Refugee Students in COVID Learning Environments
Unique challenges and opportunities faced by refugee children in COVID learning environments among Hello Neighbor Network members
COVID has changed the way students around the country are learning this year. Students in refugee and immigrant communities are no exception. We asked the members of the Hello Neighbor Network how they are adapting their programs to support young people’s learning right now and what opportunities and challenges they’ve noticed given the current and ever-changing climate of schooling.
Some of the common challenges they shared are:
- student isolation from community
- limited access to technology
- the digital literacy gap
- limited resources for English Language Learners and those with IEPs
Some common opportunities they shared are:
- more volunteers engaging from across the U.S. and world
- removal of the transportation barrier for refugee families
- additional opportunities to connect virtually
- increased digital literacy development
Read about the work of five of our Network members below.
Dwell Mobile
When the public school system made the call to go to virtual learning, Dwell Mobile trained and assembled a team of volunteers and assigned them to families. The main goal was to make sure the students were logging on and for volunteers to be a support to them in place of the support they would typically receive at school. During this time, Dwell Mobile also arranged lunches to be picked up from the schools and delivered to families. This provided students additional checkpoints from the school each week. Dwell Mobile students received Chromebooks using grant funding. For any students with a broken laptop, Dwell Mobile obtained more from the schools as well as internet hot spots. The plan going forward is for all students continue virtual learning which will take place on campus instead of at their homes. Dwell Mobile will continue to provide additional support through multiple weekly check-ins and plans to restart tutoring in the spring.
Challenges: One of the challenges of virtual learning for refugee studnets is that it removes them from the larger school community which makes it more challenging to feel a part of society. Parental capacity to support children and barriers around transportation to Dwell Mobile’s space are also challenges. With public school systems maxed out, there are limited resources to support students with individualized education plans (IEPs) and other requirements for special education support.
Opportunities: Alongside challenges, the situation has created a couple of opportunities. One is that COVID has necessitated smaller group and one-on-one settings which allow educators to better assess student performance and tailor support to the individual. A second opportunity for Dwell Mobile is that it has allowed them to provide services to families in one place instead of siblings scattered across different schools.
Hearts and Homes for Refugees
Since mid-March, Hearts and Homes for Refugees has been sharing information and resources, including providing assistance with food, utilities, filing for unemployment and new job searches. They created a gift card assistance program to help fill some of the financial gaps created by COVID-19. They have built teams to support language acquisition and at-home education. This has included individual tutoring for children and adults; summer Boredom Buster Bags of books and games created and delivered in partnership with another local organization; a three-week online ‘learn and play’ program for elementary students to kick off the summer; a four-week ‘music in the park’ program for children; a weekly online conversation group for women; and periodic online meet-ups and excursions for men.
They are also launching a program in conjunction with Sarah Lawrence College to offer 3 to 5 hours per week of individual tutoring and mentoring by college students for refugee children since parents aren’t often able to support homework whether because they are working, face a language barrier or were denied education themselves. Children will have the same tutor throughout the semester and the tutors will lead fun activities when homework is done.
Challenges: Online learning is not the most effective way to learn for every adult and child and some are struggling with the new format. It has been a big help that as the pandemic has eased in Westchester County, Hearts and Homes has been able to complement online learning with a small amount of socially-distanced outdoor programming.
Opportunities: Being online has made it easier to schedule 1 on 1 and group sessions and created opportunities for more frequent online programming than Hearts and Homes can offer in person. It has also presented a chance to connect with new members of refugee communities and build relationships with them.
Homes Not Borders
Homes Not Borders, launched their Career Mentoring program in the middle of COVID. The plan at the beginning of the year was to have mentors and mentees meet in person and have monthly events, but it was easy to switch to virtual and has worked out well with mentees and mentors meeting on Zoom and texting regularly. Homes not Borders plans to hold their first workshop virtually later this month.
Founder and Executive Director, Laura Osuri says,
“We have seen that most of the refugees we work with are able to use zoom and meet virtually with little problem. Everyone has adapted pretty quickly!”
