Conference Sessions
Community Engagement/Collaboration: Workshop: Radical Imagination: A Tool for Immigrant Justice Movements and Service Providers
This workshop invites participants to engage in radical imagination to creatively respond to current and future challenges around human mobility. Radical imagination is the ability to imagine our lives, systems, structures, relationships, and organizations otherwise, acknowledging that the world can and should be changed. This praxis is about inspiring us to create roadmaps toward new forms of solidarity and liberation as we bring the past, the future, and the present into dialogue. Join us to dream our utopias into reality collectively.
Service Delivery: Panel: The Status of Immigration, Social Assistance, and Housing in 2022
Legal and social programs available to immigrants and refugees continue to evolve, causing confusion, inefficient service provision, and ultimately, harm for individuals entering the United States. This panel discussion will address current “hot topics” in legal and social services for immigrants and refugees. First, relevant immigration statuses will be defined, focusing especially on Asylum and Humanitarian Parole classifications. This segment will describe how each of these statuses are used and what they mean for immigrants immediately and long-term. Panelists will then review social service programs available to immigrants and refugees residing in Missouri, including eligibility requirements and other considerations by status. The discussion will conclude by examining housing policies affecting immigrants in Missouri, including common issues that arise for immigrants and how to address these concerns.
This course is approved for 1.2 Continuing Legal Education hours for Missouri lawyers by the Missouri Bar Association.
Community Engagement/Collaboration: Fireside Chat: Developing BIPOC/Foreign-Born Leadership
Suzanne S, senior program manager for the St. Louis Mosaic Project, sits down with Geoffrey Soyiantet, founder and executive director of Vitendo4Africa, to talk about building community in BIPOC and foreign-born communities. Geoffrey will share his years of experience in identifying and supporting emerging leaders. Together, Geoffrey and Suzanne will explore examples of collaboration, highlight the importance of developing BIPOC and immigrant leaders, and explore ways that the region’s service providers and advocates can build culturally rich community leadership.
Service Delivery: Lecture: Strategically Supporting New Arrivals
There has been an increased interest by community members and organizations that have not traditionally been involved in working with new arrivals since Operation Allies Welcome and the more recent Uniting 4 Ukraine program. Though this is a desired trend towards more welcoming communities, there is important foundational knowledge and awareness that allows individuals to most effectively engage in efforts that support new arrivals. The objective of this presentation will be to provide participants an opportunity to learn about new arrival populations (who), critically reflect on personal motivations for working with new arrivals (why), and most importantly identify what kinds of support can be provided (what) and in what ways (how) to foster self-determination, self-efficacy, self-sufficiency, and resilience among new arrivals. This presentation will ask participants to engage in critical reflection around topics such as trauma, stressors, acculturation, helper biases, cultural awareness and humility, centering the needs and narratives of new arrivals, and more.
This course is approved for 1.2 Continuing Legal Education hours for Missouri lawyers by the Missouri Bar Association.
This course is approved for 1.0 Continuing Education Hours for Missouri Social Workers by the State Committee for Social Workers.
Community Engagement/Collaboration: Lecture: Ethical Storytelling 101
Presenters Nancy Spargo and Cate Hensley will cover the foundations of ethical storytelling in direct service provision. Presenters will highlight the importance of narrative storytelling for advancing the organizational mission and advocacy opportunities. Topics covered will include affirming and autonomy-centered policies and principles for organizations, the context for storytelling with immigrant and asylum-seeking community members, and compensation guidelines.
Service Delivery: Workshop: Title VI and You
In this workshop, Nicole Lopresti, Director of Operations at All Access Interpreters, will give a presentation on Title VI. She will discuss what Title VI is, and why it should matter to you and your organization. After the presentation, the group will go into breakout rooms, where they will be presented a copy of a language policy template. With a moderator, the breakout rooms will discuss strategies around language justice best practices. They will also explore the language policy template, and discuss how it can be applied to their own organization.
This course is approved for 1.0 Continuing Education Hours for Missouri Social Workers by the State Committee for Social Workers.
Community Engagement/Collaboration: Networking: Speed Dating
Details Coming Soon!
Service Delivery: Mindfulness: Yoga en Espanol
Details Coming Soon!
Community Engagement/Collaboration: Lecture: Advocacy 101
Advocacy 101 will teach advocates, impacted people, and not for profit staff how to share their experience with elected officials. Geared towards the Missouri state legislature, these skills can help you advocate for systems change at many levels. Decision makers must hear from the experts, including you. Policy advocacy doesn’t need to feel scary or overwhelming, and you will leave this training with the basic education needed to grow your skills and demystify the process to have the greatest impact on the lives of our neighbors.
Service Delivery: Mindfulness: Panel: Disability Justice
Refugees with disabilities often have a variety of needs to fully integrate into their new community, and often service providers might get overwhelmed when trying to meet their needs. Partnership and community-level collaboration are key to successfully helping disabled refugees. Mustafa Rfat will discuss the principles and importance of community engagement. Building capacity among service providers and bridging connections between siloed service systems is another key strategy for supporting the economic empowerment of refugees with disabilities. Mansha Mirza will share the framework and outcomes of PRIDE (Partners of Refugees in Illinois Disability Employment), a community capacity-building project fostering economic opportunities and career pathways for refugees with disabilities. One important aspect of service delivery and service provision is assessment and evaluation. In the process of assessment and evaluation using appropriate tools can be crucial. Mitra Naseh will discuss the process of developing and adapting an assessment tool to measure economic integration among specific groups of refugees in the U.S. Jean Francois Trani will discuss the situation of displaced children and adults with disabilities in different conflict contexts including the situation of people with mental disabilities.
This course is approved for 1.0 Continuing Education Hours for Missouri Social Workers by the State Committee for Social Workers.