Comprehensive and Culturally Sensitive Program in Response to the Needs of Immigrant and First Generation Hispanic Children and their Parents

Rationale

The processes of migration and acculturation experienced by immigrant Hispanic students and their parents have been the topic of interest to a great number of investigators in recent years, especially in the states of California, Florida and New York. In these states during the last two decades there has been a steady influx of Hispanic, Haitian, South Asian, and other ethnoculturally diverse families. It is very probable that the social institutions more affected by these changing demographics are the private and public schools that have received and continue to receive the children of those immigrant families. For these families the school has had to perform an extraordinarily different role, that of serving as "an intersection between the home culture and the mainstream American culture" (Provenzo, 1985, p.iii).

Whether migration is voluntary or involuntary, it constitutes an "uprooting" experience when immigrant persons need to interrupt their personal histories, sever their social ties, and later begin the formation of new relationships in a foreign environment. Hence both processes, migration and acculturation, often create confusion and disorganization for individual members as well as for the whole family (Ho, 1987).

The review of relevant literature suggested that after migration takes place, the newly arrived persons must face and experience a psychosocial process of adjustment to the new setting. Throughout this process immigrant persons move through several phases while they undergo behavioral and attitudinal changes and modifications at different levels of functioning (Padilla, 1980). Moreover, this acculturative process of learning (Marin, 1992) results from the day-to-day mutual contact and communication of immigrant persons with both native and host cultures (Kim, 1988).

In conclusion, the adaptive process of cultural transition involves:

• Becoming knowledgeable of the language, norms, and values of the new culture; and
• Readjusting to a new system of values by modifying behaviors and attitudes, and by relinquishing some old customs, beliefs, and behaviors.

In that sense, acculturation can be conceptualized as the path that facilitates the movement from one cultural system to another. For Hispanics, this transition is particularly demanding because of difference of values, religious practices, language, political system, and other social attributes.

Understanding Family Dynamics

To understand the importance and the effects of those changes on the immigrant family, at least two very complex situations require attention:

• The social sciences suggest that every family is involved in a continuous interchange with its economic and sociocultural environment to accomplish its universal functions or tasks (Bronfenbrenner, 1986). Consequently, the cultural values and ethnicity of the family not only mediate these interactions with the external world but they also define the family structure and internal organization of its values, ways of communication and behaviors (Ho, 1987).
• By the same token, either through generalized learning in a particular milieu or as a result of specific instruction and training, parents teach their children—through language, rituals, customs, habits, roles, and ethnocultural modes of behavior—how to live together in their immediate environment (Rodriguez & Vila, 1982).

Consequently, the migration experience may interrupt and rupture the continuity of the family interactions with its environment as well as their socio-cultural parenting experiences.

Sluzki (1979) suggested that the family passes through five stages during the process of migration and adjustment to the new setting. According to Sluzki each of these stages "has distinctive characteristics, triggers different types of family coping mechanisms, and unchains different types of conflicts and symptoms" (p. 380). Similarly, each stage presents a unique set of crises and challenges that the family must negotiate and to which the family system has to adapt.

Immigrant Children Within Elementary Schools

In many educational districts of the United States immigrant Hispanic children as well as first generation Hispanic children constitute the majority of the student body. This Hispanic presence has been recognized during the past years, and also it has been predicted that this presence will continue to outnumber other racial and ethnic groups (2000 Census Report).

The informal assessment of those immigrant children shows that they are coming from a variety of racial, ethnic, and educational as well as socio-economic backgrounds. There are three generation family networks with diffuse boundaries, families who came from rural areas who have to face the stress of living in urbanized neighborhoods, high risk families due to unemployment and underemployment, single parent families, ethnic blended families, overcrowded apartments hosting more than one family as well as other relatives, undocumented families, and so on.

