Helping Vulnerable Families Give Their Children an Even Start Toward School Success: One Rural Community's Efforts.

Say the word "Florida" and it almost always conjures up enticing images of sandy beaches, bright sunshine, swaying palm trees, and tanned bodies in poses of relaxation. Quite a different Florida exists, however; one that few tourists see or come to know. Inland Florida is a vast and productive agricultural empire, producing much of the citrus, farm goods, and meat products that Americans consume. In this "other Florida," some of the state's most vulnerable and isolated families struggle to survive, moving from one short-term housing and employment site to another, and often leaving the state when the hot summer months make their labor unnecessary.

Immokalee, an unincorporated town in southwest Florida, is typical of the communities serving migrant families and children. For the past three and a half years, the Collier County affiliate of the national Even Start Family Literacy Program has worked with families in Immokalee, helping parents gain language skills, find community connections and services, and learn parenting and job skills, while also providing what is, for many of the children, their first positive educational experiences.

Immokalee and Its Unique Even Start Program

The first school in Immokalee was set up by the Lee County Schools (which originally served communities from Ft. Myers to the Florida Keys) in 1891 to educate Indians in the area, according to historian Charlton Tebeau. The school "actually taught only Whites as no Indians came to it" (Tebeau, 1957, p. 197). In 1897, the first schoolhouse was built, and the school population grew slowly. In 1953, a separate facility was built for the education of "Negro children"; the Bethune School educated Immokalee's K-12 black children until 1967. Now called the Bethune Education Center, the building houses an Even Start Program, along with extensive adult education programs.

The town is isolated, only accessible by unlit, two-lane roads winding across the farms and swamplands of southwest Florida. Travel to Florida's east coast takes about one and a half hours through the Everglades, a vast unpopulated region. Its summer population of 17,000 more than doubles to over 35,000 residents during the winter months as migrants arrive to harvest the crops and "snowbirds" arrive from the northern states.

Each winter a veritable horde of migrant workers descends upon the town, doubling its population and creating as yet unsolved problems of housing, sanitation, schools, morals and policing. These are but the growing pains of all such communities. Since 1949 there has been talk of incorporating the "town" and turning the task over to city fathers. But the idea is frequently voted down.... So the unincorporated community finds itself acting in respects like a city. Meanwhile Immokalee grows in every direction, and county, private and denominational agencies struggle with the new order and its potentialities and problems. (Tebeau, 1957, p. 206)

Tebeau's observations remain true today.

In the peak seasons, Immokalee's population is more than 80 percent migrant or recently immigrated families. Many migrants establish strong ties in the area, spending a significant part of each year here. Most of the families do not speak English fluently. Two-thirds report using a language other than English within the home--most often Spanish, followed by Haitian Creole, and then by Konjobal and Mum (both Guatemalan dialects). More than half the families in the area are headed by someone who speaks little or no English, and most have little formal education.

Nearly half of Immokalee's year-round population lives below the poverty level, a figure that reaches 60 to 65 percent during the harvest season. Over 90 percent of children in the town's public schools are eligible for free or reduced lunch programs. Those families that try to make the town their permanent residence express their concerns about finding affordable housing, stable employment, and child care (Economic Development Council of Collier County Web site).

The Collier County Public School's Even Start Program was initiated in November 1992, under the auspices of the Division of Adult Education, to serve migrant families and their children. The program received additional funding in 1997, enabling it to serve not only migrant parents and children, but also recently immigrated or permanently settled migrant families who stay in the area all year. During its first year of expanded operation, the program served 35 immigrant families; the number rose to 51 during its second year. More recently, the program has expanded to three children's classrooms, increased the network of community partnerships, and reached a more diverse population of families.

Part of the early growth and continuing success of the Even Start Program is due to the efforts of its founding director, Patti LaCrosse, and to its current head, Peggy Diaz. Both women have lived and worked in the community for years, and they each have bilingual skills and strong cross-cultural ties. The year-round Even Start Program emphasizes early acquisition of English language skills for all family members as the best means to enhance parent-child communication and empower parents as their child's first teacher. The number of staff is small, but they are energetic and ethnically diverse. All of the staff members are bi- or multilingual, most have worked themselves in Immokalee's fields as migrant workers, and all live in the community. They each voice a commitment to Even Start as a "family and community program." In addition, the staff tries to help the families obtain services beyond those provided within the program. In this respect, the Even Start Program is a linchpin of social stability in the ever-changing Immokalee community.

