home

Youth Programs for Diverse Groups

Another encouraging development is the evolution of programs targeted toward youth-at-risk or youth in specific cultural groups. The Winter/Fall 1993 issue of the Family Resource Coalition Report highlighted four programs for involving low-income ethnic families in the education of their youth. The programs were funded by the School/Family Partnership Initiative of the De Witt Wallace-Readers Digest Fund. The Report states "that the grants target at-risk youth because they probably have the most to lose without assistance from their parents, and because research has shown that disadvantaged parents are the ones least likely to take part in their children's education." While these four programs have evolved in urban settings, they may hold promise for use in rural settings as well.

FAST (Families and Schools Together) is a collaborative effort between schools, human service organizations and families that operates through schools in 13 states, under the direction of Family Service America. The program, which started in Madison, WI, helps low-income parents of children 5 to 9 years old feel more comfortable in dealing with schools and community agencies. It does this through an eight-week series of family meetings, designed to encourage fun, positively change parent-child interactions, empower parents and build parent support groups which continue to meet on a monthly basis following the structured training period. The meetings are run by parent graduates with support from program staff. Every effort is made to match parents with staff and volunteers who are of the same gender, race and socioeconomic background.

APEX (ASPIRA Parents for Educational Excellence) is aimed at building family and school partnerships and developing community leaders in Philadelphia and Chicago. APEX is operated by the ASPIRA Association, the only national Latino youth organization in the country which has advocated on behalf of Latino and Puerto Rican youth and their families for more than 30 years. The program consists of a series of eight leadership training workshops aimed at training parents to create ways of improving education in their own communities. In addition to training Latino parents to become effective advocates for their children, the program also provides them with information on resources available at the local, state and federal level.

The Spirit of Excellence Parent Empowerment Project, a small-scale demonstration project to help poverty-level African American parents develop parenting skills as well as skills to increase their own satisfaction with life, was initiated in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The community, which is geographically isolated and plagued with high rates of infant mortality, unemployment, crime, substance abuse, and inadequate housing, approximates conditions in South Central Los Angeles or the South Bronx. The parents who are welfare dependent or employed in low-income jobs, participate in a ten-part curriculum aimed at helping them succeed with their own lives and as parents. Topical areas include: establishing career objectives, health, finances, home and life skills, African American culture, spirituality, parenting skills, community issues and crime/violence.

The National Asian Family/School Partnership Project is aimed at: identifying, developing and evaluating effective Asian family/school partnerships; sharing its findings with communities interested in developing stronger family/school partnerships; and providing assistance to schools and agencies that serve Asian families. The project is under the auspices of the National Coalition of Advocates for Students, a national network of 23 child advocacy groups in 14 states. Initial project implementation was in Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Chicago with Des Moines, San Diego and Seattle added to the project in the second year. These six cities represent several cultural groups from Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Meetings have taken place in the local school with leadership provided by a native-speaking facilitator. One of the primary functions of the project has been that of breaking down the communication barriers that exist between parents and schools-communication barriers which are accentuated by the fact that the Asian families often aren't able to speak or read English and schools frequently lack staff able to communicate in the native language.