On May 24, 2014, 70 families from five different immigrant communities in the tri-cities area participated in an all-day conference labeled “Helping Your Child to Succeed: Strategies to Strengthen the Social-Emotional Development of Your Child.” The conference was held at the Douglas College Coquitlam campus, and designed to ensure that immigrant caregivers whose children have special needs or disabilities would be able to access needed and available services for their children.

While volunteers supervised the children playing and participating in crafts and other learning activities, the parents and grandparents listened to several prominent local speakers—including Dr. Amrit Dharwhal, Ph.D. and registered Psychologist from the University of British Columbia, and Deb Smith, M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology from Douglas College-- discussing children’s normal social-emotional development, how to address challenges and strengthen their child’s social-emotional development, what can go wrong, and where to get help for children who may have issues of mental illness, autism, attention deficit disorder, or other common conditions.

This conference grew out of the Soong Ching Ling Children’s Foundation of Canada’s recognition of a common problem facing some children in Canada. Canadian law and values recognize the right of all children, regardless of disability or special needs, to receive educational and other supports which allow their full social participation. British Columbia, like other Canadian provinces, has made great strides in providing resources to ensure the diagnosis, education, and social inclusion of children with all kinds of disabilities. However, many immigrant families are not aware of these services, or, because of the associated stigma in their home cultures, are reluctant to access them. The conference was designed to reach out to those immigrant families, to help reduce the stigma associated with acknowledging their children’s conditions and needs, and to encourage families to access available services for their children who need them. To better reach the immigrant families, the Foundation partnered with S.U.C.C.E.S.S. in the organization of the conference and recruitment of the families from various immigrant communities.

63 mothers or grandmothers, 36 fathers or grandfathers, and 78 children attended the conference. The many non-English speaking families spoke Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Farsi, or Nepalese, and S.U.C.C.E.S.S. staff translated the entire day’s proceedings into all 5 of these languages. Families sat in their language groupings with a translator, so that translation into the different languages could proceed simultaneously, allowing more time for learning and questions.

On the feedback forms received from participants, all 53 respondents agreed that they had gained a better understanding about the social-emotional development of children. Typical comments included that the caregiver now knows where they can access help for their child, and a request for more events of this type. Because of the vision and support provided by the Soong Ching Ling Children’s Foundation of Canada, children with special needs in at least some immigrant families are now more likely to receive the help they require to participate fully in school and in Canadian society.