ImmigrantChildren.ca Archive

Category: Resources

  • 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.

  • "Peel Immigration Papers"

    In May, CERIS (The Joint Centre of Excellence for Research in Immigration Studies and Ontario Metropolis Centre) held a seminar based on research conducted in several areas, culminating in the Peel Immigration Papers. The papers include issues related to children and families. They are:

    • Meeting the human service needs of immigrants. Speaker: Sarah V. Wayland, Wayland Consulting.
    • Meeting the needs of immigrants throughout the life cycle. Speaker: Ilene Hyman, UT.
    • From generation to generation. Speaker: Michelle P. Goldberg, OISE/UT.

    Wayland’s presentation provides an overview of the issues and makes recommendations for optimal service delivery. Hyman’s presentatiaon (developed with Judith K. Bernhard and Ellen Tate) closely examines the importance of early childhood education in their overview of the issues and in their recommendations. Finally, Goldberg’s presentation (developed with Sarah V. Wayland) examines supports to families and communities in the areas of: Academic supports; Emotional and social supports; Mitigating the effects of poverty; and Building community social capital. We hope that the full papers – from which these presentations were based – are also made available online.

  • Putting the culture in multiculturalism

    The Institute for Canadian Citizenship is partnering with Toronto-area cultural institutions, like galleries and museums, in offering new citizens – and their children – passess to local cultural attractions, such as the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Gardiner Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, Colborne Lodge in High Park, Mackenzie House and many many others.
    As of the end of June, the program has expanded into the Kitchener-Waterloo area.
    For more information, visit Cultural Access Pass.

  • Ottawa's child settlement program

    The Ottawa Social Planning Council released “Immigrants’ Economic Integration: Successes and Challenges” last week. The report examines the social and economic integration of newcomers to Ottawa and includes discussion of the settlement needs of children. From an article in today’s Ottawa Citizen:

    A young person who moves here from another country faces a whole spectrum of things on top of the usual trials of growing up, says Hamdi Mohamed, executive director of the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization (OCISO).
    “They live in a community that is really struggling, in a family that is struggling, where the father, the mother, the other siblings are all going through their own settlement experiences,” says Mohamed. “On top of that, the father may have three jobs, the mother may be working as well, so the problems are there, but the role models are not available.”
    Mohamed says immigrant children struggle in particular with multiple identities. They are new Canadians who often have strong ties to their homeland, something the Canadian-born may tell them is disloyal….
    “The reality of these children is they’re told ‘You must fit in this box or you don’t belong.’ And yet they know they have multiple identities, but they don’t yet know that there are beautiful things about that,” says Mohamed.

    In response, OCISO has launched a program that may be piloted in schools and other community locations to assist immigrant children and youth with issues in integration and also in maintaining home language, culture and practices. Other ISOs in the Ottawa area are on board. Read the full article here.
    Related resource: See OSPCs 2007 paper “Is Everybody Here? Inclusion and Exclusion Ottawa of Families with Young Children in the Ottawa Area”.

  • Colour Our World: Calgary's child settlement program

    Calgary’s Centre for Newcomers, with funding from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, runs a settlement program for immigrant children, aged 2 – 12, accompanied by a parent or family member. The program provides one-on-one support as well as group activities, all with the goal of providing information and support for children integrating into Canada. For more information, see the webpage and/or contact program coordinator Zainab Qaiser Khan, (403) 569-3348.
    Are other provinces/jurisdictions conducting similar programs specifically for children’s integration/settlement?

