Welcoming Families From Around the World

 

The name of the child family’s country of origin is Bolivia. In preparing for the child’s arrival, and her family that will be arriving from Bolivia I had to first find out what the child’s family background culture was and their language, understanding that in Bolivia the Spanish language is dominate but there are other spoken languages as well. Therefore working in the social service agency it gave me the benefits of searching out information about other cultures and their backgrounds. However in preparing myself to be culturally responsive towards the family I first found out that the family’s main cultural language was Spanish speaking. I found that the family is a close knit family, and that more than just the mother, and father may live in the household and this is considered to be normal. Also that the mother stays at home and takes care of all the home and family matters, while the father is the one that works in the family. The mother also use her maiden or along with the husbands last name which sometimes both last names are passed on to the child or the child will have the fathers last name while the mother still use her maiden name. I also learned that the family when meeting people prefer a handshake and direct eye contact. The culture also use a specific greeting for the time of day when meeting people. Moreover in understanding that there are many classes and groups within this country I would find out about the family’s cultures beliefs, and values in order not to offend them.

 

In preparing for the child, and her family I hope these few facts about the family will help me and the family form a beginning relationship that will help the child settle in comfortably and allow the family to build some type of trust with our agency, and the early childhood program.