ImmigrantChildren.ca Archive

Author: marcocampana

  • Francophone female refugees separated from their children, a study

    The Ontario Metropolis Centre of Excellence for Research in Immigration Studies (CERIS) has released its latest Policy Matters issue. The Sept 2009 edition is a summary of a report entitled An Analysis of the challenges faced by francophone female refugees living in Ontario and separated from their chilren.
    Authors Emile Greon, Michele Kerist, and Francosie Magunira examine the challenges faced by Francophone refugee mothers in Ontario who are separated from their children. The authors make several recommendations for policy change, including:

    1) Allow children and spouses to join women refugee claimants, and have their paperwork process from within Canada.
    2)  Improve the availability of legal information about family reunification in French.
    3)  Ease the bureaucratic process.
    4)  Create positions for case workers to follow individual cases and track delays.
    5) Enact an “action plan” to systematically present the findings to all stakeholders within one year.

    The study was funded by the Ontario Movement for Francophone Immigrant Women.

  • Importance of retaining "home language" of children

    From the Toronto District School Board, “Research shows that children who have a strong foundation in their home language acheive greater success at school.  Click to watch a film that will suggest different activities that parents, guardians, and caregivers can enjoy together wtih children to encourage development of the home language and ultimately greater success at school”.
    Visit mylanguage.ca for many useful resources and information on this important issue.

  • Settlement workers in schools

    Settlement Workers in the Schools (SWIS) is a partnership of Ontario school boards, the settlement sector and Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Ten SWIS programs operate in Ontario.
    School is one of the first public institutions that children and families encounter. A program like SWIS has an ideal opportunity to support immigrant integration by introducing newcomers to their new community and connecting families with information, resources and support as they navigate the school system.
    This fall, SWIS will again be delivering Newcomer Orientation Week in 60 schools across Ontario, including a French language counterpart, SONA. New this year, a middle-school program, WIN (Welcome and Information for Newcomers) will be piloted in 16 schools in Ottawa, Peel, Toronto and Windsor. For more information on SWIS, including their latest newsletter, see atwork.settlement.org.
    Coming soon to immigrantchildren.ca ~ full contact information for all SWIS sites.

  • Call for papers: FRP Canada journal

    The Canadian Association of Family Resource Programs (FRP Canada) publishes an occasional journal entitled Perspectives in Family Support. FRP has issued a call for papers for its third volume of Perspectives, to be released in March 2010. Vol 3 will address issues relating to the family support sector welcoming and supporting newcomer families. The volume hopes to increase the knowledge of practitioners and others who work with newcomer families.
    Contributions are invited from family support practitioners, researchers, academics and others with an interest and expertise in this topic. Proposals from graduate students are encouraged. Articles should be a maximum of 3000 words in length, but may be shorter depending on the topic. Interested? Contact Kim Hetherington: kimh@frp.ca by September 11, 2009.
    Final papers due October 31, 2009.

  • Which way home: Documentary on unaccompanied children

    Which Way Home tells the story of several unaccompanied child migrants as they journey through Mexico en route to the United States via a freight train they have nick-named The Beast. Directed by Rebecca Cammisa, the film tells the stories of “children like Olga and Freddy, nine-year old Hondurans who are desperately trying to reach their families in Minnesota, and Jose, a ten-year-old El Salvadoran who has been abandoned by smugglers and ends up alone in a Mexican detention center, and focuses on Kevin, a canny, streetwise 14-year-old Honduran, whose mother hopes that he will reach New York City and send money back to his family. These are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and sorrow” (Source: uscri.refugees.org listserv).
    Airs Mon Aug 24/09 et/pt at 9pm on HBO.

