Newcomer Wellness InitiativeProgram Overview
What is the need?
As of the end of the 2017-18 school year, there were2,864 identified newcomer students in OaklandUnified School District across our TK-12th gradeprograms, of whom approximately 650 areunaccompanied youth. Approximately 65% of theseyoung people are in our middle and high schools. 1 in8 high school students in OUSD is a newcomer.
These young people bring tremendous linguistic andcultural assets to our schools, as well as tremendousresilience and resourcefulness. They and their familiesalso often arrive with significant traumas, lack of legalrepresentation and unmet basic needs. Ournewcomers must figure out how to navigatecomplicated systems in a country where they usuallydo not speak the dominant language.
The Newcomer Wellness Initiative was put in place inan effort to support these students and to respond totheir need for supports and services that they mightnot otherwise be aware of or be able to access.
Theory of Action
The Newcomer Wellness Initiative targets its supports at the middle and high school level because we knowthat the older a person is when they arrive in a new country, the less time they have to learn the language,catch up academically and acculturate. We also know that many of our newcomers within this age grouparrive unaccompanied with little or no family supports and with debts that need to be repaid. The array ofissues that these students arrive with often make it difficult for them to stay engaged in school, thereforethe retention and graduation rates among this group are lower than those of their US-born peers.
The Newcomer Wellness Initiative places bilingual Clinical Social Workers and School Counselors, atdesignated middle and high school newcomer sites to support the non-academic needs of these students,their families and caregivers. The Newcomer Wellness Team targets their work to address all levels ofstudent need within the school setting, using the multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) framework toguide their interventions.
TIER 1: Universal PracticesAt the tier one level, Wellness team work tosupport the integration of newcomers into theschool setting by carrying out projects andinitiatives to encourage integration of newcomersand mainstream students to break downstereotypes and increase empathy. Activities mayalso be designed to improve overall schoolculture and climate, for example by creatingcelebrations, lunchtime events, restorative justicecircles and workshops.
TIER 2: Group SupportsAt the tier two level Wellness team provide groupsupport to newcomer students targeted to address specific needs and themes arising in the population,including grief and loss, acculturation, empowerment and leadership. The team member also offer groupcase management often during advisory periods.
TIER 3: Addressing Urgent Individual NeedsAt the tier three level, the Wellness Team focuses on the individual needs of students by providing orreferring them to individual mental health services, intensive clinical case management and targetedattendance interventions, which may include home visits and family supports.
Team members work closely with the school site leadership and newcomer teachers to advocate for theneeds of newcomers and to collaborate around service delivery and supports. They also collaborate withdistrict level partners including the Unaccompanied Immigrant Youth Specialist, Refugee and AsyleeSpecialist, translators, alternative education, linked learning specialists and the Central Family ResourceCenter to further advocate for the needs of newcomers across the district.
Results
The Newcomer Wellness Initiative seeks to impact the wellbeing of the whole child and improving theoverall school experience for newcomer youth. As the initiative takes shape, the program will be evaluatedon a number of aggregate measures:
● We aim to positively impact the attendance rates of newcomer students by clearing obstacles toattendance.● We aim to improve retention rates of non-graduating newcomers within our programs by enablingcontinued school attendance and promoting connectedness.● We aim to demonstrate improved newcomer student connections to adults at school and knowledgeof how to access health and other supportive services as measured by student surveys.
We also seek to connect more students to critical services such as employment, therapy, legal support, childcare and housing. We know from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that until basic needs are addressed, peoplecannot access learning. It is our goal to address those needs to the degree possible to stabilize these youngpeople and their families so that they may be successful in our schools and in the US.
Please contactStephanie Noriegafor more information.