(NAME-MCE) 2008 National Refugee and Immigrant Conference: Issues and Innovations

[Lynn Osheff]

Announcing the 

2008 National Refugee and Immigrant Conference:  Issues and Innovations

Thursday-Friday, September 25-26, 2008

Holiday Inn Chicago-Mart Plaza, Chicago, IL

 

The 2008 Refugee and Immigrant Conference offers groups and individuals
assisting refugee and immigrant children and their families an
opportunity to network and learn about issues affecting refugee and
immigrant children and their families, schools, health, and health care,
along with the challenges of cultural adjustment.  This conference is
valuable if you are a ... state refugee coordinator, RCSIG coordinator,
bilingual education coordinator, resettlement worker, social worker,
school teacher, school administrator, counselor, university faculty,
university student, healthcare professional or a refugee and immigrant
services staff member.

 

The conference will include sessions on:

 

*          Integration of  Services:  integrating services and
networking among educators, counselors, and healthcare professionals to
strengthen and improve responses to refugee and immigrant needs 

 

*          Creating Partnerships:  creating partnerships between
families and service providers, emphasizing involvement, awareness and
understanding

 

*          Multiple-risk Families:  understanding and helping the most
vulnerable:  children with multiple risks from behavioral, emotional and
health-related problems; effects of dislocation, including stress,
suicide, gang violence and family disruptions

 

*          PreK-12 Educational Issues:  developing dialogues among
teachers of refugee students on best practices for:  integrating refugee
children and their families into the American school system; providing
early intervention by serving refugee children in PreK programs;
educating teenage refugee students without any prior school experience
or with broken schooling; encouraging high school refugee students into
career exploration and post-secondary education

 

*          Family Life Education:  strengthening refugee and immigrant
families and facilitating productive cultural adjustment. 

 

*          Health Issues:  health promotion, nutrition, mental health,
women and children's health, and accessing services for the disabled 

 

*          Refugee Influxes:  recent refugee influxes, including
Afghani, Burundian, Burmese, Bhutanese, Iraqi

 

*          Jobs:  development, placement and training

 

*          Issues of citizenship and immigration

                          

Information and the Call for Conference Workshop Proposals can be found
at http://www.thecenterweb.org/alrc/refugee.html.  If you have any
questions, please contact Lynn Osheff (losheff at thecenterweb.org).