Rutter (1980) said that a single stressful situation/experience typically carries no appreciable psychosocial risk for children. However, when children are exposed to multiple stress situations the adverse effects usually multiply. Review of relevant literature found that culturally different children exhibit relatively weak self-concept in their answers to direct questions about how they perceive themselves, and also about how they think others perceive them.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Approach

Theoretically, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy views emotional problems and responses as influenced by negative or extreme thought patterns. These patterns have frequently become so habitual that they are experienced as automatic and go unnoticed by the individual.

Review of literature found this technique successful with self-defeating behaviors, lack of assertiveness in interpersonal relationships, as well as poor social skills and self-esteem.

These principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy have been selected for this program because this method is:

• Goal oriented - The counselors work with teachers, students, and/or parents to meet goals for counseling and also to monitor progress periodically to assess whether the goals are being met.
• Practical and concrete - Counseling goals will focus on solving current, specific and concrete problems experienced by students in the classroom.
• Active - Counselors, teachers, students and their parents play an active role in counseling.
• Collaborative - Counselors, teachers, school administration, students and their parents work together to understand and to develop strategies to address the students' learning and behavioral difficulties.
• Short-term - The counseling interventions with students and/or their parents will not last more than 12 sessions whenever possible.

The Program

This comprehensive response encompasses a period of one academic year.

The overall goal of this response is to assist immigrant Hispanic families with their immigrant and first generation Hispanic children who are experiencing learning and behavioral difficulties. This assistance will consist in providing:

• To immigrant Hispanic parents psychological support, opportunities for emotional ventilation as well as parenting techniques, and
• To their immigrant and first generation children opportunities for training in new patterns of learning and behavior within the school setting.

This overall goal will be fulfilled through these objectives:

• The provision of opportunities for Hispanic parents to discuss, clarify, vent and alleviate the psycho-socio-cultural stresses associated with immigration and acculturation in order to improve their socio-emotional adjustment and the quality of life at home (Clark, 1983).
• The provision to Hispanic families of counseling services using a short term and task oriented approach (if needed).
• The provision of culturally sensitive consultation with teachers and school personnel working with immigrant and first generation Hispanic children aimed to discuss different patterns of cognitive functioning as well as different systems for organizing learning and thought.
• The provision of culturally sensitive parent enrichment programs on child rearing practices, patterns of communication, conflict resolution, negotiation and decision making skills, cultural value differences, and child cognitive development.
• The provision of individual and group counseling to immigrant and first generation Hispanic students to help them deal with their learning and/or behavioral difficulties as well as to improve their self esteem and assertive behaviors.

Implementation Methodology

First Academic Marking Period:

• Based on teachers' requests of services to the Student-Staff-Support Team, prepare the list of possible immigrant and first generation Hispanic students in need of assistance.
• Consultation with their teachers: it will encompass observation of the student in different academic and non-academic settings.
• Based on teachers' responses to the McCarney's Learning and Behavior Problem Checklist and using the Pre-Referral Intervention Manual, design in collaboration with teacher a plan of learning and behavioral strategies tailored to the specific situation of each student.

From the beginning of the Second to the end of the Third Academic Marking Periods:

• Counseling sessions with 8 students in each group. The emphasis of these sessions will be improving self esteem and self worth.
• The emphasis of these individual sessions will be to help them understand the possible sources of their children's academic and/or behavioral difficulties, and to provide them with culturally sensitive strategies to overcome the difficulties.

Fourth Academic Marking Period:

• Collaborative evaluations of the results obtained and of the strategies used with each one of the students referred.

The effectiveness of the overall goal and its objectives as well as of its methodology will be measured by the noticeable improvement of the academic and the behavioral performance of each immigrant and first generation student referred between the end of the First and the end of the Third Marking Periods. The definition of noticeable improvement (which will be different for each student) will be done at the beginning of the referral process through a collaborative consultation between parent, teacher, counselor, and student.

(*) This comprehensive project has been designed based on the research, rationale, and instruments developed by Gelasia Márquez, Ph.D. for the Helping Hands Project/Model (copyright Library of Congress TX 3 075 455).