At CCFW’s Refugee School Impact program, we provide support to refugee families and school through trainings, counseling and literacy tutoring.
Explore below for ways that we can work together to help our refugee students and our school thrive.
School Liaison Services
At Refugee School Impact (RSI), we know how much educators care about their students. Ensuring that all students, including refugee students, succeed is a priority for RSI, educators and school districts, alike.
RSI is uniquely equipped to engage with families and school staff to help navigate and provide support for school related issues including, but not limited to, tardiness, truancy, hygiene, specials needs and transportation.
Click here for more information.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Refugee School Impact is committed to helping schools and teachers understand and support the refugee students they serve. With the right tools, educating refugee students can be a rewarding and rich experience; not just for our refugee families, but for educators, administrators and the broader community, as well.
For a list of our upcoming professional development courses and a sampling of our available classes, please click here.
PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 101
From attendance to grades, the United States public school system can seem overwhelming to newly arrived refugee parents. That’s where Refugee School Impact comes in – our highly trained liaisons will go through all of our partner schools’ policies and procedures to ensure that all refugee families in your ISD feel comfortable, confident and ready to learn!
Topics include:
- Registering children for the school bus
- Reviewing school calendars
- Working with the school to navigate a child’s disability
- Reporting absences and the differences between excused and unexcused
- Managing a child’s medication at school
- The right to an interpreter
- Uniforms and hygiene
- Reading and understanding report cards
- Expulsion/Suspension
TUTORING
Our newly arrived refugee students rarely speak English, and many of them are SLIFE- Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education. This makes them especially vulnerable to falling behind their peers.
That’s why the highly qualified tutoring staff at Catholic Charities Fort Worth Refugee School Impact Program provide free phonics and literacy classes to eligible refugee students for the first five (5) years they’re in the country.
In order to qualify, students must have documentation that proves their refugee status: an I-94, EAD, Visa with stamp, or Green Card. A full list of eligibility requirements can be found here. Even if you’re not sure if a student qualifies, please feel free to send their information to us.
If you have refugee students who need literacy support, please feel free to contact us. All of our caring and qualified tutors have FWISD volunteer approval.
We’re always in need of volunteer tutors to assist our staff. If you are interested, please click here to fill out a volunteer application form.
COUNSELING
Our students have often suffered through intense tragedies and carry trauma, grief, anger and guilt into the classroom. To help overcome the negative impact these strong emotions can make on education, the RSI program provides counseling services.
Students can meet with a counselor either one-on-one or in a group. We have the capacity to meet with students on school campuses or in their homes. For more information and eligibility requirements, click here.
If a refugee student on your campus needs services or is showing signs of trauma, please contact us today.