Challenges: It’s harder to build relationships and establish connections over Zoom. There’s no place to share tea or meet families.
Opportunities: There’s been an opportunity to get more people involved as both mentors and mentees. People are willing and able to connect through Zoom calls from their home more readily than they would meet 1 on 1 in person.
Refugee Assistance Alliance
Given how quickly decisions were made about virtual learning, the Refugee Assistance Alliance had no time to apply for a “school assistance” grant or to create a program along with necessary evaluation. They were in triage mode, and jumped in with both feet. Refugee Assistance Alliance got to work addressing one child’s needs at a time, while they simultaneously sent out a call for emergency virtual tutors, learned various district guidelines, accessed student portals and teacher platforms, trained volunteers, and set in motion a bigger plan to help us keep everything under control.
Thanks to staff dedication, donations, and a team of amazing volunteers, beginning in March of 2020, and repeated again in August of 2020, they were involved in the day in, day out schooling needs of every single child in their program. Depending on their parent’s own education, language and technology skills, each family received support from between 2–6 tutors at any given time.
Jamie Everett, Director of Operations, says:
“It hasn’t been easy, it hasn’t been perfect, and it wasn’t planned out in the conventional way, but it has been worth it. RAA’s children all passed last year, and they are all attending and completing work this year. We are proud and honored to be a part of their lives.”
Challenges: In South Florida’s school districts, where Refugee Assistance Alliance (RAA) works, school information comes to families in English, Spanish, and sometimes in Haitian Creole. This means that the refugee families who they serve (who speak Arabic, Tigrinya, Dari and more) can neither understand the school nor the district’s directives, in general, and especially when the pandemic hit. The parents were unable to assist their children in navigating their online platforms, joining video classes, or completing their assignments. In mid-March, when the schools abruptly went remote, the vast majority of RAA’s children did not understand what was happening. Parents turned to RAA for help with questions ranging from “What is the Coronavirus?” to “How does my child find their teacher?” Entire families of refugee students were not able to access school and parents were confused and frustrated.
Opportunities: RAA is more in tune with children’s detailed educational needs. One example was when RAA learned that a child was struggling with quasi-illiteracy in grade 5. He is charming and creative and both teachers and tutors had missed it in the past. RAA took on the task of meeting with parents, and then, with their permission, enlisted the help of a certified reading specialist, who tested him and has been working with him for six months now. RAA families have also improved dramatically in regards to their technology skills (some on their own, but many with the help of our staff and volunteers). RAA has also been able to enlist tutors from all over the U.S. and even abroad, since they work virtually, and launch group English classes (something they hadn’t done previously because of transportation barriers). And importantly, the need for the kind of work they do (up close and personal with refugee families post-official resettlement) has only become more clear to donors and community partners.
Soft Landing Missoula
Soft Landing Missoula has provided families with computers and internet to access virtual learning platforms. They are also providing 1 on 1 virtual tutoring for students who are learning the logistics of online class alongside their coursework. This is in addition to their regular after school tutoring program that happens three times a week and was adapted to serve students both virtually and in small in-person groups with COVID precautions.
Challenges: Access to technology has been a barrier for many families. It’s not just a matter of having a computer but also knowing how to use that technology effectively. More challenging still, any instruction or support on how to use computers and technology has to be done virtually as well.
Opportunities: Though there are many challenges, remote learning has created some opportunities for refugee families including reducing transportation barriers, increased flexibility for parents to work around their work schedules, and the opportunity to develop valued digital literacy skills for everyone in the family. On the volunteer side, virtual learning has created an opportunity for people who previously lived in Missoula to support families as virtual tutors. Further, it has reaffirmed partnerships between organizations within the community like Soft Landing Missoula and Missoula County Public Schools.
The Hello Neighbor Network is accepting applications for the 2021 class of Hello Neighbor Network Fellows. Read more and consider applying at: https://www.helloneighbor.io/network