  • The future for refugee children/Refugee futures conference

    The partnership of the International Metropolis Project Canada, the Australian Multicultural Foundation and the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements presents Refugee Futures Conference 2009, from Sept 10-12/09, to be held at Monash University in Prato Centre, Italy.
    The conference will be attended by policy makers, academics, administrators and service providers and will address the future challenges of refugee movements and settlement, including environmental refugees.  immigrantchildren.ca is pleased to see a session on refugee children, chaired by Jeff Crisp, UNHCR with speakers Su-Ann Oh, Room to Grow Foundation, Thailand and Dr. Stepan Kerkyasharian, Community Relations Commission, NSW, Australia. From the program:

    The future for refugee children
    Perhaps the best barometer of the state of the global refugee regime is the future it affords children and youth brought into its midst. Apart from basic necessities, key factors affecting the future for refugee children include protection from violence and abuse, opportunities for education,and social supports for themselves and their families, among others. What if we were to also include the availability of livelihood opportunities for their family and community, or perhaps even more to the point, the prospect of a solution to their plight within their lifetime? What would the answer be for the majority of refugee children today? Is it likely to improve over time? What can the international community do to improve outcomes? What is at risk if we cannot provide a better answer?

  • Language and reading comprehension of immigrant children

    Select slide presentations from the May ’09 Language and Reading Comprehension for Immigrant Children (LARCIC) conference are now available on the LARCIC website. All presentations open as PDFs.

  • Ontario gov't consultation on live-in caregivers and other 'temporary' workers

    The Ontario Ministry of Labour (MOL) has released a consultation paper on temporary foreign workers and is inviting comment from interested stakeholders.
    The paper, entitled A Consultation Paper on Foreign and Resident Employment Recruitment in Ontario, addresses live-in caregivers. From the Minister of Labour, The Honourable Peter Fonseca:

    “…I have personally attended community roundtables for caregivers, where I have heard disturbing stories about the treatment of people who come to this country hoping for a better life for themselves and their families, yet fail to realize their dream or pay too high a price … live-in caregivers, come to Ontario through programs designed and administered by the federal government. In my discussions with caregivers and those who advocate for them, it has become clear that these programs create situations where vulnerable workers are ripe for exploitation. While Ontario will continue to help improve the working conditions of vulnerable workers, the federal government must do its part and address the flaws in the LCP and other programs”.

    To submit comments, fax the MOL at 416.314.5855 to the attention of “Foreign and Resident Employment Recruitment”, mail to Foreign and Resident Employment Recruitment, 400 University Ave., 12th floor, Toronto ON M7A 1T7 or email recruitmentconsultations@ontario.ca. Deadline is August 21/09.
    Related resource: Are you a caregiver in the Federal live-in caregiver program? information sheet.

  • Call for papers: Southern Alberta Child & Youth Health Network conference

    The Southern Alberta Child & Youth Health Network has issued a call for proposals (and other conference related items/events) for their 2010 conference “Transcultural Health Conference“.
    The conference will be held May 2-4, 2010 in Calgary, Alberta and the theme this year is “Multiple Voices for Enhancing Health Equity through Research, Policy, Education and Clinical Practice”. From the call:

    The first national conference held in Montreal in 2007 drew a multidisciplinary group of over 200 participants in health care, education, community work and policy. It served to identify effective models of health care and strategies for clients from diverse ethnoracial and Aboriginal backgrounds. The second national conference will expand on these themes and for each of these categories provide attendees with the opportunity to consider and explore areas such as collaborative professional practice, issues of cultural knowledge and advocacy, the development of cultural competence, and the experience of clients, practitioners and policy makers from the perspective of diversity.

    For more information, see the conference web-pages and/or contact: Linda Kongnetiman
    Email: linda.kongnetiman@albertahealthservices.ca, tel: 403-955-7742.

  • Mental health promotion for newcomers

    Cultures West magazine, Vol 27, No. 1: Spring 2009 of the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies (AMSSA) is subtitled “Promoting Mental Health for Immigrants and Refugees” and includes a strong call to action with regard to children. From the first article, on starting a dialogue about mental health and newcomers:

    “…children are caught between two cultures and face regular trauma all day long. They wake up with their traditional culture, spend six to seven hours engrossed in Canadian culture and then go home where they are again encouraged to stick with their traditional culture”.

    An interesting portrait of the Multicultural Outreach Counselling Program highlights the need to be responsive to the needs of diverse communities and to ensure that parent-child conflict and differences in parenting styles are addressed. This edition includes several first-person accounts and case studies to illustrate the need for culturally-competent service providers and culturally-appropriate services and programs in mental health.