Dr. Susan Chuang is the organizer behind the annual “On New Shores: Understanding Immigrant Children” conference at the University of Guelph. Dr. Chuang and the University of Guelph will host the 4th annual On New Shores conference from Sept 30-Oct 1, 2010. immigrantchildren.ca will post calls for workshop and presenter proposals as soon as they are released.
Category: Conferences
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ECE professional development conference, Toronto
Toronto Children’s Services and the School of Early Childhood Education at George Brown College are partnering to present Raising the Bar, Lifting the Field, a professional development event for early childhood practitioners on Dec 2/09 in Toronto at the BMO Institute for Learning.
Several sessions will be of interest to immigrantchildren.ca readers, including:- Inclusion and family support: Promoting diversity in your community. This session, led by Patricia Hunt, Family Supports Institute Ontario, will address LGBTQ issues.
- Toronto childcare centres: A Language profile. Dr. Roma Chumak-Horbatsch, of mylanguage.ca, will present findings from a 2008 study conducted in collaboration with Toronto Children’s Services.
- Developmentally inappropriate practice? The Role of reflective practice in supporting inclusion. Lisa Phyllis, Early Years Coordinator for Humber College will expand practitioners understanding of how to create and maintain inclusive environments.
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Deportation as immigration policy: A call for papers
Deportation and the Development of Citizenship is the name of the conference being co-sponsored by the Centre on Policy, Migration and Society (COMPAS). The conference will be held Dec 11-12/09 in Oxford.
Papers are sought that address several themes, including: Who are the main subjects of deportation power and how have they changed over time as a result of political and social concerns? In what ways does subjection to deportation power map on to patterns of race, gender, and age?
Deadline for abstracts of 300 words, and a short biographical outline or CV are due by Sept 20/09 and should be sent to Dr Emanuela Paoletti, at emanuela.paoletti@qeh.ox.ac.uk. Prospective paper givers will be informed if their paper has been accepted by 30 September 2009.
Related link: Forced Migration Online. -
"On Their Own": Unaccompanied children conference
On Their Own: Protecting the Rights of Immigrant Children is the theme of this year’s annual conference hosted by the (US-based) National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children.
The conference will be held Oct 7-9/09 in Washington DC and will attract advocates from the legal sector as well as participants from the wider non-profit sector, including policy makers, academics and researchers. The conference seeks to examine and challenge current practices and policies and develop best practices for supporting unaccompanied children.
For more info, see the website. -
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.
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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. -
National Metropolis conference, March 18-21/10, Montreal
This year’s national Metropolis conference theme is “Immigration and Diversity: Crossroads of Culture, Engines of the Economy”. The conference will present workshops, roundtables and poster presentations in the six priority areas of the Metropolis program:
- Citizenship and social, cultural, linguistic and civic integration
- Economic and labour market integration
- Family, children, youth
- The role of the host communities for newcomers and minorities
- Justice, policing and security
- Housing, neighbourhoods and the urban environment.
For details, including a call for proposals, (deadline Oct 30/09) see the conference website.
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Conference proceedings: Canadian Association of Family Resource Programs
The Canadian Association of Family Resource Programs conference, “Welcoming Communities“, was held in May. Many of the presentations have been uploaded to the FRP conference site. Three of interest to immigrantchildren.ca readers, may be:
Listening to immigrant families: Restoring parenting self-efficacy
Canada’s future as a secure, prosperous and cohesive nation depends on how well immigrant families are integrated in society. Yet Canadian institutions undermine the economic, social, and political capital of immigrant parents of young children, leading to sense of loss of self-efficacy in their parenting roles. As a result, not only do the parents feel marginalized, but their children are put at greater risk of feeling alienated from ‘mainstream’ society. One way to address this issue is to systematically document immigrant families’ aspirations, strengths, strategies and needs for support in the form of family narratives, and use them to educate current and future decision makers in public service institutions working in education, childcare, healthcare, and social work.
Mehrunnisa Ahmad Ali, Ryerson University and the Joint Centre of Excellence for Research in Immigration and Settlement.The Cultural and political reasons why family programs should care about cultural identity
Participants at this workshop will learn about the Care, Identity and Inclusion Project, in which immigrant women and aboriginal women explain why they emphasize the retention and transmission of their cultural and/or faith identities. Findings from this qualitative study suggest that caregiving practices support parents and children alike in a number of important ways, including: to sustain familial relations regardless of geographic distance; to resist discrimination and to contribute to community development.
Paul Kershaw, Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP),Vancouver, BC.Family Support Practice and Diversity
The focus of this workshop will be on how children perceive family structure by incorporating the intersections of Queer Theory, race and class and the inclusion of individuals within their family context.
We will discuss the infusion of Family Support Principles in programs and systems other than family resource programs and where these principles can promote positive attitudes for families of all structures.
Patricia Hunt, Program Coordinator, South Riverdale Child-Parent Centre, Toronto.
Visit the FRP conference site to download the powerpoint presentations. -
Using international literature to build intercultural understanding: The IBBY Conference
“Children’s Books: Where Worlds Meet” is the theme for the 8th International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) conference, to be held in St. Charles, Illinois Oct 2-4/09.
From the conference brochure: “Stimulating and thought-provoking book discussions and small group sessions will provide opportunities to network with concerned professionals and to think about issues related to the use of international literature to build intercultural understanding”.
Featured at the conference will be An Imaginary Library: Children’s Books That Don’t Exist (Yet). Seventy-two artists from over 30 countries create book covers for books not (yet) in existence. The exhibit invites delegates to consider what the book content might be from the cover. Fun!
Among the speakers is Canada’s Patsy Aldana, president of IBBY, founder of Groundwood Books and on the founding board of The Canadian Children’s Book Centre.