Services for School-aged Refugee Children
The Refugee Children School Impact Grant (RCSIG) funds refugee
social service agencies to help integrate refugee children into
Illinois schools. Agencies
offer services to schools, refugee children and their parents.
Schools may call programs
listed below directly for assistance.
Who are refugee children?
Refugee
Social Service Agency Contact List 
The 2008 National Refugee and Immigrant Conference: Issues and Innovations, September 25-26, 2008
2008
National Refugee and Immigrant Conference: Call for Workshop
Proposals
Contact Sherry Johnson at
312-814-3850 for more information on school aged refugee children.
Additional Resources
Professional Development
A Guide to Your Children's Schools: A Parent Handbook
This guide to Illinois schools for newcomer parents
can be downloaded:
Involving Immigrant
and Refugee Families in Their Children's School's: Barriers,
Challenges, and Successful Strategies
The state of Minnesota sells videos produced for newcomer parents.
Refugee Language and Culture
-
Cultural Orientation Resource
Center/Center for Applied Linguistics website includes information
on refugee resettlement, refugee culture profiles and phrase
books in refugee languages.
-
The online Ethnologue
includes information on the languages of the world.
-
Summaries of countries and cultures are available on the Center
for Multicultural and Multilingual Mental Health Resource website
Educational Resources
Immigrant/Refugee Education Policy. The Illinois Immigrant
Policy Project released papers on the education of immigrants and
refugees:
Resource Links
General Information on Language and Culture
- Background
on Refugees
This is an excellent site for general information (definitions)
and then it links to more specific and advanced topics on various
countries from which refugees come.
- Background Notes
The U.S. Department of State has put the popular Background
Notes online. These profiles of all the world’s countries
include brief information on history, people, economy, political
conditions, travel/business notes, and more.
- Center for Applied Linguistics
The Center for Applied Linguistics provides resources, grants
and general information about speakers of other languages and
their lives and roles in the United States.
- CIA
World Factbook
This is a collection of brief profiles of every country and includes
maps, information on the people, the government, the economy,
and more.
- Ethnologue
This extensive site presents information about languages and language
speakers all ofer the world.
- The
New Americans
This movie traces the journeys of several immigrants in
a profound, moving way.
- UNHCR
Publications
The Refugees Magazine is available online and is searchable.
This is a useful source of information about all refugee groups
helped by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees.
- Refugee Services of
America
These agencies offer much information on the status of refugees
worldwide, including news and additional sources of information.
- TESOL
This is an international professional organization for teachers
of speakers of other languages.
Resources for Teachers
Information
- Illinois State Board of Education Collection of Resources
- Office
for Civil Rights
The site includes FAQs on the rights of LEPs, and resources for
developing ELL programs
- Visit a refugee camp
This is an excellent site for use by teachers. It contains
a middle and high school curriculum on refugee issues and refugee
camps – “A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City.”
Teacher Tools
- Illinois
Resource Center’s ekit
The Illinois State Board of Education and the Illinois Resource
Center have collaborated to create a locally and nationally relevant
knowledge base in the area of educating linguistically and culturally
diverse students. The ekit is an electronic resource that is designed
to place information to guide teachers and administrators in ways
to provide effective, efficient, and pedagogically sound instruction
for the English language learners in your school.
Resources for Social Service Agencies & Educators
Information for Parents
- Minnesota:
You Can Help Your Child videos
The two videos is this series are: “You Can Help Your Child
in School” and “You Can Talk to Your Child’s School.”
They are translated into English, Somali, Hmong, Spanish, Russian
and ‘Amharic. They can be ordered at this site.
Information on Specific Refugee Groups
- Afghan
Woman's Mission
Information about Afghan women and their lives during the war
in Afghanistan can be found here.
To request bound copies of the reports listed above, contact Carol
Rech at the Illinois Department of Human Services.
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