helps me make good decisions”: Cultural appropriation and adaptation of Sudanese refugee youth, by Desiree Qin, Andrew Saltarelli, Laura Bates et al.

Successful adjustment among Sudanese unaccompanied minors: Perspectives of youth and their foster parents, by Tom Luster, Desiree Qin, Laura Bates et al.

Fostering Sudanese refugee youth: Parent perspectives, by Laura Bates, Deborah Johnson, Meenal Rana et al.

Immigrant parents and adolescents negotiating time and space
Lynda Ashbourne, University of Guelph.

Newcomer youth from five provinces: Exploration of challenges and coping strategies, by Susan Chuang, Sarah Rasmi, Maria Garces et al., University of Guelph.

Understanding Violence and Healing: Voices of Racialized Young People in Vancouver and Toronto, by Neringa Kubiliene, Miu-Chung Yan, Sarah Maiter et al., University of British Columbia and York University.

A Model of alcohol use among Latino adolescents: Exploring the influence of generational status, by Miriam Martinez, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The Settlement sector: The Profession, by Jacqueline McAdam and Caroline Lai, Global Trek.

Inquiry in English with different proficiency: A Youth leadership program at Toronto’s Chinatown, by Yamin Qian, University of Toronto.

Acculturation and family relationships: Uncovering the narratives of Chinese-Canadian immigrant youth, by Christine Tardif-Williams,
Brock University.

Afternoon Concurrent sessions:

Promoting resilience in war-affected youth, with Chandi Fernando, University of Toronto.

Stress and resilience among Liberian and Burundian refugee adolescents and their families, with Madeleine Currie, Hiro Yoshikawa, and Steven Weine, Harvard University.

Impact of war on teaching and relations among teachers of Buduburam refugee camps in Ghana, with Salome Priase Otami, Christiane Noi-Akwei1 and Benjamin Aflakpui, Central University College, Cape Town, South Africa.

Conceptualizations of resilience in refugee mental health, with Laura Simich and Wade Pickre, Ryerson University and Central for Addiction and Mental Health.

Conceptual and methodological issues for studying immigrant child mental health and school achievement, with Katholiki Georgiades, Michael Boyle, and Kelly Fife, McMaster University.

Diversity in action: Adapting mental health services in Canada, with Anne Dupré, Psychology Foundation of Canada.

El Vaivén: Return migration and education in Puerto Rico and Mexico, with Sandra Soto-Santiago and Luis Moll, University of Arizona.

Transnational entrepreneurship: Immigrant family perspective, with Benson Honig, McMaster University.

4:00-4:30 Future directions & Concluding remarks

To register, or if you have questions, contact: Dr. Susan Chuang, schuang@uoguelph.ca | 519-824-4120, ext. 58389.

Diverse Experiences of Immigrant Children and Youth in Education is seeking to publish an issue on experiences of immigrant children and youth in the formal educational arena. From the call (Source: nameorg.org listerv):

“In order to extend and reframe the dialogue on immigration issues in the United States by bringing multiple voices and perspectives of researchers, practitioners, families, and students in conversation. We envision a vigorous generation of unconventional intellectual exchange that will illuminate rich portraits of diverse immigrant children?

“In PreK-12 pipeline, who are too often characterized as “disadvantaged” and even culturally deprived. We further hope that a collection of these voices will celebrate the strengths, resilience, contributions, and humanity of a population often characterized as a threatening nuisance in U.S. society.

“While the topic of immigration is always relevant, the recent enactment of new immigration laws in Arizona and the surrounding protests, debates, and legal battles, have once again thrust this ongoing theme into the forefront of our collective consciousness. Unfortunately, the discourses surrounding this and other immigration-related news stories tend towards simplified understandings of immigration and the immigrant experience, and often portray immigrants and their children as a national crisis, or burden that must be managed, rather than as a complex, rich, and growing part of our national fabric. Contrary to such ideological approaches, we as the editorial board of HER summon other immigrant stories left untold, and at times, silenced.

