Partnering With Latino/a Caregivers and Community Stakeholders to Understand Priorities and Needs Prior to Implementing an Early Literacy Program.

PURPOSE: Latino/a children disproportionately experience academic vulnerabilities, including in reading. Caregiver-mediated interventions can be leveraged to support the bilingual language development of young Latino/a children to prevent these well-documented disparities in reading. However, in leveraging these programs, it is important to weigh Latino cultural values surrounding education, family connection, and learning alongside the barriers and inequities experienced by Latino families. In response to this need, this study used a community-partnered approach to (a) understand caregivers' needs related to the language and literacy development of their young children and (b) understand perspectives for how best to implement a culturally adapted and culturally responsive caregiver-mediated program. METHOD: A total of 101 caregivers completed a needs assessment of sociodemographic information, child development and needs, and family needs. Subsequently, nonprofit staff and caregivers completed semistructured interviews or focus groups about the development and implementation of a birth-to-5 program supporting early language development. RESULTS: Thirty-five percent of families reported having at least one child with delayed language. Furthermore, 60.3% of respondents reported desiring strategies to support their child's early reading. Deductive content analysis revealed that both staff and caregivers desired a birth-to-5, caregiver-mediated program. Staff described family-level characteristics to consider for an early language program, community strengths, specific inequities faced by Latino families, and suggestions about culturally responsive early language and literacy program content and structure. Caregivers described barriers and inequities that they have faced related to their children's learning and development and how a birth-to-5 program could be responsive to their needs and values. CONCLUSIONS: Staff and caregiver emphasized the resilience of Latino families and their strong values surrounding educational involvement. At the same time, participants also reported barriers and inequities rooted in systemic racism that have prevented families from being involved in certain aspects of the children's education. Together, these results revealed the importance of an early literacy program that is responsive to the structural inequities experienced by families.

Outcomes among Asylum Seekers in Atlanta, Georgia, 2003--2012.

INTRODUCTION Asylum seekers face a wide array of challenges, including the need for a fair and just adjudication process. In the state of Georgia, the Atlanta Asylum Network addresses the needs of such individuals by providing them physical, psychological and gynecological assessments, the results of which are presented to the courts in the asylum appeal process. OBJECTIVE As a component of the Network's program evaluation, assess outcomes among asylum seekers using its services, as well as relation of outcomes to type of service provided, the individual's geographic origin and English language proficiency. METHODS A retrospective examination was conducted of program data gathered by the Network between 2003 and 2012. Subjects included asylum seekers who received assessments by the Network during this period. The primary variable of interest was the final case outcome, defined as determination of asylum status: granted, withholding of removal, administrative closure and prosecutorial discretion, denied or voluntary departure. Outcomes were subsequently collapsed into a single positive or negative outcome variable. Positive outcomes included asylum granted, removal withheld, administrative closure and prosecutorial discretion. Negative outcomes included asylum denied and voluntary departure. We conducted bivariate and multivariate analyses, relating final case outcomes to Network services, geographic origin and English language proficiency, among the key variables. RESULTS A total of 69 of 120 asylum seekers in the study had a known final case outcome, and of those, 63.8% (44) had a positive outcome; or 37% of the total number of asylum seekers (n = 120). Among the 20 who received 2 of the 3 types of assessment (physical, psychological, gynecological), 16 (80%) received a positive case outcome. Most persons with a known final outcome came from Africa (41), where 78% (32) of cases resulted positive. Asylum seekers not proficient in English were 2.4 times more likely to have a negative case outcome. CONCLUSION Network assessment appears to result in higher rates of positive case outcomes compared to the average for asylum seekers seen in the Atlanta circuit court. Areas for programmatic improvement include systematic followup and increased community awareness of Network services, since the Network may directly impact future case outcomes by offering assessment to more asylum seekers. Access to English language instruction and legal representation for asylum claimants may also contribute to more cases with positive outcomes. KEYWORDS Refugees, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), vulnerable populations, transients and migrants, human rights, human rights abuses, torture, PTSD, USA.