By Maren Madalyn, contributing writer
When a new family arrives to your district community, they bring with them all manner of life experiences, knowledge, perspectives, and cultural backgrounds. This is especially true for families new to our country—their transition is made all the more complex when many must learn a LOT of new things on top of integrating into a new community.
Like a new language, new education systems, new requirements or expectations related to children’s learning… and so much more.
It’s natural for anyone experiencing such changes to feel overwhelmed and uncertain about where to begin!
Further, many newcomer families may carry with them experiences of trauma, recent or from years past, which affect their wellbeing and capacity to plant roots in a new community. For example, refugee families fleeing violence or persecution are also likely have experienced high mobility rates up until their arrival in your district or school.
Fortunately, we educators can turn to two resources to guide our newcomer transition strategies—at any time during the school year. Let’s take a closer look at how scaffolding and the protective factors framework help us welcome refugee and migrant children and families to our communities.
How scaffolding supports newcomer families
The concept of scaffolding—teaching just beyond the level of what a child can do or could learn on their own—is nothing new to educators. Teachers use this technique all the time to set students up for successfully learning essential skills and building on their existing capabilities.
This principle also works for adult learners, so it can be applied to newcomer family engagement, too. Newcomer parents (as well as any parent in your schools) benefit from receiving clear guidance for how to participate in student learning. They can also build on current strengths and learn new skills by practicing simple strategies to turn any space into a learning environment.
In other words, refugee and immigrant families need parental scaffolding!
Here, we can think of “scaffolding” as providing tailored support that meets families where they are and helps them learn to navigate a new education system little by little.
For instance, a refugee support organization may start with providing newcomer parents with resources to meet their most basic needs. After all, it’s harder for a family facing food or housing insecurity to fully engage in their child’s academic learning than if these fundamental needs were met.
From there, educators may layer additional engagement with newcomer families specifically by providing timely information in families’ native language about basic school processes (such as how to enroll their children in school when they first arrive to a new community). Other resources that may be folded into newcomer family support could focus on English language classes, adult literacy programming, and more.
Watch our on-demand webinar for comprehensive tips and strategies that community or school staff can leverage to scaffold parent involvement among newcomers.
Why protective factors matter for newcomer transitions
The protective factors framework is the result of several research studies examining what factors buffer against (or reduce) the negative effects of trauma on an individual. It’s a model adopted by many organizations that serve families and children impacted by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). ACEs are known to greatly affect health, well-being, and long-term success, and are often among the most common challenges newcomers experience.
There are five key elements in the framework:
- Parental resilience refers to how families manage stress and function well when faced with challenges, adversity, and trauma
- Social connections means forming positive relationships that provide emotional, informational, instrumental, and spiritual support
- Knowledge of parenting and child development focuses on building caregivers’ understanding child development and parenting strategies that support physical, cognitive, language, social, and emotional development
- Concrete support in times of need means families can access concrete support and services that address their needs and help minimize stress caused by challenges
- Social and emotional competence of children is all about family and child interactions that help children develop the ability to communicate clearly, recognize and regulate their emotions, and establish and maintain relationships
Trauma-informed approaches to care focus on reducing the risk of reactivating trauma by promoting these five factors. In education, we too can adapt these components into our engagement with newcomer families just arriving to our organizations. When combined with scaffolding practices, these factors make a powerful support system for students and families to have a positive school experience and thrive as part of our communities.
Explore this chapter of the U.S. Department of Education’s Newcomer Toolkit to learn more about the stages of family engagement among these communities, and ways that both a trauma-informed approach and scaffolding contribute to them.
Newcomer transition strategies and family supports, all year long
From our team to yours, we’ve compiled effective newcomer transition strategies that school and district leaders can use throughout the school year. We organized each into seasons as starting points—but of course they all benefit newcomer parents, caregivers, and students no matter the time of year!
These suggestions are just the tip of the iceberg of possibilities — we encourage you to adjust (and build upon) them to meet the specific needs of your unique community!
Newcomer supports for fall
In education, fall usually means one thing: Back-To-School season is here!
It’s a time of immense transition for both students and families. In some cases, children may be entering a school environment for the very first time (and hopefully are ready for kindergarten). In other families, students may transition to a new school. With certainty, everyone begins a new milestone in their learning journey.
For newcomer families arriving in your community during fall, you can use these strategies both in school and at home. The goal is to set up a supportive environment for newcomers that starts them off on a positive trajectory for the rest of the school year:
At School
- Set up a warm, inclusive environment for students of varying backgrounds. A positive first impression goes a long way for students entering a new classroom. It goes even further for newcomer students learning about an entirely new country, language, and culture, too! Download our checklist for quick tips on how to create a positive school experience for your families, no matter where they come from.
- Get to know each newcomer student! Colorín Colorado explains that this step includes everything from how to correctly pronounce a student’s name to creating additional time for one-on-one interactions. It’s important to remember, too, that some students may not wish to share about their cultural backgrounds or recent history, especially if they have experienced trauma or do not immediately feel safe enough to discuss these details. That’s OK! What’s more important is to listen to what students do share and develop connections little by little.
