Access to the Illinois Preschool for All Initiative: Insights from Five Lower-Incidence Immigrant Groups in Northern Cook County

Access to the Illinois Preschool for All Initiative: Insights from Five Lower-Incidence Immigrant Groups In Northern Cook County G I N A A D A M S M A R L A M C D A N I E L Copyright © 2012. The Urban Institute. Permission is granted for reproduction of this file, with attribution to the Urban Institute. The Urban Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research and educational organization that examines the social, economic, and governance problems facing the nation. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. 1 Urban Institute Acknowledgments his report was made possible by a grant from the McCormick Foundation. The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not represent the official views of the Foundation, nor does publication in any way constitute an endorsement by the Foundation. Gina Adams was the principal investigator for this study, with Marla McDaniel serving as project director. Other Urban Institute staff involved in data collection and analysis included Rosa Maria Castaneda, Anna Danziger, Amelia Hawkins, Katherine Mathews, and Molly Scott; Hännah Schellhase provided editorial support. We would also like to acknowledge Ajay Chaudry, Karina Fortuny, Jana Fleming, Danielle Ewen, and Hannah Matthews for helpful insights and suggestions throughout the project. In addition to our deepest gratitude to our funders, we also want to thank the broad range of stakeholders in Illinois who shared their insights and perspectives on these issues. Finally, we would like to extend our most sincere appreciation to the local community leaders who helped recruit the families for the study, as well as to the families themselves and the providers who served them. T 2 Urban Institute Executive Summary A key measure of the success of preschool initiatives is their ability to reach and serve children who are at special risk and face challenges in school. Given the risks they can face, children from immigrant families have been of particular interest in recent years. However, relatively little is known about the particular experiences of families from smaller, or “lower-incidence,” immigrant groups. In the Illinois and Chicago context, these groups would be those immigrants from countries other than Latin American countries, such as Mexico and countries in Central and South America. With support of the Joyce and McCormick Foundations, the Urban Institute has now conducted two studies to examine barriers faced by these families in accessing1 Preschool for All (PFA) in the Chicago metropolitan area. We talked with Pakistani and Nigerian families for the Joyce project, and Vietnamese, Polish, and Haitian families for the McCormick project, as well as with PFA providers that served them. These have resulted in two reports—the first presents the findings on the Joyce study2, and this report combines the findings of the Joyce project with the additional groups examined with the support of the McCormick Foundation. The McCormick grant also supported a second phase of the study, which involved focus groups with community-based organizations serving lower-incidence populations to discuss effective outreach strategies, which also resulted in a report summarizing these findings. (See Adams and McDaniel, Untapped Potential: Working with Community-Based Organizations to Support Participation of Children of Lower-Incidence Immigrant Communities in the Illinois Preschool for All Initiative, available at www.urban.org.) While not presented in depth here, some findings from this companion report are mentioned where relevant. Why focus on lower-incidence immigrant groups? While lower-incident immigrant groups may seem small in number when considered country by country, their numbers are far from trivial when they are considered as a group with shared experiences, needs, and concerns. In the Chicago metropolitan area, for example, lower-incidence immigrant groups are estimated to make up roughly half of all immigrants.3 These groups vary in the size and density of their population, in their 3 Urban Institute race and ethnicity, in how long they have been in the country, in whether they are U.S. citizens or legal residents4, and in their English proficiency. Despite these differences, our research found that the families faced common barriers and challenges. The issues underscore the importance of understanding the experiences of these groups, and of ensuring that PFA services are available to all