“As the tenth anniversary of our 2001 special issue on immigration and education, the scope of this new issue will encompass the complexities of navigation pathways and social processes within and across multiple linguistic and cultural contexts that shape the lived experiences of immigrant children and adolescents. Within this framework, we aim to explore multiple contexts of immigrant childhood and adolescence, parents, families, schools, neighborhoods, ethnic community centers, weekend language schools, churches, and civic institutions that collectively present support and challenges and how these students draw upon their experiences in these complex environments to thrive in the current education system.

“We encourage authors to consider, when relevant, cross-cultural perspectives across immigrant groups and highlight processes and mechanisms by which different authors to consider, when relevant, cross-cultural perspectives across immigrant groups and highlight processes and mechanisms by which different immigrant groups build bridges across cultural contexts. In particular, we encourage proposals for manuscript that address one or more of these following contextual themes”:

1. Children in Immigrant Homes (e.g., family dynamic, parenting role, documentation status, family literacy practice, concept of home, role of siblings)
2. Children in Ethnic Communities or Immigrant Neighborhoods (e.g., language schools, cultural education centers, informal childcare, relative support, housing, playground, park)
3. Children of Immigrants in Schools, Community-Based, Religious, and/or Civic Institutions (e.g., youth culture, peer relationships, ESL tracking, faith-based institutions and community organizing institutions serving immigrant groups, health care centers, workplace).

“HER invites authors to submit proposals for manuscripts that address the educational experiences of immigrant children and youth, from early childhood through late adolescence, Pre-K through 12th grade.

“HER has historically defined “education” broadly, as education takes place in many locations other than schools.We are looking for three types of manuscripts:

1. Scholarly articles from researchers including, but not limited to, original research, theoretical manuscripts, and essays.
2. Reflective essays and narratives from practitioners (teachers, teacher educators, school leaders, program directors, community organizers, religious leaders, coaches, etc.).
3. Stories from children, and youth who are growing up in immigrant homes and communities. (We have a separate process for this type of manuscript. If you know young people who might be interested, please contact us).

For information about the types of manuscripts accepted by HER, please visit the Guidelines for Authors page or contact 617-495-3432.

Proposals due by Sept 15, 2010 to the following email address: her_si_submissions@gse.harvard.edu

How has my family, school, and/or communities impacted my educational goals and experiences in the United States? To All Children & Youth Growing Up in Immigrant Homes and Communities

“Dear teachers and students, The Harvard Educational Review (HER) is planning to publish a special issue on Diverse Experiences of Immigrant Children and Youth in Education in order to extend and reframe the dialogue on immigration issues in the United States by bringing multiple voices and perspectives of researchers, practitioners, families, and students in conversation.

“As part of this project, we are looking for personal essays, stories, and visual art from children and youth who have been directly shaped by immigration experience.

“Student writers could be a child of immigrant parents or have immigrated to the U.S. with or without their families. We are interested in publishing stories related to children and youths’ educational experiences, and in particular, how these experiences are shaped by their families, communities, religious institutions, community organizations, or society at large.

“While the topic of immigration is always relevant, the recent enactment of new immigration laws in Arizona and the surrounding protests, debates, and legal battles, have once again thrust this ongoing theme into the forefront of our collective consciousness. Unfortunately, the discussions surrounding this and other immigration-related news stories tend towards simplified understandings of immigration and the immigrant experience, and often portray immigrants and their children as a national crisis, or burden that must be managed, rather than as a complex, rich, and growing part of our national fabric. Equally important, the voices of immigrants, and immigrant youth especially, are too often excluded from mainstream media, policy, and academic outlets even in discussions of education, where youth experience is central. Contrary to such approaches, we as the editorial board of HER summon other immigrant stories left untold, and at times, silenced by seeking the direct involvement of young people as authors and experts on their lives and
educations”.

Proposal submission information:

“We are accepting submissions from PreK-12 students whose lives have been touched and shaped by immigration experience anywhere in the U.S. We are particularly interested in stories related to educational experience, but we realize that “educational experiences” can occur in many locations besides schools.  We are open to receiving multiple types of personal stories about growing up in immigrant homes and communities. However, we are not looking for an overall generic essay about your entire life. Rather, we are looking for specific in-depth stories you choose to tell with illuminating details and rich descriptions”.

