FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 23, 2009

Groundbreaking research explores barriers faced by immigrant and refugee families in need of Early Childhood Development (ECD) services

According to research by UBC’s Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), almost 30% children living in the Lower Mainland are not ready to succeed in school by age 6. These children come from all walks of life, but a just released report shows that many immigrants and newcomers with young families are especially vulnerable because they aren’t connecting with early childhood development services.

A three-year research project, funded by United Way of the Lower Mainland and conducted by HELP, UBC and S.U.C.C.E.S.S., identifies some key issues. The resulting report, Bridging Immigrants and Refugees with ECD Services: Partnership Research in the Development of an Effective Service Model, found that:

• There are barriers to service access. Invisible barriers arising from perceived discrimination/attitude of staff/service providers, cultural differences in the perception of service vs. concrete barriers due to distance, cost of childcare, language, culture, availability of information.
• Diverse newcomer communities have different cultural beliefs and practices, and different understandings of ECD.
• Regardless of the cultural groups they belong to, many parents wonder about the status of moral development in the Canadian approach to ECD.
• ECD services and programs are in general not responsive to immigrant families with special needs children.

The report looks at how well the community is connected to the multicultural population in ECD services; challenges to overcome for it to be accessible and acceptable; barriers to remove for the promotion of ECD services, and opportunities to enrich knowledge of the social and cultural determinants of ECD.

A total of 113 parents participated in 13 focus groups with parents from Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Farsi speaking communities in the Tri-Cities area.  As well, the study conducted seven individual/group field interviews with 16 key informants (service providers and community educators).

Said Dr. Iraj Poureslami, the report’s principal researcher with HELP, UBC, “The majority of participants in this study expressed a desire to combine elements of both their home culture and Canadian culture when raising their children in Canada.

“ECD programs will not be effective at improving child health and development outcomes in newcomer communities unless family and community needs, issues, priorities, and challenges are addressed and met. Programs and services that focus on family and community-strengthening may be more effective in newcomer communities than mainstream community child-focused approaches,” he added.

Said Tung Chan, CEO of S.U.C.C.E.S.S, “The research findings confirmed the effectiveness of what we have been delivering in our Multicultural Early Childhood Development Program. Service strategies like partnership with all ECD service providers, training of Parent Ambassadors, hiring of multicultural workers and enhancing capacity of service providers through cultural competency training are all rated highly by focus group participants.  We shall continue to explore with community partners to implement the research recommendations.”

Said Michael McKnight, President and CEO United Way of the Lower Mainland, “Early childhood experiences are shaped by parents’ cultural beliefs, practices and routines. In BC, the population is increasingly diverse and 25% of the current population is foreign born. It’s a priority for United Way to provide hope and opportunity for children. We need to act now to support better ways to enhance ECD accessibility to newcomer families.”

Click here to download the full report.
It will also be made available at http://www.tricitiesecd.citysoup.ca/

CONTACTS: Kelly Ng, Program Director, Family and & Youth Services, S.U.C.C.E.S.S.: Tel: 604-408-7267; Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Michael Becker, Assistant Director, Communications, the United Way of the Lower Mainland: Tel: 604-268-1333; Cell, 778-896-4507 Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it