Newswise — Pretend for a moment, says Jennifer Hurley, assistant professor of education at the University of Vermont, that you are in a country where you don’t know anyone and can’t speak the language. You are asked to put your child on a bus full of strangers and send them off to a place where people you can't easily communicate with -- people who are well-intentioned, but ill-equipped -- will attempt to meet your child's basic needs.
As scary as this scenario sounds, says Hurley, it happens every day for many of the 2.6 million immigrants who have moved to Refugee Resettlement Programs in the U.S. since 1975, including roughly 5,000 refugees in Vermont since 1989. Early childhood educators have been scrambling to adapt to the expanding needs of refugee children by creating communication methods specific to each child’s country of origin – a practice that has become increasingly challenging with refugees arriving from Bhutan, Burma, Ethiopia, Congo, Bosnia, Sudan, Kenya and Iraq, among others.
Hurley, program coordinator for early childhood special education programs at UVM, has been researching this issue -- and presenting her findings at national conferences and in publications -- via UVM’s Preschool Refugee Children Project, an initiative focused on improving the lives of refugee children and their families.
Her efforts received a major boost in the form of an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs, which she co-authored with Susan Ryan, professor of early childhood special education. The grant, which will be administered through UVM’s Center on Disability and Community Inclusion, of which Ryan is executive director, will pay for student tuition in the College of Education and Social Services’ early childhood special education master’s program.
“I think we were awarded the grant because our early childhood special education program is high quality, and we have an unusually strong emphasis on serving families and children experiencing disability who are culturally and linguistically diverse,” says Hurley. “We spend a lot of time preparing teachers to work with refugees and their families...This really is a national challenge.”
An initial study conducted through the project revealed a cultural disconnect between families and teachers that showed a need for cultural competency training. One teacher was told by a family to allow time for mothers to consult the husband and elders (grandparents) on all issues before making educational decisions. Another shared a story about sending photos home of children with a police dog that visited the classroom. “I dropped her off on the last day of school," the teacher recounted, "and mom pulled me into the house and got one of the other kids to interpret. ‘Don’t ever let her touch a dog ever again. They are unclean and against our religion.’”
Compounding the cultural competency issue is a lack of basic communication tools. With most preschool programs unable to afford $75-an-hour interpreters, teachers are forced to create their own communication methods such as the use of pictures of food, clothing and bathrooms. Sign language, facial expressions, communication-based software, iTouch programs and visual cues normally reserved for students with autism have been somewhat effective. Hurley wants to arm graduates, who as students are required to conduct field studies with refugee children and produce reports on their country of origin, with the most current communication methods. Graduate students whose tuition is paid for with the grant money are required to give back 44 months of field service by serving families with children with special needs.
Emily Anna Stewart ’10, now an early childhood educator in California, worked as Hurley’s lab assistant on the Preschool Refugee Children Project while completing her student teaching at the Integrated Arts Academy at H.O. Wheeler Preschool in Burlington. Because culturally and linguistically diverse students are the least likely to receive evidence-based instruction due to the lack of literature in the field, Stewart says there’s a dire need for research on educational practices for working with diverse student populations.
“Imagine the first day of preschool for a three-year-old child who speaks Maay Maay and has recently been relocated to the bitter cold northeast region where everyone speaks English,” says Stewart. “Because Maay Maay has no form of a written language, the preschool teachers were unable to look up comforting words to offer this child as they say goodbye to their mother…. Imagine how difficult it is for both the teacher and child alike when the teacher cannot even communicate to the child that their mother will be back at the end of the day.” Hurley’s efforts, says Stewart, “will make a huge impact -- if they haven't already -- not just in the schools around Burlington, but in any school district serving culturally and linguistically diverse students.”
One way to help struggling refugee children is to see if they qualify for special education services. Trying to determine whether a refugee child is struggling due to cultural or linguistic barriers as opposed to having a developmental disability can be difficult. Teachers in one of Hurley’s studies expressed frustration over a lack of culturally appropriate special education eligibility determination instruments.
Hurley, who is currently working with students on a study titled “What Every Teacher Should Know... Lessons from Interpreters and Cultural Liaisons Working in our Schools,” is confident that continued research, cultural competency training, input from refugees and classroom experience will result in better outcomes.
“Teachers will be more successful working in underserved communities if they are prepared in those communities,” says Hurley. “We are intentional about ensuring field experience in schools that serve Burlington’s diverse community with specific focus on families and children who are English language learners, refugees and/or experiencing poverty.”
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