Community Collaboration: The Key to Serving All Families
How a Head Start program developed effective services for its refugee and immigrant families.

by Kathleen Sullivan

The Cross-Cultural Family Network
Stages of Sequential Acquisition of a Second Language
Educational Services for Children
A Unique Literacy Project
Staff Development and Hiring
Final Thoughts


Fifty–two languages are spoken in the city of Portland, Maine. That’s kind of surprising, given that the last U.S. Census reported that Maine was the least diverse state! But Portland has been designated by the State Department as a Refugee Resettlement city. The refugee families who have resettled have discovered that Portland is a safe and welcoming town. Friends and family members have followed as secondary migrants from other resettlement areas across the country. During the last decade, the influx of refugee, secondary migrant, and immigrant families has changed the face of our small city.

Of course, these demographic changes are reflected in the population we serve in our Head Start, Early Head Start, and child care programs. Our programs are operated by the People’s Regional Opportunity Program (PROP), a community action agency. We serve Maine’s most populous county, Cumberland County. The number of languages spoken by families in our programs has increased steadily and now averages about 20 languages. In any classroom, there might be as many as ten different languages spoken by the children. Since one language may be shared by various cultures, the diversity of cultures is even greater.

All this change sweeping across our city has resulted in a huge learning curve for our community and our agency. First and foremost, we have identified dialogue with the families and the communities as the primary vehicle for effective and responsive program planning and change. Head Start and other service programs have developed effective strategies for reaching these new populations.

The Cross-Cultural Family Network

In 1997, we began to take a closer look at the cultures of the refugee and immigrant families enrolled in our programs. Their perspectives on child rearing practices and their perceptions of social service institutions differed from ours, which hindered our communication. The result was a negative impact on the ability of these new families to rear their children uneventfully. For example, service providers who did not understand traditional medical practices were calling the Child Abuse and Neglect Council to ask if these practices were deemed abusive by the State (the answer was "no"). At the same time, refugee families did not know how to find out about best parenting practices in the U.S.

To ensure clearer understanding across cultures, PROP’s Head Start program and the Cumberland County Child Abuse and Neglect Council co-founded the Cross-Cultural Family Network. The Network is comprised of community providers, educators, interpreters, and representatives from the refugee and immigrant groups. Our mission is to obtain and provide information, offer workshops and conferences, provide opportunities for collaborative problem-solving, and offer a perspective on crosscultural issues to the larger Portland community.

The Network’s first goal was to design and disseminate culturally sensitive materials on U.S. child rearing practices and laws. Working with cultural liaisons, interpreters, and child development professionals, we developed and translated pamphlets for the five most populous cultural groups in the area.

Over the past six years, we have continued to offer workshops on a community and statewide level on topics such as evolving demographics of our community and holiday practices. In addition, we offer monthly forums to service providers and others where they can identify challenges and determine best practices.

Stages of Sequential Acquisition of a Second Language

Tabors and Snow (1994) have identified four stages of sequential acquisition of a new language. The stages represent a general pattern of second language learning for children, after the age of 3, in English-speaking settings.

Stage 1: Home Language Use. Monolingual children in a new language environment continue to speak their home language.

Stage 2: Nonverbal Period. This stage begins when children start to realize that their primary language is not being understood. They will become quiet, watching and listening intently, and often use nonverbal means to communicate.

Stage 3: Telegraphic and Formulaic Speech. During this time, children intentionally use individual vocabulary words in the new language or put them together in a short sequence or short sentence. Some mixing of the English and the home language may occur.

Stage 4: Productive Language. The child begins to speak English relatively well. Sentences may be rather awkward and words over- or under-generalized at times.

Excerpt from Phillip C. Gonzales, Becoming Bilingual: First and Second Language Acquisition http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/resources/ECLKC_Bookstore/PDFs/Bulletin%20%2378_English%20Language%20Learners.pdf [PDF, 1.4MB]

Educational Services for Children

As the demographics of our classrooms have changed, so has the need to assess our teaching strategies. One of the greatest challenges is that educational expectations vary across cultures. Approaches to individualization, guidance and discipline, and disabilities differ. Our education staff has made great efforts to learn about the desires and values of each family for their young children.

A training priority has been supporting staff working with English Language Learners (ELLs). Our approach has evolved as we have begun to understand the complexity of second or third language development in young children. The first workshops our staff attended were conducted by the Multilingual, Multicultural Office of the Portland Public Schools with Title VII funding (now Title III of No Child Left Behind Act).

In 2001, nine education staff from our program attended a conference on ELL teaching strategies in Rhode Island. The training focused on classroom practice and incorporated recommendations from One Child, Two Languages by Patton Tabors (1997). Subsequently, we purchased this book for every classroom serving ELLs and recommended it to the school system. We developed inservice training based on the workshops we had attended and used the book as a resource.

Next, we conducted a formal assessment of our practices and then planned a comprehensive ELL training series. We were awarded an Early Learning Opportunities grant from the Child Care Bureau (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services) to carry out this plan. The grant included provisions for multicultural activities which became a perfect vehicle for moving our work forward.

First, we hired consultants from the community who were credentialed in ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and familiar with the populations we serve. Over the course of a year, they observed our classrooms and reviewed our assessment tools, curriculum, and policies. They held focus groups with staff and management to assess needs and concerns. Based on their findings, they made recommendations concerning our work with ELLs and refugee families, and subsequently developed a comprehensive training series.

