Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services has taken the lead in Florida to develop and provide services by partnering with numerous organizations including the major refugee resettlement agencies statewide to provide comprehensive care for refugees, asylees, asylum seekers and survivors of torture and genocide. All programs of the Florida Center are staffed by bilingual, bi-cultural workers who understand the challenges of refugees and immigrants new to the area.
To achieve our mission, the Florida Center provides a variety of programs:
Florida Center for Survivors of Torture (FCST) - Direct Services
The Florida Center serves survivors of torture who experienced severe emotional trauma, physical violence, sickness and disease due to discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, political affiliation or membership in a social group. We specifically assist refugees, asylum seekers and asylees who have relocated to the Tampa Bay or Miami-Dade areas fleeing political torture in their countries of origin.
Through our Center Without Walls model, the Florida Center has established a comprehensive network of service providers to serve clients. These resources include community-based medical, psychological, legal, educational, spiritual, and social services.
National Partnership for Community Training (NPCT)
The FCST in partnership with the Harvard Program for Refugee Trauma and the Marjorie Kovler Center for the Treatment of Survivors of Torture is proving technical assistance to those working with refugees, asylum seekers and other immigrant populations to increase awareness in serving torture survivors. Using promising practices from existing torture treatment programs around the world, NPCT promotes practical and applied techniques to identify, refer, assist and effectively serve torture survivors where there are no local torture treatment centers available.
Refugee Youth and Family Program (RYFP)
This program supports refugee youth to reach their highest levels of achievement through school and family support. We work to improve school success for refugee students, reducing dropout risk factors, helping youths successfully transition from school to the workplace, and improving the acculturation and preservation of the refugee family. Cultural and recreational outings, mentor and tutoring support, career exploration and development services are offered to eligible youth enrolled in the program. Families also benefit as we bring speakers to meet with parents to learn more about the Florida school systems, health and mental health programs, healthy marriages and more. This program is active in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
Haitian Family Program
In collaboration with Church World Service-Miami, we work with the Haitian community in Delray Beach, Florida. The program goals are to support the successful resettlement of Haitian families by conducting extensive community outreach and education, providing training and education for families concerning: parenting in the U.S., the prevention of child abuse and neglect, and domestic violence, as well as providing culturally and linguistically appropriate family focused case management.
VOICES
Interpreting Services for the community. This fee based program provides trained and skilled spoken language interpreters in over a dozen languages in the Greater Tampa Bay and Miami-Dade areas.
Volunteer Intern Program
This program encourages community involvement by students, professionals, adults and teens in the lives of refugees and immigrants new to the area. There are a variety of opportunities to have a positive impact on your new neighbors and no act is too large or too small. We offer training, support and ideas…you offer your time, experience and interest in learning a new culture, a new way of seeing the world and the opportunity to make a new friend. This program is active in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Miami-Dade counties.