For submissions and questions, e-mail HER at the following address: HER_youth_submissions@gse.harvard.edu

Proposal Submission Deadline: December 15, 2010.

In an op-ed on the CBC News website “Coming to Canada: The price that children pay”, Fatah reflects on the issues that immigrant and refugee children face:

“Some children who escape even to a country as seemingly embracing as Canada, are left deeply disturbed from the experience of having to uproot their lives and by the impact on their families”. (Source: CBC News website).

CBC Radio One runs the Promised Land series Mondays, 7:30pm, EDT and Fridays, 9:30am, EDT. You can also watch the series or download podcasts of it at the program website. A worthwhile series overall and immigrantchildren.ca is pleased to see children and youth issues highlighted by Fatah today.

“It is important to demystify the concepts of culture and religion, exposing the vested interests of those who claim to represent authen- ticity, and bringing to light alternative visions in order to protect womens human rights. As Ashish Nandy argues, the greatest tradition of all is the reinvention of tradition. This concept represents the key strategy of the Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning women: what oppresses women is the patriarchal reading of Islam, or any religion or culture, articulated and violently maintained by men in power. Women must reclaim and redefine their culture(s) as legitimate members of local and global communities”.

See the entry marking Year One here and the 2nd anniversary post here.

While I have enjoyed finding, analyzing and sharing information, resources, research, Canadian and international initiatives related to immigrant, refugee, newcomer children with my blog visitors, summer is a great time to evaluate the impact of immigrantchildren.ca make some plans for changes and improvements and see if it can be made better.

In anticipation of the 3rd anniversary, I am asking What else would you like to see on this blog? How can I help you in your efforts to understand the settlement, integration needs of young children, birth to age eight and their families?

How can I help you?

• Are there resources you believe are missing?
• Would you like to see online videos, presentations, other social media apps/tricks? If so, what would you like? What do you recommend?
• Do you wish there were more comments from others in the field?
• Would you like to see what academics, researchers, policymakers and others are thinking about the issues raised here?
• Would you like to read interviews with key folks in the immigration and settlement field?
• Would you like to participate in online webinars to develop your cultural competencies or just to learn more about the range of cultures that land on our shores?
• How about quizzes to test your knowledge on immigrant/refugee policy? Issues related to supporting the home language of newcomer children? For service providers, would you like to have a forum to ask questions, such as how to respond to requests for acommoation for religious/cultural practices?

Finally, are there existing sites run from a Canadian perspective that you think I may learn from or that I might consider collaborating/partnering with?

• How about the layout of the site? In 2007, I chose the banner on the home children, because that is the issues that sparked my interest in the history of immigrant children in the first place. Now here we are in 2010 – the Year of the British Home Child in Canada. Seems like a perfect fit – although there have been suggestions that my banner ought to better reflect the children who arrive on Canada’s shores today. What do you think?

As tweeted last month (and I shall reminder folks again), immigrantchildren.ca will be up and down often over  the month of August in order to plan and make changes, improvements, and etc. You can always reach me through DM on twitter or via email: zs dot worotynec at utoronto dot ca. And, of course, leaving a comment here may spark others to add their own comments, so feel free!

Many thanks for all with an interest, dedication to, and appreciation of the distinct needs of immigrant, refugee and newcomer children to Canada.

Please leave a comment below, or contact me. I am keen to hear your ideas.

Thanks,

Z Sonia Worotynec

Archived presentations from Year 1 are available here in English and also here in French.

Year 2 offerings:

1. Building cross-cultural competence (Sept 22, 2010)
2. Building trusting relationships with families: Towards a motivational understanding of change (Oct 13, 2010)
3. Promoting children’s mental health (Nov 10, 2010)
4. Understanding attachment: How early relationships influence the brain’s architecture (Dec 8, 2010)
5. Building circles of support through service coordination (Jan 19, 2011)
6. Developing relationships with child welfare services (Feb 16, 2011).

For more information, including how to register, visit the Mothercraft Caring for Canada’s Children website.