Thank you very much Joe for setting this blog up!

One thing Joe said to me on my way out after meeting that stuck with me: "Connecting refugees their particular culture's community in San Diego will help them more than we could ever individually. Maybe finding ways to connect refugees to those who are best equipped to help may be the most beneficial act of service we could make for our families."

One more plug for Mary Pipher's book The Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community (this is the newer version of her book The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come To Our Town)

If anything I said during our meeting last friday resonated with you (or even if it didn't. haha:), I highly encourage you to pick this book up as probably more than half of what came out of my mouth was paraphrasing Mary Pipher's words from this book

link to free fix-it service for any households with occupants 60+ years old http://www.jfssd.org/site/PageServer?pagename=programs_older_fix_it

link to free car-seat 2 hour class and booster: http://www.pscsd.com/car-seat-safety/car-seat-program.html

looking forward to a fruitful collaboration.

Warmly,

mitchell hambley
(831)601-7484

Family Advocate and Mentor Meeting, February 3, 2012

Staff who attended:

Basima, Gerald, Joelle and Julie

FAM’s who attended:

Mitchell, Erin, Bryan, Krit, Kira, Jessica, Heidi, Dara, Diane, and Kirk

I. Basima and Gerald introductions

a. Very busy with clients, stretched very thin

b. Greatly appreciate everyone wanting to help, the one-on-one support provided by FAM’s, no matter how big or small you may see it, is essential to them-Thank you!

c. Wanting to work with you, establish lines of communication, creating a support group for each other

II. Mitchell

a. Case by case basis, however jotted down a few things that have occurred to him

b. Balancing learning and teaching

c.  Learning basic words in your family’s language

                                   i. Showing respect, managing age differences, cultural differences, etc

d. Knowing resources in SD; encouraging collaboration, sharing obstacles, finding support groups/communities

                                   i. San Diego Refugee Forum

                                   ii. Elder home repair

                                   iii. Booster seats; instruction, free booster seats

                                   iv. Free tutoring, lap tops

                                    v. SD volunteer lawyers

e. Don’t have to reinvent the wheel

                                    i. A book he found helpful: The Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community by Mary Pipher

                                    ii. Informative films from the IRC, Survivors of Torture

f. Teaching use of google maps, bargain shopping; craigslist, etc

g. Letting family know the tap water is ok to drink!

h. Remembering to take care of you as well!!!

III. Erin

a. Bus passes, free resources to explore

b. Russian to English phrases-trying to meet halfway

c. Exploring San Diego: the park, the beach-fun things!

d. Finding out logistics of family: now enrolled in ESL classes, in all available sessionsJ

IV. Bryan

a. Tutoring/helping with homework

b. Dynamics of working with all Somali women

c.  Learning Somali, being humble, a learner

d.  City Heights connections-Mosque

e.  Although you may not know everything, you are a lot more capable of finding the answers and helping

V. Krit

a. Figuring out what resources they need; his case-father is blind, probably not going to be able to work, what about his daughters?

                                    i. Center for the Blind, next to the Alliance, will they help with transportation?

b. Bringing in your resources: daughter in law helping fix computer

VI. Logistics

a. Goals: self sufficiency, rebuilding lives and communities

b. Income support:

                                     i. Types: Refugee Cash Assistance, Food Stamps

                                     ii. Adults, without children, through Catholic Charities Wilson Fish program; receive income support for 8 months

                                     iii. Can last longer for families with children, through Welfare

                                     iv. Matching grant program (also with Sam, our Job Developer): lasts 3 months

c. Where are various cultural/ethnic communities located throughout San Diego?

d. PTSD-building trust

e. Make no assumptions, try to empower, connect to resources-find out who else is involved in their lives-work with them!

                                       i. Mitchell: a single stick can be broken, a bundle of sticks cannot

Welcome to the Family Advocate Forum

Welcome AFAA Members!

I'm sure you all feel the same sense of adventure I do, and you are excited to get started. Some of you already started and shared valuable advice in our Friday afternoon meeting; thank you very much. We will all have different challenges and unique experiences with our refugee families in the coming days, weeks, and months. Overcoming those challenges will require us to generate creative, logical, and resourceful solutions. Some solutions will be family specific, but others we can all use. This blog is intended for us -- to share those common solutions -- that we likely can all utilize.

I know we will want to share our stories with each other, but for the sake of organization and efficiency, let's stick to posting advisory content here. I will create a second blog for us to share our stories, because I know they will be amazing! I wish you all good luck and look forward to reading your posts.

- Joseph Tilseth