- Collaborate with local agencies to smooth transitions. These community partners may be the first relationships that families develop within your locale, and they often hold that all-important trust—key to unlocking newcomer family engagement. Start with researching which organizations already work with refugee or migrant children and their caregivers. Then collaborate to identify how both organizations can support newly arrived families. For example, a refugee resettlement agency can supply parents with information about school enrollments in their home language, while a school can refer families to local food banks or mental health supports to receive extra assistance. Community school partnerships are essential to newcomer success!
At Home
- Provide thorough welcome materials in home languages. Fall is the optimal time to orient newcomer families to back-to-school routines such as the importance of regular attendance and engagement, and what transportation is available to bring children to campus. America Lopez, Community Health Worker with Volunteers in Medicine, helped her district create a comprehensive welcome packet specifically designed with newcomers in mind. Watch the on-demand webinar to discover the impact of these supports for newcomers on student enrollments and engagement, or download our guide to start building your own resource kit.
- Sign families up for a year-round family engagement program. Continuous engagement with newcomer families is made all the easier for educators thanks to technology. Programs like ParentPowered scaffold a caregiver’s involvement in student learning (in their native language) with weekly text messages sharing tips, activities, and insights all year long. Enrolling newcomer families in such programs sets them up for long-term success as they acclimate to their new environment.
Welcoming newcomers in winter
As the year transitions into winter, school activities are in full swing, which may include benchmarking, on-campus events, family engagement workshops, and more. For many families, however, this season can pose a challenge. Holidays celebrated during winter may activate stress or even trauma for some caregivers. In communities with colder weather, families may face additional challenges related to health, warm clothing, and safe housing.
Newcomers transitioning into your schools may feel especially vulnerable during this time of year. They arrive when communities, friendships, and routines have already been established, and depending on where they come from, colder climates may be new to navigate.
Consider these newcomer transition strategies focused on key family needs during the winter season:
At School
In addition to adapting the strategies above to welcome newcomers, it’s critical that educators concentrate on social-emotional learning (SEL) with students who join a school or district mid-year.
Remember the five protective factors against trauma? One of them is “the social and emotional competence of children.” Providing thoughtful SEL for newcomers relies on building those educator-student-family relationships and weaving in practices such as trauma-informed teaching to reduce the risk of reactivating trauma.
Read Colorín Colorado’s guide to navigating newcomer student trauma for more school-based supports for newcomers.
At Home
Basic needs may become all the more essential as winter approaches. Consider your climate and how it compares with the climate of newcomers’ home countries. What basic needs—such as warm clothing or access to healthcare—might they need to stay healthy and engaged during winter? Schools can help connect families to local resources to meet these needs (if not offer them on campus directly).
However, it can feel overwhelming for a caregiver to initiate that outreach. That’s why we created our Reaching Out guide—to make this crucial first step for families as easy as possible. Download and share it today!
Setting up newcomers for success in spring
Springtime at school is packed. Not only are we wrapping up benchmarking and leading annual testing cycles, we are simultaneously trying to prepare children for the upcoming transition into summer—and equip them with tools to avoid that notorious summer slide.
Transitioning into a new district at this point in the year leaves newcomer families with a much shorter window of time to adapt to their new environment. However, even as summer rapidly approaches, educators can still help tee up families for a positive school experience and a starting point with engaging in learning.
Explore these springtime transition supports for your newest arrivals from other countries:
At School
- Focus on building student confidence. The exact nature of school routines and processes may vary from school to school, but they share some commonality (such as lunch breaks, transition periods, classroom norms, etc). Educators can prime newcomers for success by acclimating them to these routines and helping them anticipate similar ones in the following school year. As one teacher puts it, “Newcomers need modeling, not only for the language but also for the culture. [They] need to be shown what to do and how to do it, what to say and how to say it.” (EdWeek)
- Lay a learning foundation ahead of summer, especially with language. For many newcomers, the first challenge to surmount is learning a new language. By focusing on building students’ English proficiency (as well as practicing their literacy skills in both English and their home languages), educators lay an important foundation for learning that will translate to the next school year.
At Home
- Offer families accessible, translated learning resources. Local organizations can assist educators here, as many public libraries offer access to computers, community events, and even summer learning programs. What’s important is that families can a) access this information for free in their home language, and b) easily use it in their home environment without extra materials or costs. The United Federation of Teachers offers a great starting list for educators with resources to support newcomer learning at home.
- Sign up families for trauma-informed support all summer long. It’s worth repeating: Newcomers benefit from trauma-informed learning! This really matters during the summer months when students may be away from schools and the connections they may have forged there. That’s why ParentPowered developed its Trauma-Informed curriculum to run throughout the summer, providing caregivers with evidence-based learning resources and activities that meet them where they are.
Want to learn more about our family engagement curriculum and its benefits for newcomer families? Join an upcoming info session or take a self-paced tour of ParentPowered Trauma-Informed.
About the author
Maren Madalyn has worked at the intersection of K12 education and technology for over a decade, serving in roles ranging from counseling to customer success to product management. She blends this expertise with fluid writing and strategic problem-solving to help education organizations create thoughtful long-form content that empowers educators.
