Many of the needs of unaccompanied refugee children are the same as those who arrive as part of a refugee family. That includes getting enrolled in — and acclimated to — school. Catholic Charities works with public school officials to help refugee kids make that transition. The group also helps school officials understand and meet the special needs of those students, which often include language help and counseling services.
In the Fort Worth district, according to Genna Edmonds, in charge of the ESL (English as a second language) Department, most refugee kids, after being assessed and assigned to a grade level, attend either the International Newcomer Academy or one of the district’s high school language center programs. Designed for second- and third-year immigrants, those programs prepare students for regular English classes.
Amy Snyder manages Catholic Charities’ school-impact program, which offers tutoring for the children and cultural educational programs for school districts.
“These children are dealing with the trauma of being a refugee in addition to the difficulties of being a teenager,” she said. “It can help for them to talk to someone about what it’s like being a refugee.”
Serious conflicts sometimes arise between refugee families and school officials. When that happens, Snyder and her staff members offer third-party conflict resolution.
“It could be a discipline issue or truancy,” she said. “Parents may not understand the rules here. We also work to educate parents on the public school system here, teaching them about [things like] vaccinations, cafeterias, and their rights as parents.”
Children who come to this country from other parts of the world than Central America may not end up being held in overcrowded prison buildings, as is happening right now. But many of them have already spent years in the purgatory that the international refugee system represents.
Auman said that many refugee children and families wait in camps for several years while paperwork makes its way through the United Nations, U.S. embassies, and, eventually, the U.S. State Department. The State Department assigns refugees to various nonprofits, including Catholic Charities Fort Worth.
When a child or family is assigned to the Fort Worth nonprofit, things begin to happen much faster.
“Once we are assigned a family, we might see them as soon as one or two weeks,” Auman said. “Then we put the gears in motion.” For the nonprofit, it’s an endless process.
Families are met at the airport and taken to their new home, usually an apartment. “Over the next month, we bring them into the office and [work with public health departments] to assess them medically and psychiatrically before we examine their financial condition,” Auman said.
From there, he and his staff work to enroll the families in benefit programs such as food stamps and Medicaid and enroll the children in school.
Given the difficult circumstances they have been through, refugees are highly motivated to rebuild their lives, Auman said. More than 90 percent of them become self-sufficient, and adults are usually employed within six months.
Nadine Maalouf’s program at Catholic Charities works with adult refugees for up to five years to ensure that they find proper jobs. “We like to have eligible adults working within four months of getting here,” she said. “A lot of what we do is to break down barriers like language, transportation, and proper identification.”
After consulting with the refugees to see what their qualifications are, Maalouf connects them to one of dozens of employers with which Catholic Charities collaborates.
“We see a wide range of skill levels arrive here, anything from Ph.Ds and engineers to rice farmers,” she said. “We try to place them in areas they’re familiar with. For example, a refugee who was a farmer might enjoy working in a food processing area. These people are hungry to succeed. What was holding them back was the country they came from.”
Maalouf says many employers value Catholic Charities employees because they are “very driven, drug-free, criminal record-free, and fully documented.”
Many of the mothers in refugee families find their first jobs in this country using a skill they are already familiar with: knitting. Marianne Woerner directs Catholic Charities’ socially conscious business program within called WORN.
When a Catholic Charities case-worker in 2011 saw the intricate work done by women from Nepal and Burma, she approached her bosses with the idea of a for-profit business that would help support those women.
Now about 40 refugee women in North Texas knit scarves, headbands, bracelets, and other products, often working at home and thus saving the cost of childcare. WORN merchandise is available at their website (www.wornforpeace.com) and in stores across 20 states.
“The women [retain] 80 percent of the profits, and the rest benefits Catholic Charities,” Woerner said. A recent study by the University of Texas at Arlington showed that the program appears to significantly lower levels of stress and depression in the women who take part.
“Each of these women has struggled in her own unique way,” Woerner said. “One of our knitters never had a home and grew up in the jungle before getting here through sheer determination. Now she drives herself to work and is mastering English. These women have such spirit.”
Woerner said the program is growing, and she plans to introduce the concept to other ethnic groups within the refugee program. The program was recently recognized at the National Migration Conference in Washington, D.C., as the year’s best “creative business venture.”
“This program goes beyond just helping these women find pride in work,” she said. “WORN brings these women to a different level. It benefits their children and family and helps them to live their lives better.”
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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services predicts that the number of unaccompanied children crossing the southern U.S. border will double again this year, compared to 2013. That will translate to increased demands on the programs and resources of refugee-assistance groups. Media attention to what’s been happening along the U.S.-Mexico border has boosted public interest in the needs of such kids. But Catholic Charities workers and others know that burst of interest will inevitably wane, even as the need for volunteers and foster parents continues to grow.
Wilson said the border crisis, at least in the short term, has translated into increased public support for her programs. She said Catholic Charities hopes to double the number of foster families it oversees, from 40 to 80, in the next few years. The nonprofit has seen a dramatic increase recently in people interested in volunteering and fostering refugee children.
“We are trying to take advantage of all the attention,” she said. “We need to start a long-term dialogue about these children. The border issue has become highly political, and that’s unfortunate because it’s polarizing people.”
About a week after attending the Catholic Charities public meeting, Ed and Suzette Spears have made their decision.
“We brought it to our family, and we are moving forward with the foster-care application,” Ed said.
Ed, pastor at Faith and Love Church of God in Christ, said one of their biggest concerns was whether he and his wife could commit the time needed to foster a child. In the end, the couple decided that the experience of raising five children is their greatest asset, and now that three of their children are in college, there is room in their lives for one more.
Like Krisan Buckel, Ed referred to fostering as an act of faith amid uncertainty.
“We understand that the need of this child might be great,” he said. “We don’t know what he or she has seen or been through, but there is a need for these children to be somewhere safe. We all have a responsibility to help the least advantaged in this world.”
