In a recent pilot project, two staff members at the Tech Center at PNW BOCES helped students at the English as New Language Learners Academy find a voice for dealing with past trauma and adapting to life in a new country.
Academy students, who learn both English and a new trade as well as prepare for a high school equivalency exam in English or Spanish, participated in a journaling project that gave them a weekly opportunity to reflect on painful experiences in their native countries, bonds with their families, and their future lives. Because of the project’s success, the Tech Center’s bilingual social worker, Stephanie Carnes, has been invited to share her work with colleagues during state and national conferences for school social workers to be held this school year.
Carnes said she is excited by the opportunity to describe what students gained from the project – a team effort with English teacher Ellen Sugrue-Dolan. Knowing that the vast majority of the ENL students had experienced trauma in their native countries, the pair saw journaling both as a first step toward getting help and a way for students to develop their writing.
“They all need some way of unburdening,” Carnes said. “The students embraced this project.” The journaling led some students to later seek private sessions with her where they could further discuss painful experiences in their earlier lives. And for those students not ready for any therapy, the journaling offered a way for them to start opening up.
“I’m a believer that any intervention is better than no intervention,” she said. One measure of the project’s success was that students polled this year overwhelmingly wanted to begin journaling again. That will again be happening weekly as part of English classes.
At the annual New York State School Social Work Conference, “Promoting Balance and Wellness in Our Students, Families & Schools” on Oct. 25 in Utica and at the National School Social Work Conference scheduled for March in Baltimore, Carnes plans to share with colleagues how journaling can be “a cost-effective and impactful tool” for supporting students from Central America who have often witnessed horrific violence and experienced long separations from one or both parents. Journaling can be a way to help students who are often too busy with school, job and family responsibilities to seek outside therapy, and typically have no way to pay for it.
The Central American students in the ENL Academy are a surprisingly resilient group given their early lives, Carnes said, pointing to research being done in connection with Marist College’s Social Work program. That means that relatively simple strategies like journaling can be effective not only at the academy, but at component school districts where some students return after learning enough English to attend mainstream classes. Sharing social work strategies can help school professionals duplicate or adapt a project such as journaling, and fits with the BOCES mission of partnering with component school districts to help students succeed.
The ENL program at the Tech Center was developed in response to the needs of school districts in Putnam and northern Westchester that were enrolling significant numbers of immigrant students. One of the primary focuses of the program is enabling students to get their TASC or Spanish TASC (high school equivalency) diploma. Along with their academic subjects, students study a trade. They can choose from are Cosmetology, Medical Assisting, Auto Body, Auto Mechanics, Carpentry, Plumbing, Pre-Nursing, Culinary, Business Computer Technology, and Urban Forestry. After completing the program, students go on to work in technical fields or to study in college.