  • Early learning report for blending child care and kindergarten

    Charles Pascal has completed his two-year long investigation into early learning in Ontario. His report calls for a blending of child care and kindergarten. Read about Pascal, his approach to the work, and dowload a copy of the report, Our Best Future: Early Learning in Ontario, at the Ministry of Children and Youth website.
    There is no substantial discussion on immigrant, refugee or newcomer children, but “diversity” appears several times throughout the report:

    In Chapter 1, “Our best future is one in which all children are … respectful of the diversity of their peers” (p. 7).
    In the section discussing schools as the hub of the community, Pascal admits that “Concerns have been voiced that some schools are often unwelcoming to parents, dismissive of the expertise of community partners, and insensitive to the opportunities that diversity can provide for all students” (p. 17).
    In the section on programming, there is a review of the ELECT principles, which include “Respect for diversity, inclusion and equity are prerequisites for optimal development and learning” (p. 26).
    Also in the section on programming, and about ELECT, there is mention that any curricula should “reflect Ontario’s diversity” (p. 29).
    The parental engagement discussion in the report calls on educators to “be thoughtful about who is involved in the process. Many parents commented that existing policies on parent engagement in schools and early childhood programs did not give enough consideration to the splendid diversity in Ontario. Are we truly involving parents if some educators and school leaders, as I have been advised, avoid the Muslim mother because she wears a hijab, or are confused about how to approach same-sex parents or the many configurations of blended families?” (p. 31).
    In the recommendations section: “We must learn from each other. There are excellent examples of critical elements of the new system, across this province – teachers and ECEs working together, school-home based child care, school leaders who know how to engage parents and embrace diversity” (p. 49).
    And, finally, a critical success factor in implementing the new system are: “ECEs with excellent child development knowledge, skills and experience already in place, passion for diversity…”(p. 49).

  • Diversity fund, Children's Aid Foundation

    Announced today the Children’s Aid Foundation, in partnership with RBC, has launched a Diversity Fund that will provide social service agencies with resources to support their work with a diverse population. Information will be made available on such topics as helping families dealing with Canadian winters and coping with trauma and post-traumatic stress for refugee families, as two examples. 
    Read the news release.

  • Sick Kids Hospital receives settlement funding

    The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto has received over 9 million in settlement funding to establish an “immigrant support network“. 
    The network will provide translations of 45 “core patient health education” articles into languages spoken by newcomer patients and their families, including Chinese, French, Tamil, Spanish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Vietnamese and Arabic. Articles will be posted on sickkids.ca and aboutkidshealth.ca.

  • Importance of retaining home language for newcomer children

    As profiled on immigrantchildren.ca before, the initiative mylanguage.ca promotes the importance of newcomer children retaining their ‘home language’. Research shows that retaining and regularly using the mother tongue helps children learn a 2nd and 3rd language and is a proactive way for families to keep their culture alive as they integrate into Canadian society.
    The mylanguage.ca website has added a power point presentation of key points in this discussion. Find it in their Resources section. Also available in Russian and in Ukranian.
    Related immigrantchildren.ca posts:

    L1
    Research papers on mylanguage.ca

  • Bernard van Leer annotated bibliography on social inclusion and diversity in early childhood

    The Bernard van Leer Foundation‘s annotated bibliography of resources and publications in social inclusion and diversity is called “Valuing the Learning“.
    The resource is organized in three main sections.
    Section A: Theories, concepts and ways of viewing concerns with resources that mostly focus on theory and key concepts and include the following overlapping sections:

    Diversity, belonging and positive identity, such as inclusion and access, linguistic diversity, relationships, place identity, self-image.
    Children as citizens, child participation, the visibility of children, spaces for children.
    Early Childhood Education and Care as democratic process and the relationship between ECEC and social inclusion, social capital and well-being.

    Section B: Working with children, parents, early childhood practitioners and trainers includes the following:

    Engaging, involving and listening to children.
    Engaging, involving and listening to parents.
    Changing attitudes, behaviours and structures and advocacy strategies. 
    Innovative training and professional development.
    Creating spaces to belong.

    Part C: Information exchange and dissemination of information, including:

    Networking.
    Communicating, through shared knowledge, conferences, publications, translations.
    Researching and documentation.

    Source: Kernan, M. 2008. Valuing the learning: An annotated bibliography of the resources and publications of the Bernard van Leer Foundation and its partners in the area of Social Inclusion and Respect for Diversity (2002-2008). Online Outreach Paper 6. The Hague, The Netherlands: Bernard van Leer Foundation.