Building Trust with Immigrant and Refugee Families: Spreading and Adapting 2Gen Working Practices
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Highlights
Hiring staff from immigrant communities, offering integrated services, and creating safe spaces are the core strategies that two-generation (2Gen) programs use to earn family trust.
- Distrust of government and fear of immigration enforcement deter many immigrant families from accessing services, making intentional trust-building a prerequisite for effective two-generation (2Gen) work.
- Organizations that hire former clients as staff, offer culturally competent case management, and provide single-point-of-entry integrated services report stronger family engagement and outcomes.
- Creating welcoming physical spaces and offering food, child care, and transportation removes practical barriers and signals real commitment to families' needs.
- The authors recommend enforcing language access laws equitably, centering immigrant families in program design, and directing some pandemic recovery funds toward 2Gen services.
How can service organizations build trust with immigrant families, and what positive results can come from trusting relationships? This brief explores two-generation (2Gen) practices—interventions that work with both parents and children—that aim to build trust with immigrant families. Several broad strategies arose from survey results, interviews, webinars, and peer advising and learning convenings: to build trust, many of the best 2Gen service organizations are intentionally hiring and retaining culturally competent staff and creating welcoming and safe spaces to meet and work with immigrant families.
This brief is part of a set of four by the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group, Migration Policy Institute, and Higher Heights Consulting that explore 2Gen working practices that serve immigrant and refugee families. The others look at approaches to serving families with different immigration statuses, overcoming language barriers, and developing cultural competencies.
Table of Contents
Immigrant Families Are Vital to Our Shared Future
Why 2Gen and Immigrant Families?
The Building Trust with Immigrant Families Webinar
Working Practice 1: Culturally Competent Staff Offering Integrated Services
Working Practice 2: Creating Safe Spaces at Home and at School
Policy Implications
Conclusion
About the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy
The Center is a national hub connecting policymakers, educators, community leaders, and service providers with evidence-informed policy research, technical assistance, and data to advance effective immigrant integration at U.S., state, and local levels.
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