The family literacy program immerses both parents and young children in a language-rich environment. Parents gain needed speaking and reading skills in English, while their young children explore the developmentally appropriate learning environments. Currently, the Bethune Center has three separate learning rooms for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. In addition, parenting classes and parent/ teacher training with an early education instructor who speaks Spanish has helped parents gain greater awareness of their children's needs and how to best meet them. Finally, adult education classes help parents acquire job skills and earn degrees. Over the past two years, parents in the program have completed four ESOL classes and one ABE/GED class. In all three of these areas, this Even Start Program is engaging families for longer amounts of time than the national average, as reported in a U.S. Department of Education national evaluation of the Even Start Family Literacy Program (1998).

Immokalee's Even Start Program

Newcomers to the Even Start Program (located in one wing of the Bethune Center) cannot help but be impressed by its close-knit, almost family-like atmosphere. This is particularly evident in the rooms where the administrator, office staff, and early childhood staff work directly with parents and children. The warm greetings and spirited interactions build strong connections between program staff and parents, helping to reassure parents that they will be welcomed back if they ever need to leave the program.

Many adults learn about the Even Start Program and its guidelines when they register for classes at the Bethune Education Center; others are referred by family members or friends. The program administrators are committed to reaching individuals who would otherwise not be in school, and so they actively recruit people at the public health clinic, CYF and WIC offices, the public library, and other community facilities. All administrators and staff live in the Immokalee area and so the program becomes known through word of mouth. Presentations about the program are held at Head Start programs, the community's elementary schools, and various houses of worship.

Once a person makes an inquiry about the program on the phone or in person, a VISTA staff member provides information and conducts an informal screening process. Families interested in enrolling their children are provided with a tour of the center, a letter (in either English, Spanish, or Creole), and an invitation to attend the Wednesday parents' meeting. In addition, they have the opportunity to participate in ongoing education and skills acquisition classes at Bethune. Only after gaining a full picture of the program and the commitment needed to participate are families formally enrolled.

Nearly three quarters of the families enrolled in the 1998-99 academic year were Spanish-speaking; most had emigrated from Mexico. Other families emigrated from San Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Many of these families speak, in addition to Spanish, a Mayan dialect known as Konjobal; the center now has materials published in Konjobal that were made available by the Florida Department of Education. Home visiting staff use the families' home language, but also encourage the parents to use English.

The second-largest language group enrolled in the program is Haitian. These families speak Creole at home. During the past year, some 14 families who have emigrated from Haiti have participated in the program, and the records of participation show a more stable enrollment pattern for these families. Many of the Haitian families have been able to establish permanent roots in Immokalee, and the Creole-speaking staff are supporting these efforts strongly.

Immokalee's African American families are underrepresented at the Bethune Education Center. While many young families in this community have been served by Collier County School's Teenage Parenting Program, staff feel that many other families in this community could utilize Even Start services to their advantage. While the program is not lacking in participant numbers, a greater attempt to enroll a diverse population that better reflects the community's needs appears important.

All of the staff interviewed for this article had lived in Immokalee for an extensive period, but only one was born in Florida. Each had learned about Even Start through participating in the program or by participating in some other county educational outreach program. The Even Start staff are models of success for other families in need. They themselves have struggled to gain language proficiency, stable housing, educational opportunities, and economic stability. Thus, they can truly celebrate when one of the client families tells of passing the driver's license exam, achieving a new level of language skill, or obtaining a first aid certificate. They know firsthand the effort involved in these endeavors; consequently, they provide meaningful encouragement and reinforcement to the families. They also express concern when families "disappear"--suddenly moving away, perhaps, from the area and then reappearing some months later, or hiding out in their house after an incident of domestic abuse. Staff members' persistence paid off several times, fortunately, and connections were re-established.

