Welcoming Families From Around the World

For this weeks blog assignment, I am to imagine the following scenario: You are working in an early childhood setting of your choice...a hospital, a child care center, a social service agency. I receive word that the child of a family who has recently emigrated from a country you nothing about will join your group soon. You want to prepare yourself to welcome the child and her family. Luckily, you are enrolled in a course about diversity and have learned that in order to support families who have immigrated you need to know more than surface facts about their country of origins. 

I will assume that my new family will be coming from Japan.

At least five ways in which I will prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards this family:

1. I will conduct a Google search of the family country of origin. This is for me to get a better  understanding of the background of their culture, their foods, music, traditions, and family orientation. This will help me to become familiar with some of the expectations of this culture. 
2. Upon meeting this family for the first time, I will be very welcoming by making them feel accepting, and comfortable in coming to a new environment. I will have information available for them concerning our school, which will include the staff, and the curriculum.
3. I will have a family available that is from the  same country as they are. This will help in making the family not feel not as uncomfortable as they would if their was no one else that could relate to. After work we would all meet up to tour the town, and get familiar with some of the shopping centers, and other attractions.
4. I will try hard to learn some of the language in order to communicate effectively with the family. I will let them know that I am glad and happy to have them as part of our country for a little while.
5. I will plan a event for other parents and their families to meet and greet this family. Welcoming families is a big part of being diversity. This event will be a big and huge event in order to prepare for other families who may enter our country; making them feel that they are a part of our society will have a big impact. They will feel very welcome.

A brief statement of describing in what ways you hope that these preparations will benefit both you and the family.

I hope these preparations will benefit both me and the family by me preparing and gathering information and showing them in many ways that I am glad to meet them, and that they are very welcome in our country and our school setting. I hope that they will feel that any time they enter my classroom they will not experience any biases, prejudice, and will not be discriminated against. They will know they are valued, and accepted. My gesture of having another family from their culture will show them that I care about their well-beings and their child's well-being. All of these things will be helpful to me as well as the family from Japan.