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Show Goal 2: Volunteers will feel confident in their ability to support their families through utilizing the resources offered to them by IRC staff, this includes: Family Mentor Training, ongoing assistance for training needs, and distributed materials. Objective 1: IRC will help volunteers understand the refugee process prior to being placed with a family. Current Practice: 5.2.1.1 In order to utilize the assertive, compassionate family mentors in the Family Mentor Program as a resource for case managers and IRC in helping with refugee families, family mentors should be aware of the refugee process prior to being placed with a family. 5.2.1.2 It appears that the majority of family mentors were either never taught IRC's process for refugee families prior to placement or they simply do not remember. Either way, mentors feel that there is a gap in background information regarding the experience of refugee families prior to their placement with that family. One family mentor expressed, "I would have loved to know what happens to a refugee for the first year of their lives in the US. To know what they are given by !RC, the federal government, local government, and the community or whatever. Because as a mentor, you want to feel helpful and you want to be able to understand what the refugee is going through, ya know? The training was super vague as I recall" (Il). 5.2.1.3 Similar to the lack of knowledge that family mentors seem to have on the actual services rendered by IRC to refugee families, this lack of background information directly relates to the frustration that case managers have with family mentors. Case managers are concerned that family mentors are not receiving proper instruction on the refugee process and therefore case managers lack confidence in mentors' ability to work in partnership toward a smooth acclimation for refugee families. For example, the Medical Manager of IRC remarked, "I think that some specifics regarding health should be incorporated into the Training for the mentors. I have a lot of questions coming through from mentors regarding, for example, if the family is HIV positive or something like that. So, the mentors need to know what the families are screened for or what they are tested for prior to coming into the country" (CMFG). 5.2.1.4 While reviewing the Family Mentor Training materials, I noticed that there are in depth explanations of the processing of refugees prior to placement as well as descriptions of opportunities and services that IRC offers for the utilization of refugee families and beyond. However, again, family mentors overall do not read or refer to their distributed materials for guidance in this area. In fact, from my discussions with family mentors, it became clear that very few, if any mentors have ever read or referred to their distributed materials other than in the very beginning for activity ideas (FGs, Is, 8 of 12 Surveys). 5.2.1.5 In addition, there were mentors who admitted to never actually attending an IRC - Family Mentor Training or who even had never received the family mentor 19 of 19 |
