Illinois Refugee Family Strengthening

The Illinois Refugee Family Strengthening Project is a joint effort of social service, resettlement, mental health care and community agencies of Illinois.

As the lead agency, JCFS will work with participating community agencies to help achieve several project goals. A primary goal is to provide education about Healthy Marriages and Healthy Families to refugees, in order to assist them in mastering cultural adjustment as a family unit and help them build on their strength and resilience. We aim to facilitate successful cultural integration of couples and families, by helping them combine the effective relationship and communication skills of their culture of origin with those ones of their new, US-American, culture. As a way to prevent domestic and relationship violence, the project also includes Healthy Marriages and Healthy Family education. And finally, it is our goal to reach out to area professionals and the community at large by providing education about the issues of refugee cultural adjustment and its affect on marriages and families

The Illinois Refugee Family Strengthening Project Operates on the following principles:

• Every culture has its own definition of healthy relationships, strong marriages and good parenting
• Our Marital and Family Relationships Curricula are based on “The Power of Two” model by psychologist Dr. Susan Heitler. Dr. Heitler is an expert in the field of Conflict Resolution and Communication Skills
• We are not teaching our refugee clients to forget who they are and start building their family relationship “American Way." We are helping them be more conscious about their family relationships and choose what works the best from both cultures
• Comprehensive training is provided to professionals from participating agencies. During this training emphasis is given to cross-cultural sensitivity in addressing healthy family communication and relationship skills