On September 17, 2008, Refugee Youth and Family Program Pinellas held a Parent Empowerment session on "Navigating the American Ocean." This module covers topics like DCF including benefits, KidCare, health insurance, transportation and others. We have had wonderful Parent Empowerment sessions with presenters in the past, but this time we took a new angle.
A PowerPoint was created with basic information about several agencies and topics, including DCF, Medicaid, Medicare, private health insurance, HUD, housing options, Florida laws concerning car insurance, local health departments, free clinics, and local public transportation. In the PowerPoint web links were inserted for each agency or topic discussed. We decided to have the session in our computer room at the Clearwater office, which has four computers and a projection screen. We downloaded the PowerPoint onto all four computers and then projected it onto the screen.
We had four parents attend our session. A couple from Tajikistan sat together at one computer, a Vietnamese father and his interpreter sat at another computer. A Liberian mother and a youth specialist sat at another, and I was at the fourth. During the PowerPoint presentation, the parents followed along on their computers. As we went from slide to slide, we took time to navigate each website listed. The parents had a chance to ask about specific items they were concerned with and we searched together on the correlating website for the answer. For example, one parent wanted to know if he could reapply for KidCare online instead of using the mail in form. Together, we all went to the website and located the online form. Now, they all know where it is and are able to get to it by themselves.
Besides empowering the parents to find resources online, the session was also awesome in that each person present was able to provide personal experience on at least one topic. When we talked about buying a house and credit checks, the Vietnamese father shared about his home buying experience and his bouts with fighting identity theft. When we spoke about Habitat for Humanity, the Liberian mother, who had been a recipient of a Habitat home, shared her whole experience with us. We talked about renting and renter's rights and the Vietnamese interpreter happened to own several rental properties, so we also got a landlord's perspective. We talked about public transportation, the main form of transportation for the Tajik mother, and she shared inside pointers about riding the bus. The Tajik father had already applied for DCF benefits online so he was able to walk the rest of us through the process.
It was truly a successful and empowering session for the parents, integrating available community resources and technology. Each person, I believe, left that day feeling like they had contributed to the knowledge of others as well.
In the end I think the person who learned the most was me!
-Heather Kathrens