Four Families' Stories

The enormous gains made by both the program's parents and children are best illustrated by real-life stories of some of Immokalee's Even Start families. All of the accounts below were provided by families to the author during visits to the program in early 2000, and each family reviewed their story before its submission to Childhood Education.

Francisca Rodriguez was born in northern Mexico and brought to the United States as an infant. Although she moved often during her early years, and has family in Michigan, California, and Mexico, she feels Immokalee is her home. "A saying we use here," she said, "is el que toma agua de Immokalee siempre regresa, or in English, it means that those that drink water from Immokalee always come back."

Francisca completed high school, as part of the Teen Parent program, in 1997, and then worked in the community grocery for the next year. When a position opened for a home visitor funded through VISTA, she applied. Now, she feels as if her clients are her own extended family. "Sometimes I come and they have a big meal, and I know they don't really have the money to do this, but it's important I share it. Or maybe when I get there [they do] lots of kissing and hugging, you know, that's the way they do it. Maybe it's not my personal boundary, but that's the way they do it." For her, the best part of the home visits is helping parents do more with their young children. The hardest is witnessing domestic or substance abuse, and trying to support the family to cope and change. Francisca describes visiting a Haitian family with a Haitian coworker, and trying to encourage the badly bruised mother to find help while they gave in-home care to the unfed, disheveled children. While such experiences are hard, Francisca finds that visiting families as a team helps. "One thing I love about my job is helping people do things, like one mother who just couldn't get her driver's license. She kept failing the test. So I showed her three times, we went over it all step by step, the driving test and the written test. Finally she made an appointment one day at 1:00. I helped her get ready, and she did it!" She helps mothers practice English, learn first aid, complete high school, go for job training, get needed health care for their children. Francisca says she loves to help and to teach "her families" how to do these things on their own. "When I'm out in the community and I see the families, and the kids run up to me and hug and kiss me, it's just terrific!"

Eduwiges Alvarez also was born in Mexico, and most of her family remains in Mexico City. She came to Immokalee as a young woman and worked in the fields for several years, then moved on to packing house work. She has three children, between 8 to 14, who attend Immokalee's schools. She came to the Bethune Center in 1997 in order to study English and obtain her G.E.D. That same year, she began caring for infants and driving the bus to pick up families. She learned about the program from other mothers in her neighborhood, where news about Even Start was spreading. "The communication we have with the moms, I think that's really important. I learn from them. If they tell me something, I can share with them, and I learn something every day." In 1998, Eduwiges and three VISTA workers completed Parents as Teachers Training. Now she is completing CDA training and feels she can show moms what she has learned when they come in after their classes are over. "Sometimes the mom doesn't really know how to care for the baby, maybe how to wash and clean the hair and ears, maybe just how to feed them. So we make a time with all the moms, showing how, and then she doesn't have to feel bad, then she learns how with all of them." She expresses strong satisfaction at being able to model skills to "her moms," and she is vigilant about seeing each one get on the bus to come to school with her children each day.

Anicca Pierre-Fils is a 23-year-old university student from Haiti working on a degree in business while also serving as a home visitor for Even Start. Since she is the only Creole-speaking person on the staff, her work with recently arrived Haitian families is especially important. She herself arrived in Miami from her home in Port au Prince in 1996, and she quickly moved to southwest Florida with her father and three sisters. Her mother had been in the area for some years and helped them settle. Since Anicca had studied English in Haiti and even begun university studies there, she found the transition relatively easy as compared to the families she now assists. In fact, she anticipates moving from the area after graduation, saying that the isolation of Immokalee makes it difficult for a single woman interested in the business world to pursue opportunities. But for now, she appreciates the stability and safety she has found here, which are a direct contrast to conditions in Haiti, where a relative was recently shot and killed while waiting for a bus, victim of armed men on a rampage. She feels her work is most meaningful when she can provide help and guidance to newly arriving families like Rosemene Gaspard's.

