BU Now » Reaching Out http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow News, information and research from Boston University Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:14:24 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.4 “Reaching Out” Part Six: Educating Families for Life in the States http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/2011/01/28/reaching-out-part-six-educating-families-for-life-in-the-states/ http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/2011/01/28/reaching-out-part-six-educating-families-for-life-in-the-states/#comments Fri, 28 Jan 2011 20:43:53 +0000 Kira Jastive http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/?p=7990 The final installment of BU Today’s “Reaching Out” series focuses on the School of Education’s (SED) Intergenerational Literacy Program, an component of the long-stading collaboration between the Chelsea Public Schools and BU.

The program, which supports both children and their parents, is designed to teach English and equip families with the skills and information needed to adapt to everyday life in the United States.  It serves anywhere from 75 to 90 families at a time, and over the course of approximately 20 years has helped more than 2,400 families.  In addition to English, the program teaches things like understanding job applications, newspaper articles, citizenship materials, and financial forms. Classroom discussions also cover fire safety, crime prevention, lead paint, and even trash day.


]]> http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/2011/01/28/reaching-out-part-six-educating-families-for-life-in-the-states/feed/ 0 “Reaching Out” Parts Four and Five http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/2011/01/27/reaching-out-parts-four-and-five/ http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/2011/01/27/reaching-out-parts-four-and-five/#comments Thu, 27 Jan 2011 21:12:53 +0000 Kira Jastive http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/?p=7972 Today in BU Today’s “Reaching Out” series, we learn more about a School of Law program, the Asylum & Human Rights Clinic (AHR), which assigns second and third year law students to help people seeking asylum and fighting deportation. Launched in 1985 by School of Law (LAW) Professor Susan Akram, the program has helped hundreds of people obtain asylum. The students in the four-course cluster program also handle Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) cases, temporary restraining orders in Probate and Family Court, and other immigration and humanitarian cases.

The series also looks at the interpreter certificate program at Metropolitan College’s Center for Professional Education, which has been teaching interpreters for more than 15 years and preparing them for careers in the court system, hospitals and other community services.  The 12-to-18 month program prepares interpreters in three languages—Chinese, Portuguese, and Spanish.

“Reaching Out” concludes tomorrow with with coverage of the School of Education’s Intergenerational Literacy Project, which teaches English language literacy skills to entire families.


]]> http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/2011/01/27/reaching-out-parts-four-and-five/feed/ 0 “Reaching Out” Part Three: Connecting Social Workers with their Communities http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/2011/01/26/reaching-out-part-three-bridging-social-workers-with-their-communities/ http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/2011/01/26/reaching-out-part-three-bridging-social-workers-with-their-communities/#comments Wed, 26 Jan 2011 20:53:50 +0000 Kira Jastive http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/?p=7939 Part three of BU Today’s “Reaching Out” series that looks at how BU programs are helping immigrants and refugess in Boston highlights the School of Social Work’s (SSE) BRIDGE (Building Refugee and Immigrant Degrees for Graduate Education) progam.  An outgrowth of SSW’s Refugee and Immigrant Training Program, which began in the early 1990s to recruit immigrants for careers in social work, BRIDGE is a Master of Social Work (MSW) program designed to help recent immigrants serve their communities here. The program shepherds applicants from orientation to preadmission to study for an MSW and beyond to career development.

The series continues tomorrow with two parts. One will examine the School of Law’s (LAW) Asylum & Human Rights Clinic (AHR), where law students represent asylum seekers and others involved in immigration and humanitarian cases; the other will look at the interpreter certificate program at the University’s Center for Professional Education, which trains multilingual students in community, legal and medical interpreting.


]]> http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/2011/01/26/reaching-out-part-three-bridging-social-workers-with-their-communities/feed/ 0 BU Today Kicks off Immigration Series with Look at SPH Clinic for Torture Survivors http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/2011/01/24/bu-today-kicks-off-immigration-series-with-look-at-sph-clinic-for-torture-survivors/ http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/2011/01/24/bu-today-kicks-off-immigration-series-with-look-at-sph-clinic-for-torture-survivors/#comments Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:20:50 +0000 Kira Jastive http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/?p=7883 Today, BU Today kicks off a six-part series called “Reaching Out” that takes an in-depth look at the many ways the Boston University community is working to improve the lives of immigrants and refugees living in Boston.

The first installment features the work being done at the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Refugee Health Clinic (CAM). Staffed by acupuncturist Ellen Silver Highfield and Michael Grodin, a professor of health law, bioethics, and human rights at the School of Public Health (SPH), the clinic offers non-Western therapies to help treat torture survivors.  Through the use of traditional healing methods, botanicals, mind-body techniques and traditional Chinese medicine, Highfield and Grodin are helping refugees who have lived through or witnessed unspeakable horrors.

Tomorrow, the series will cover the Haitian Earthquake Long-term Pediatric Support (HELPS) team, an effort by the School of Medicine (MED) and Boston Medical Center to offer social and legal services to Haitians who fled following last year’s devastating earthquake.


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