Challenges for Immigrant Children and their Parents - Literature review Example

 Literature Review In the United States of America, child welfare services target the most vulnerable children, meaning the children who are in the greatest need for these services. Immigrant children, as a segment of the children population, are the fastest growing segment, and it is estimated that in the year of 2010 their numbers will touch 9 million. Child welfare services are not really oriented towards immigrant children needs, and there is the pressing requirement for a better understanding of immigrant children and the family needs that develop from the stress of immigration and emigration (Pine & Drachman, 2005). There are several factors involved in the challenges that immigrant children and their families face. The influx of immigrants and their children are so great that the child welfare services are swamped by these sheer numbers on one side, and on the other side there is the lack of ability in child welfare services to understand and meet the requirements of the immigrant children. Another factor in the well-being of the immigrant children and their families is the legal status of the immigrants, as different statuses carry with it the deriving of different levels of benefits and services. Another important challenge for immigrant children and their families is the lack of proficiency of the English language, as nearly all of the immigration come from countries, where there is limited exposure to the English language. This deficiency is likely to lead to the family falling in the low income group, with the accompanying issue of poor health status of the children (Pine & Drachman, 2005). Understanding the challenges of immigrant children can be derived from the stages of migration framework, and the critical variables involved in it, and the factors that have an impact on each stage of migration. Factors that impinge on the different stages of migration include age, family background, urban or rural background, socioeconomic background, occupation, religion, and social support. The premature stage or the departure stage, transit or immediate stage, resettlement stage, and return to country of origin stage make up the four stages in the stages of migration framework (Pine & Drachman, 2005). This framework provides an understanding on the challenges that are faced by immigrant children and their families, which are important for child welfare social workers. For child welfare social workers, the planned interventions for the welfare of immigrant children needs to be viewed from the perspectives of the concerned individuals, the situation in which they find themselves in, and the environment in which the framework and the ecological systems operate. Ingredients of social support, culture, beliefs, ethnic community, and macro-policies have to be taken into consideration by the social workers in the evaluation of the immigrant children and their families. This framework is based on a holistic approach for child welfare social workers to face the challenge of immigrant children and their families. As such, this framework attempts to provide an understanding of the different constituents of the process of migration, and through that removes the lacuna that arises from concentrating on only one part of the migration process (Pine & Drachman, 2005). Therefore, the framework makes it possible for child social workers to comprehend the resilience and strengths that can be utilized to overcome the cumulative stress of migration. Once awareness in the child welfare social worker is present, it becomes possible for the social worker to draw support from the ethnic community as a whole, to address the problems of the immigrant children and their families, to integrate them into the communities in the new country they have chosen to live in. A very important aspect that child welfare social workers working with immigrant children have to keep in mind is the support that has to be provide from the time that immigrants set foot in the country, and this will involve a full understanding of the legal issues and rights issues for immigrant children and their families ( Pine & Drachman, 2005). The issues of child welfare practice and the manner in which child welfare practice needs to be adopted can be viewed from the perspective of Chinese immigrants and their children. It is well known that in Chinese culture the family is a strong factor. However, in the modern circumstances there is a strong trend for immigration that leads to moving away from the strength of familial ties among the Chinese, with particular emphasis on immigration from mainland China, in place of the traditional base of immigration from places like Hong long. Moving away from family in a culture, where family has been a strong bonding factor results in the Chinese families and their experiencing stress, because of the lack of familial support in the new environment. This stress is further enhanced due to language problems, the inaccessibility of the required services and the lack of understanding of the Chinese culture by the child welfare service providers. Child welfare service providers need to be aware that there is a wide gulf between child welfare service in a country like China and a country like America. In Communist countries like China, the child welfare services are very different from the child welfare services in America. The child welfare services in China normally are received from government agencies with a bureaucratic set up, which is unlike the child welfare set up in America. In the Chinese cultural set avoidance of causing embarrassment to the family is strong, which will be strongly re-enforced by the local Chinese community in America. As a consequence, the immigrant Chinese will be reticent about the actual stress that they face in the new environment, making it difficult for a child welfare service worker to evaluate the service needs of Chinese immigrant children. It is of paramount importance that a child social worker does not challenge this ethos in an immigrant Chinese family, and instead accepts and plans a strategy to work through it. A child welfare social worker in America would as a natural practice tend to focus on the child as the individual requiring service. This would run against the grain of the Chinese cultural practice, where the family as a whole is more important than any individual in the family. It would be unwise for the child welfare social worker to press this issue. The child social worker needs to look at the other senior members of the family, besides the parents as sources of support. Furthermore, should there be a contest between the welfare of a child and the responsibility of the parents of the child towards their own parents no attempt should be made to divert the attention of the parents from their parents to their child. It is also useful to keep in mind the geographical origins of the Chinese immigrants, like whether they come from mainland China, or Hong Kong or Vietnam, etc., for there are subtle differences that will be experienced by these immigrants, based on their country of origin. By adopting the Person-in-Family-in-Community model it is possible to remove these issues. This model suggests the use of macro-level values and norms that act as a hindrance for the immigrant family to understand the new social systems and social services; perceiving the larger family as the main client rather than child; the child as a sub-unit in the family based on sibling order and gender; cultural norms as assets rather than weaknesses, and as such can be used to plan and provide child welfare services Literary References Fong, R. (1997). Child Welfare Practice with Chinese Families: Assessment Issues for Immigrants from the People’s Republic of China. In Philip M. Brown & John S. Shalett (Eds.), Cross-Cultural Practice With Couples And Families, (pp.33-47). New York: The Haworth Press, Inc. Pine, B. A. & Drachman, D. (2005). Effective Child Welfare Practice with Immigrant and Refugee Children and their Families. Child Welfare, 34 (5), 537-562. Read More