This essay was adapted from a piece posted on Medium.
About nine months ago, Dara told me she was interested in bringing her mother and nephew from Syria to the United States, and she needed assistance. She had immigrated to Evanston, Illinois from Syria five years ago, along with her husband and five children and had a goal of reuniting with her family.
I wanted to help but had no idea where to start. As a home visitor with the federally funded Head Start/Early Head Start program, my goal is to help families create and achieve goals related to parenting their young children. I work with Dara’s 4-year-old daughter, Naya, but I support her whole family. (I have changed their names in this essay to protect their privacy and they’ve agreed to have their story shared.) As their home visitor, I provide resources, connection and experiences to her family and the other families I serve.
Over the years, in addition to bringing lessons and activities for the children I work with, I’ve supported families in accessing food and diapers, filling out school enrollment forms and securing affordable housing — but this was a new request for me.
I decided to start by doing some research on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website. I learned a bit about the process, then I printed out the necessary documents and contacted my organization’s Arabic interpreter to get translation support.
Dara needed to fill out an I-730, Refugee/Asylee Relative Petition form. I looked at the form myself, and even as a native English speaker, it felt daunting. I knew that Dara was even more in the dark. We worked for months, assembling the information she needed. A few weeks ago, when we had finally completed the extensive document, I handed Dara two huge envelopes and explained that she would need to take them to the post office, have them weighed for postage and sent.
“I don’t know how to do that,” she told me.
Dara had never been to the U.S. post office. We decided that we’d plan a trip together, along with her children, so they could learn about the experience of sending mail. I prepared them as best I could by sharing what we would encounter. I couldn’t anticipate everything, but that conversation helped set us up for success. On the day of the trip, Dara and her children shared a new experience — one that helped them all grow. It takes a lot of courage to go outside your comfort zone, and the best part was that her children were there to see their mother trying something new as she was advocating for her family.
I’ve been an early childhood educator for 25 years. In that time, I’ve been a teacher, the owner and director of a preschool and, now, a home visitor. My professional background in early childhood has given me insight into the critical nature of this work. So, too, does my personal experience as a mother who navigated a difficult entry into parenthood, breastfeeding an infant with colic and settling into the reality that taking maternity leave reduced our family’s income. Reflecting back, I would have loved to have the reassurance and support of a home visitor.
How Home Visiting Programs Support Families
Through my work as a home visitor, I serve 11 children and their families, including Naya’s. All of these families speak a language other than English in their home, and eight of the families are immigrants to the U.S. During my weekly visits with each family, I provide parents with resources as well as opportunities to learn and practice skills that will help their young children thrive. The idea is that parents and caregivers are a child’s first teacher and I support them in being the best teachers they can be. Participation in home visiting programs can support families with health and well-being, and based on my experience, these programs are especially effective with immigrant families.
During my visits, I bring developmentally appropriate lessons for Naya, who is fluent in Arabic and English. Just like many kids who are learning two languages, she is a little behind on learning the names of letters and numbers, but as I have assured many parents, being bilingual is so beneficial to brain development, and she will catch up with her monolingual classmates.
Over the past year, in addition to bringing these activities for Naya and moving forward on the travel documents, I have helped Dara and her family make a lot of progress on other goals. By working with one of our partner resource groups, the family of seven was able to secure new housing, moving out of a two-bedroom apartment and into a five-bedroom house. Once they moved, I was able to help Dara in registering her older children in a new school system. The process was almost as difficult as completing the I-730 form, but together, we got through it.
Every family has their own unique goals and needs, so my work differs depending on who I’m supporting. Sometimes I educate parents on child development and safety; other times I provide resources for engaging with their children. And in some cases, I help them navigate challenges they’re facing as a family, whether it’s finding emergency funding when their SNAP benefits are delayed, learning a new bus route to school or, most recently, visiting the post office.
Expanding Access Is Key
Research has shown that investing in early childhood education has significant benefits for children and families. And there’s evidence that home visiting programs are invaluable for parents like Dara. Yet these programs are perpetually underfunded and understaffed. The impact that home visitors make on a child’s development and a family’s well-being is huge, but access is limited. There’s not enough funding to make them available to every child that needs and qualifies for them.
We can increase access for children and their families by developing a stronger awareness of the benefits these programs offer to children, families and society. We can advocate for more federal dollars and consistent funding to enable every family that wants to benefit from this service to have immediate access, rather than being put on a wait list, which can be years long.
In the vein of empowering families, a solution was suggested during a focus group I recently participated in for home visitors in Illinois. The idea was to create a pathway for parents who participate in home visiting programs to receive training in child development, goal setting and documentation skills, so they could become home visitors themselves. This kind of approach would require supervision, support and funding, but it’s something that could boost the original family’s well-being by providing training, improving financial stability and increasing connections throughout the community — and it could exponentially help others.
Imagine Dara guiding people through the process of registering children for school or taking children to the post office. Would she need some guidance and support in doing this? Of course, we all do. But she would offer families, especially those who are new to this country, her invaluable experience, and it would bring her closer to her own personal goals.