The training began with a report on our cultural responsiveness as an agency. We then discussed best practice models that incorporate current research findings about multilingual, multicultural service delivery. To assure program-wide recognition and understanding of the changing dynamics of our work, all managers, lead teachers, and family service workers were required to attend the series.

In addition to participating in the training, PROP Head Start has:

• adapted an observational tool (from Tabors 1997) for teachers to track English language acquisition and
• formed a "Multicultural Book Group" that meets once a month.

To maintain our momentum, the consultants met with our entire management team again in the fall 2003. We reviewed their recommendations and talked about further implementation. This continuing dialogue has been instrumental in shifting the focus of our staff and classrooms around this work.

Various community resources have helped support language acquisition and the home cultures in our classrooms. We have hired bilingual community members to work in the classrooms. They remain until the children understand the routine and feel comfortable in the new setting. Because each child adjusts differently, interpreters may remain with children for one week or three months.

We also have partnered with the foreign language department of a local university. Students who are bilingual in English and Spanish volunteer in our programs for two days a week for a semester and earn course credit. Bilingual community members make recordings of children’s books in both English and the home language. Then high school volunteers put them onto CDs. Parents help us label the classrooms with words from their home languages. In addition to promoting the home languages, these activities allow us to learn more about the children’s cultures.

A Unique Literacy Project

The most inspiring and informative multicultural project was the "New Mainer Book Project," a collaboration between PROP and the Maine Humanities Council. We identified the Sudanese culture in Portland as being under-represented in children’s literature. Community elders helped the project recruit Sudanese women to tell stories that were important to them—stories that they would like their children to hear.

During the fall of 2003, we met with the Sudanese women. We found that the most effective way to involve refugee families in outreach projects was to meet them at times when they would normally congregate. For the Sudanese communities, this meant meeting on Sundays after church.

Because there are many tribes and dialects in the Sudan, we met tribe by tribe. We ate together and listened as the stories were told. We heard fables, folktales, creation myths, and anecdotal accounts of love, marriage, birthing, and loss. In all, approximately 50 women participated in the project.

The Maine Humanities Council engaged a noted children’s author (who spoke some Arabic) to collect the stories into a book that reflects the Sudanese experience. Although the book is still in the early stages, the information we gathered about the Sudanese way of life has been invaluable to our staff—information that was often missed when reading an article or conversing quickly with a parent.

Staff Development and Hiring

To reach out to the new communities we serve and to involve them meaningfully in our work, we started to attend Parent Advisory Council (PAC) meetings held by the Portland public schools. PACs are culturally specific groups that focus on issues affecting parents of school-age children. They are held on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, so weekend work has become an important part of the outreach effort. We learned that many Portland families do not understand what PROP offers nor do they realize the comprehensive nature of Head Start.

To address these needs in the multicultural community and to further develop the cultural competence of staff, we formed an agency-wide Cultural Capacity Committee for outreach, training, and hiring. While participation was voluntary, we asked that each department of the agency send a representative.

The initial activities of the Cultural Capacity Committee led us directly into the communities. We attended a Multicultural Outreach Breakfast, neighborhood block parties, and school PAC meetings. We developed a multicultural resource library and offered culture-by-culture workshops regarding education, home visits, and barriers to accessing service. One of the most important efforts was the identification and establishment of "Cultural Brokers" (bilingual/bicultural liaisons) who helped introduce our programs to the community and train staff regarding culturally specific concerns.

Through the work of the Cultural Capacity Committee, we have changed how we conduct our work. We have developed culturally responsive policies about interpreting, holidays, toileting, and meal-modification.

While services to families have improved, recruiting and employing refugee and immigrant parents remain areas of growth for us. With Early Learning Opportunities funding, the agency has brought together Somali and Sudanese women at our local resource and referral agency (Child Care Connections) to discuss issues of childrearing. Many women were interested in starting their own home daycare centers or working in local preschool and child care centers.

In response, we collaborated with Portland Adult Education, Child Care Connections, the Child Abuse and Neglect Council, and several other child care programs in the city to offer pre-vocational ESOL classes to 15 refugee women. The classes were held on-site at a neighboring child care center, and child care was provided.

Because the job interview process in the United States is very different, PROP offered "practice" interviews. We modeled and coached the women to talk about themselves and their achievements so they would be competitive applicants in the job market. In turn, our staff and Policy Council representatives learned how to successfully engage the applicants in the interviewing process. As a result, three participants have been hired as permanent staff in the agency while three others are on the substitute list.

Final Thoughts

We at PROP know that this work is very time consuming and that weekend work is necessary. We also know that we have more to learn, yet, we have made much progress. We have established credibility with both the provider and client communities. Families want to enroll their children in our programs. Parents want to be employed in the agency. Other groups seek us out as collaborators. Cultural brokers demonstrate their appreciation of our commitment by offering free training, interpreting, or research services. The benefit to the agency, and to all of us who have been involved in this multicultural endeavor, is without measure.

REFERENCES

Tabors, P. 1997. One child, two languages. A guide for preschool educators of children learning English as a second language. Baltimore, MD: Paul. H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Kathleen Sullivan is a Children’s Services Team Leader at PROP Child and Family Services, Portland, ME. T: 207-874-1140; E: ksullivan@propeople.org