Overview
This webinar discusses Cultural Brokers as intermediaries in preventing violence against children and youth among newcomer families.
Description:
In this presentation, we examine the role of Cultural Brokers as intermediaries in a Culturally-Responsive Collaborative Family Intervention Program, which seeks to prevent violence against children and youth among immigrant and refugee families in the Edmonton area. Drawing on intersectionality, we discuss how pre-migration, migration and post-migration trauma often re-manifests through daily struggles with safety, parenting, and emotional regulation during resettlement.
Presenters:
Sara Torres is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Work, Laurentian University. She has over 20 years of experience conducting research and outreach with multicultural and hard-to-reach populations. Her other research interests include the role of community health worker/cultural broker programs in addressing health inequities among immigrant and refugee women in Canada as well as protective factors for children’s welfare, and how to prevent the entry or re-entry of children from newcomer, African Nova Scotian, and Indigenous families into provincial care. She is also Co-founder of the Cultural Brokers Network of Canada..
Funke Olokude has almost two decades of extensive work experience in the social service industry working with diverse populations and sectors in Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta where she has continuously promoted equity in policy and practice that have led to transformational relationships between individuals and within systems. Funke is passionate about multiple forms of engaging with knowledge which has seen her be part of twenty plus Community Based Research projects. She is Co-Executive Director of Multicultural Health Brokers Coop (MCHB).
In 2020, Funke was named Top 40 under 40 for her continued work in influencing policy and practice across various sectors in Alberta. For her leadership, the National Black Coalition of Canada (NBCC) Professional Excellence Award and the Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal.
Monique Nutter has been practicing social work for more than 30 years. Her primary areas of practice have been research and evaluation, community organizing, and generalist practice with vulnerable populations, including immigrants, refugees and other newcomers. She is Interim Co-Executive Director of MCHB. She fosters collaboration between Children and Family Services and MCHB. She believes in putting the voice of lived experience at the centre of decision-making and lifting these learnings into knowledge-driven policy development.