Immigration strategies

Special collection

Every day, organizations worldwide are engaged in a collective two steps forward, one step back march toward improved immigration services and policies. What hard-earned lessons are these nonprofits, and the foundations that support them, learning from their persistent efforts? This collection of evaluations, case studies, and lessons learned exposes and explores the nuances of effective collaboration, the value of coordinated messaging, the bedrock of ongoing advocacy efforts, and the vital importance of long-term and flexible funding.

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Building Trust with Immigrant and Refugee Families: Spreading and Adapting 2Gen Working Practices

April 22, 2022

Trust between social service organizations and their clients is crucial to effectively provide services to immigrant and refugee families. Our brief on building trust with these groups explores how we can form these relationships and sustain them long-term to best serve these vulnerable communities.

Community-Based Outreach & Activity

Better Responses to Differing Immigration Statuses: Spreading and Adapting 2Gen Working Practices

April 22, 2022

What does it take to deliver 2Gen services to families, youth, and children whose various immigrant statuses may dictate different access to benefits and make sure all family members are supported, healthy, and feel welcome and safe in their place? Our brief on immigration status examines how service organizations can provide a sense of stability and security and create a supportive environment in which immigrant and refugee communities feel safe enough to seek help around immigration statuses. When organizations are prepared for this sensitive topic, they can serve an even more valuable role in ensuring that these communities feel safe and prepared for whatever tomorrow may bring.

Community-Based Outreach & Activity

Growing Language Skills with Immigrant and Refugee Families: Spreading and Adapting 2Gen Working Practices

April 22, 2022

What can be done to help immigrant families with the language barrier as they work on improving their language skills? This brief focuses on the linguistic challenges many face as they try to acclimate to life in the United States or abroad when their native language is no longer dominant in their surroundings. From designing ESOL programs and curricula around the needs of families to recognizing and accounting for dialects when sharing resources or providing services, we took an in-depth look at how we can help families overcome the language barrier.

Community-Based Outreach & Activity

Cultural Competency Secrets to Success with Immigrant and Refugee Families: Spreading and Adapting 2Gen Working Practices

April 22, 2022

The cultural shift for immigrant and refugee families can be welcomed for some and terrifying for others, but what are the cultural competency secrets to success that can best support these groups? As service providers build their understanding of and responsiveness to the cultures of their newer customers, they can more equitably engage with and effectively serve them, which leads to better outcomes for immigrant and refugee families and the local communities.

Community-Based Outreach & Activity

Educating English Learners During the Pandemic: Insights from Experts, Advocates, and Practitioners

April 13, 2022

There is a growing body of evidence about the disproportionate impact the pandemic had on English learners (ELs). We sought to capture the complexity of learning conditions for this student population during the COVID-19 pandemic by interviewing 20 EL education leaders. These experts' experiences revealed that while remote learning posed significant challenges to EL education and services, educators improvised, collaborated, and continued to innovate throughout the pandemic. To help EL students moving forward, education leaders on all levels must acknowledge both the struggle and perseverance that shaped their educational experiences during the pandemic.

Children

Eliminating Language Barriers for LEP Individuals: Promising Practices from the Public Sector

January 1, 2010

While the focus of this report is on eliminating language barriers for limited English proficient (LEP) individuals, any strategy to improve communications with this population must also include English learning and address the shortage of high-quality English as a Second Language (ESL) courses for adults. State-administered ESL programs currently serve only about a million of the estimated 12.4 million LEP adults in the United States who need language instruction. The underfunding of ESL programs means that large numbers of immigrant adults who wish to learn English are unable to enroll in classes or face overcrowded classrooms. For instance, a 2006 national survey of ESL providers found that 57 percent of these programs maintained waiting lists -- ranging from a few weeks to more than three years -- and could not accommodate the high numbers of immigrants interested in learning English. Policy experts and organizations that work with adult English learners have proposed various strategies to increase the availability of high-quality ESL courses, but lack of political support at the national level -- coupled with the current fiscal crisis -- has weakened efforts to help immigrants improve their English skills.

Coalition Building & Collaboration; Communications & Media

Making Connections Oakland: A Case Study for GCIR

October 6, 2008

GCIR profiles Making Connections Oakland (MCO), a comprehensive initiative that helps newcomers gain an economic foothold and become full participating members of society. The program was designed to build united neighborhoods and stronger families through strategies that illustrate the cornerstones of GCIR's Immigrant Integration Framework: mutual responsibility, change and benefits; multi-sector involvement; and multi-strategy approaches. Each method has its unique strengths with regard to immigrant integration and is highlighted in this document. As the examples in this report demonstrate, foundations do not need to build an immigrant integration program from scratch. Grantmakers can use resources that already exist in their communities to continue supporting their funding priorities.

Community-Based Outreach & Activity

Investing in Our Communities: Strategies for Immigrant Integration

May 1, 2007

This report gives the historical context of U.S. immigration, its vital and unyielding role in shaping the US and how grant makers can help assimilate populations, social change and community building in the future. The toolkit provides grant makers with integration frameworks, case studies, funding examples and opportunities, information resources, strategic planning steps and evaluation platforms for several different arenas. These arenas include: health, education, civic involvement and language.

Civic Engagement; Community-Based Outreach & Activity; Research & Evaluation