Stand Together or Fall Apart: Professionals Working with Immigrant Families

Immigration is an important topic that continues to appear in news reports across Western countries. However, few reports examine what adjusting and integrating into a new country means for immigrant families. The traditional strategy employed by social workers, teachers and other social service practitioners is decidedly Euro-centric and treats immigrants as if they have little cultural or community-based means of integrating of their own. Judith K. Bernhard argues that immigrants have deep cultural, familial and communal resources to aid their integration and that these resources need to be tapped by social workers, teachers, counsellors, settlement workers, early childhood educators and child and youth care workers alike. Providing several alternative, integrated, research-based programs that combine cultural resources, traditions and family dynamics, Stand Together or Fall Apart will help practitioners to better understand the struggles of immigrants and thus be better able to assist them as they adjust to life in a new country.

Judith K. Bernhard is a professor in the School of Early Childhood Education at Ryerson
University in Toronto.