Reflection

The group assignment ‘Family Support Systems: Report and Presentation’ in the course

‘ECEP 232: Understanding and Communicating with Families’ was very challenging in respect

of attributes and relevance. Our group worked on the agency ‘South Asian Women’s Rights

Organization (SAWRO)’. I have gained valuable knowledge from this assignment, as I had to

overview of the different Settlement Assistance and Family Support Services offered by the

agency. Out of their programs, I found two elements of the agency services very important for

the families and impressive to me. These are Settlement & Integration Services, and Child Care

Support. These two programs had much impact on my learning processes. Canada is a country of

immigrants with diverse cultures and communities. Approximately 260,000 new immigrants

come to Canada each year, and about 30% of them choose Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to stay.

Immigrants face varieties of problems. Common problems are to find suitable housing,

meaningful employment, and schools for children. Canadian government has different social

agencies to support newcomers.

(http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/13991/legal_matters/immigrants_to_toronto.html)

While doing the assignment with this agency, I understood that it has been effectively

supporting women in their social integration in Canada. It works to improve the quality of life

for women, seniors, youth, children and families, maximize their fullest potential to become

contributing members of the Canadian society. This agency corrected identified that when

women come to Canada from South Asian countries, they face barriers to be integrated into the

Canadian system. Important problems are language, housing, employment, child care, and

culture. Sometimes newcomer women become frustrated that ultimately deteriorates their health

and wellbeing. This agency has been trying to support women solving these problems through

different services.

SAWRO helps in Child Care Support for the newcomer women. It assists low income

people applying for child care benefits and subsidies. It also provides with informal child care

support at cheaper rate like $3-5 per hour.

In this course, another group presented about services of ‘Boost’ that provides with

specialized services on child abuse prevention and intervention through education and

awareness. After the presentation, I found that ‘Boost’ is a very resourceful and helpful agency

for growing up of all children and youth in a safe, healthy, and nurturing environment. Boost

offers programs and services to any child, youth, and family who are living at Toronto. Programs

of this agency include:

Assessment and Treatment

Prevention and Public Education

Child Victim Witness Support

Relationship Skills for Violence Prevention

Court Preparation Programs

Coordination and Support for Services.

Among these programs, Bullying & Peer Abuse element of the Prevention program seemed to

me very vital event for social and family support. Bullying can impede the rights of children to

learn and play in a safe environment through negative effects on the playroom, classroom and

community environment. It retards growth of self-esteem among children, and can have lifelong

physical and social effects on children. The agency educates to aware people about basic issues

of bullying like-

Concepts of bullying Types and patterns of bullying Warning signs and concerning behaviours for bullying Proactive steps to prevent bullying Reactive strategies to respond to incidents Development of policies and practices.

(http://www.boostforkids.org/AboutUs/MissionValues.aspx)

Another group presented on the agency ‘Scarborough Women's Centre (SWC)’. This

agency provides with information and connecting women with resources in the community or at

the centre. It distributes printed materials about women's services, and anonymous and

confidential information about housing, legal, emotional health, training etc. It publishes

information booklets, and displays at various health and information fairs in the community. It

supports Case Management & Counselling for women who want to make plans to change their

lives. It also offers informal support in the community for women in transition like women

leaving an abusive situation, re-entering the workforce, recent divorce or widowhood through

matching with a supportive mentor volunteer as one-on-one basis.

SWC provides workshops and support groups on topics of concern for women. It offers

targeted programs for newcomer women, young women, and women with disabilities. It also

arranges Adult Literacy/English Conversation Tutoring for women who want to improve their

conversational English or literacy skills.

http://www.scarboroughwomenscentre.ca/aboutus/?pg=7

As a global citizen, this learning outcome has provided me with abundant information

and understanding about communicating families, identifying newcomer women’s family

problems, and services available for them. These experiences and skills will help me later on to

communicate families more easily and comfortably. I also learned how to better understand the

world of immigrants, and types of abuses with children, youth, women, and newcomers. I will be

able to interpolate these skills into my profession as an ECE. This assignment also provided me

with in-depth knowledge about the immigration, settlement and adaptation services, information

about sick kids, and young parent resource centre. This assignment closely relates to my future

goals. If I would be an ECE in child care centre, I would need to communicate with different

people. I need to communicate with people who came from different continents (such as, Africa,

America, and Asia etc). I have to give them resourceful information for their meaningful and

effective integration into the Canadian society.

Bibliography

1. SAWRO. http://sawro.wordpress.com/ 2. Boost. http://www.boostforkids.org/AboutUs/MissionValues.aspx 3. Scarborough Women's Centre. http://www.scarboroughwomenscentre.ca/aboutus/?pg=7

Understanding and Communicating with Families

(Individual GC&E Reflection Paper)

Nasim Khan

Student ID# 300621777

Course code & sec: 230/001

Instructor: Sheila Sullivan

November22, 2012