Rosemene came from Haiti to Immokalee to live with an aunt. She was 29 when she arrived with her husband. She had been born in a rural area of Haiti, and attended school through the 11th grade. While she had been introduced to the English language, she never attained fluency. The language barrier has been the hardest part of laying down roots in her new land. While in Haiti, she had worked in the Dutch embassy for five years. She was a supervisor, and she remembers her job with pride. Turning to manual labor in Immokalee's packing plants was a hard adjustment. Soon after starting work she enrolled in language classes at Bethune Education Center, hoping to gain enough skill to find other employment. When her first child, Wood, was born, however, she realized that working days and studying nights would not be possible. Luckily, the registrar at Bethune told her about Even Start. She brings Wood to his class at 8 a.m., attends her language class, and then they go home together after 1 p.m. She and her husband, who works long hours in construction in the rapidly growing Naples area, are expecting a second child. Rosemene has already applied for this second son to start in Even Start as soon as possible. She remains determined to gain English skills as her children learn English, Spanish, and Creole.

Program Accomplishments and Continuing Challenges

Clearly, the Collier County Even Start Program is meeting its primary objective of providing a family literacy model of early intervention to stimulate acquisition of English language skills for both parent and child. In addition, the program has established strong ties with many different community agencies, including Farmworkers Health Inc., Redlands Christian Migrant Association, Immokalee Nonprofit Housing, and the Immokalee Women's Shelter. These agencies provide families with critical services beyond those provided within the Even Start program (Hayes, 1977).

Staff also make families aware of community events that they might not have been aware of, and amenities they had not had the opportunity to take advantage of (e.g., the local zoo, playgrounds, cultural centers, etc.). The staff even provides transportation to these sites.

Building community linkages, helping families to achieve membership in their communities and affirming different cultural norms that may exist within a single racial or language group are key skills for teachers and counselors working effectively in multicultural milieus (Sue & Sue, 1999; Vace, DeVaney, & Wittmer, 1995). The Immokalee Even Start Program achieves all of these goals.

A national evaluation of the Even Start Family Literacy Program prepared for the U.S. Department of Education (1998) reveals that the Immokalee program continues to serve a high percentage of infants / toddlers/preschoolers while mothers were in class, to conduct a higher than average number of parenting education classes and joint parent-child activities, and to have as clients parents who complete a higher than average number of adult education hours in class per month than people in similar programs. This level of service is particularly significant, since parents' general level of education before enrolling in Even Start continues to be well below average.

What remains a concern, however, is that families often do not remain affiliated with the project, in part because of the seasonal nature of the families' occupations. Staff still faces the challenge of providing important services during the limited time that families are in the area and involved in the program.

Conclusion

Strengths of this Even Start Program include:

* The help provided to vulnerable families seeking to build roots in an isolated town

* A dedicated staff working intensively with families in their own homes and communities

* Collaboration among community agencies and schools to support the families

* Preservation of a community's proud heritage, albeit in historically separate racial and ethnic boundaries.

The Even Start program typifies what can be done when communities mobilize to take action. Only with such day-to-day efforts can vulnerable families weave themselves into schools, businesses, and the life of a town, becoming a firm and contributing part of society's fabric.

References and Resources

Economic Development Council of Collier County, Inc. Naples, FL. www.swfloridabusiness.com

Hayes, L. (1997). The unique counseling needs of Latino clients. Counseling Today, 40(2), 47-52.

Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (1999). Counseling the culturally different: Theory and practice. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Tebeau, C. (1957). Florida's last frontier: The history of Collier County. Miami, FL: University of Miami Press.

U.S. Department of Education. (1998). National evaluation of the Even Start Family Literacy Program, 1994-97 final report. Washington, DC: Author.

Vace, N., DeVaney, S., & Wittmer, J. (1995). Experiencing and counseling multicultural and diverse populations. Bristol, PA: Accelerated Development.

Author's Note:

The author dedicates this article to the memory of Even Start Director Peggy Diaz's 15-year-old son, Jacques-Yves Diaz, who passed away in June 2001.

Victoria Jean Dimidjian is
Professor of Early Childhood
and Counselor Education,
Florida Gulf Coast University,
Ft. Myers, Florida.