Family Resource Night Program | Immigrant Connection

Welcome Program:
Family Resource Night

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Hosting a Family Resource Night is a way to serve immigrant families, support academic success for students, create space for parents to connect and build their English speaking skills, and build bridges between community resource providers and immigrant families.

WHat is A Family Resource Night?

The Family Resource Night Program invites immigrant families - children and their parents/caretakers - into a welcoming space to learn, build skills, and gain access to community information. The whole family attends the program together. Children engage in various activities that support academic success and literacy while caretakers participate in English conversation practice or community information sessions. After tutors run the separate children and parent activities, the families come back together to either engage in activities that strengthen the families’ capacity to support academic achievement or activities that support accessing community resources.

WHY A Family Resource Night?

As we consider the needs of immigrant parents, it is important to understand that while they would like opportunities to learn and practice English or learn about community resources, leaving their children with another caregiver is not always possible and may not be part of their cultural norms. In addition, immigrant caretakers often do not know where to access information and resources. They are not only new to a community and face the regular challenges faced by anyone who moves to a new town or city; they are also navigating a new language, a new culture, and completely different ways of doing things.

For immigrant and newcomer students, navigating a new language and culture in school can be very challenging. Often, homework help and tutoring are not available or easily accessible. Additionally, they may have had limited or interrupted formal education and need extra academic help outside of normal school hours in order to catch up academically on missed content and foundational core content areas.

Family Resource Nights allow the whole family to come together and be supported as they navigate their unique challenges.

What does a Family Resource Night look like?

This program is designed to be flexible; each church partner will figure out unique ways to set up and run effective and successful programs. As you start creating your program, here is what a program could potentially look like:

Students are receiving homework help or doing literacy or math activities. Parents become engaged in conversational English classes and/or practice sessions. The final part of a Family Resource Night program is bringing the whole family back together. One option for this time is to model the homework help and other instructional learning. Another option for the closing session together is to have community service and resource providers come and share with the group. Family Resource Night helps give a time and place for these important connections to occur.