immigrant professional career re-entry : facilitation methods and advocacy

Immigrant ProfessionalCareer Re-entry:

Facilitation Methods and Advocacy

Stephen Lambert & Ning Jiang

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CDA @ JMU

• Stephen– Lead Teacher of EL/Civics

funded adult ESoL program

– TESOL faculty– Doc student

• Ning– Administrative Assistant

and Career Coach of EL/Civics funded adult ESoL program

– Grad student

Objective

• To facilitate deeper understanding of the immigrant professional’s linguistic and social needs in the career re-entry process.

Describe and share strategies on

1. Counseling and teaching adult ELLs that have professional credentials and need guidance returning to their pre-immigration careers,

2. A policy brief written to advocate for this population, and

3. An interagency collaboration designed to facilitate better service for this population

CAREER COUNSELINGNING’S TURN:

Understanding the population Characteristics & Barriers

– Educated, driven and hard-working individuals

– Language fluency – Lack of information

about• Career information and guidance• Transferring credentials• Culturally appropriate U.S. job

search skills: resumes, interviews

• American workplace culture• Professional networks• U.S. work experience

– Professional Licensing– Need for immediate

“survival job” income to support family

– Family Obligations– Technical skill gaps– Age or stage in career – Discrimination– Employer’s misconception

Resources• Imprintproject.org

– Community College Consortium for Immigrant Education– Welcome Back Initiative – Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians– Upwardly Global– World Education Service (WES)

• CareersforNewAmericans.org• GlobalTalentBridge.org • WelcomingCenter.org

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ADVOCACYPOLICY BRIEF

STEPHEN’S TURN

Brief: How to build or My brief’s content?

Anatomy of a Policy Brief

• Willard Richan. (2006). Lobbying for Social Change (3rd ed.). Routledge. • Pat Libby. (2012). The Lobbying Strategy Handbook: 10 Steps to Advancing

Any Cause Effectively. Sage Publications.

• Talking points

• Sections of Brief:– Introduction– Scenario: the status quo– The need for change– The plan– Consequences– Scenario: the future we need– Rebuttal– Conclusion

America WITHOUT EinsteinsStephen Lambert

Workforce Investment Act of 1998

Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012Claims of:Greater efficiency and simplicity

America benefits from skilled immigrants

Einstein teaching at Princeton

Einstein becoming us citizen

From the Atomic bomb to the Zipper, immigrants have made a difference.

Successful skill tapping requires

• Higher level English language instruction• Immigrant professional-specific career counseling• Foreign credential evaluation

America WITHOUT Einsteins

Meet Pierre

• Can support opinion, hypothesize and discuss abstract topics, and handle an unfamiliar situation.

• 6400 on logrithmic scale

SUPERIOR

• Can narrate and describe in past, present, and future and handle a complicated situation or transaction.

• 1600-3600 on logrithmic scale

ADVANCED

• Can create with language, ask and answer simple questions on familiar topics, and handle a simple situation or transaction.

• 81-1225 on logrithmic scale

INTERMEDIATE

• No functional ability; speech limited to memorized material. • 0-64 points on logrithmic scale

NOVICE

NRS Scale

ACTFL Scale TESOL Scale

FSI/ILR Scale

NOT reportable in NRS

Classes at these levels are NOT

supported

None

Superior Reaching

5 Native or bilingual proficiency

4+ 4

Distinguished proficiency 3+

8

3 Professional proficiency

Minimum needed for highly-skilled employment

7 Advanced High Bridging 2+

Reported in NRS

6 Advanced Expanding 2

Limited working proficiency for entry level un-skilled employment

6 Intermediate High

Developing

1+

5 Intermediate Mid

1 Elementary proficiency

4 Intermediate Low

3 Novice High Beginning

0+

2 Novice Mid 0 No practical proficiency

0-1 Novice Low Entering

Immigrant professionals do NOT need

• A GED• To start all over• Another college degree• To change careers• To wait for the next generation to have a chance• To be satisfied with just any job they can get

Immigrant professionals DO need

• Higher level English language instruction• Immigrant professional-specific career counseling– Culturally appropriate information for successful self

advocacy– Situation appropriate pathway guidance for efficient career

re-entry navigation• Foreign credential evaluation– Referral to reputable firms such as World Education

Service

Arguments to expect

• Unfunded mandates• Crowding out / stealing jobs• A down economy is not the time• Should government teach English? and Can’t they learn on the job?• Foreign training is not good enough• How will state bureaucrats know what to do?

Help is available

• www.imprint.org• www.globaltalentbridge.org• www.migrationpolicy.org• www.upwardlyglobal.org• www.welcomingcenter.org• www.welcomebackinitiative.org• www.careersfornewamericans.org• www.wes.org• www.cccie.org• www.naces.org

RememberPierre?

Get to know the real Pierre and the rest of the story!

Return on investment – Pierre v2.0

• Pierre’s annual salary went from $12,480 at the car wash to $240,000 as a physician • The federal government can now collect $72,000 in taxes whereas before it may

have collected as much as $1,200. • That is a sixty-fold increase in tax revenue. In other words, it is a 6,000% increase for

the federal government. • Pierre’s position as a physician in a private practice creates jobs for medical office

staff and nurses.• Pierre has disposable income in the tens of thousands of dollars every year that are

at work in the local economy. • He contributes taxes to the local and state governments far in excess of his former

self. • He is happily providing for a family that expresses no burdens upon social services,

but instead, contributes positively in the form of volunteering in the community, giving financially to charities, and working in the provision of vital medical care.

• Now, he is the social safety net, instead of forever being in the net!

Back on track

Results

• May 2012– Ears of Immigrant Professionals Career Coalition– John Segota: TESOL’s policy writing expert (Director of Advocacy).

• June 2012– Ears of fellow practitioners from around the nation at TESOL’s 2012

Advocacy Days• June 2012

– Ears of staffers of Senators Webb and Warner and Representatives Scott and Goodlatte

• September 2012– Ears of Dr. Johan Uvin, Senior Policy Advisor, OVAE, US DOE– Ears of Regional Literacy Coordinators Committee

• October 2012– Ears of VATESOL annual conference attendees

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ADVOCACYCOALITION BUILDING

STEPHEN’S TURN

IPCC

• ESOL Career Development Academy• New Bridges Immigrant Resource Center• Refugee Resettlement Office• Skyline Literacy• Massanutten Technical Center• Eastern Mennonite University’s Intensive English Program• Forward/Adelante Virginia’s First Bilingual Business Journal• Virginia Employment Commission• Blue Ridge Community College• Blue Ridge Area Health Education Center

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