The Roanoke Times has an article about the subject of refugee parents trying to deal with the system when their children are suffering from a disorder – in this case Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD is a problem with inattentiveness, over-activity, impulsivity, or a combination, affects about 3 – 5% of school aged children, and specialists diagnose it much more often in boys than in girls. Depression, lack of sleep, learning disabilities, tic disorders, and behavior problems may be confused with, or appear with, ADHD. Most children with ADHD also have at least one other developmental or behavioral problem, and may also have another psychiatric problem, such as depression or bipolar disorder.

In the case illuminated in Roanoke the system (county social services, county attorneys) compounds the problem via their inability or unwillingness to competently manage the cultural and language barriers that new Americans have, and the power that refugee children with behavioral health issues can have. (This is yet another reason that adults should not use minors as interpreters – not only can a minor manipulate the communication but, more importantly, acting as a go-between with adults often places undue stress on a minor). In this case no amount of warning and explanation to county social workers did the slightest good — officials simply blamed the messenger — a community volunteer — because her style/approach didn’t satisfy them.

Melva Belcher is a formidable school administrator, determined and unafraid to forge her own path. When low-performing schools get into trouble, she’s often the go-to taskmaster to whom Roanoke City Public Schools turn to shake things up.

As principal of Westside Elementary School, it’s what she did in 2006 when she first encountered the likes of 10-year-old Ibrahim Kromah, a troubled refugee from war-torn Liberia who came to the United States angry and determined to wreak havoc wherever he went, fighting at school, showing disrespect to his mother at home — and even stealing the money she’d put aside for rent.

Belcher put him on a rigid discipline plan, and she visited regularly with his mom, 44-year-old Makagbe Toure, with whom she became friends.

But Belcher has been stymied by what happened to the family once Ibrahim left her school. She’s found herself face to face with a system that even she can’t stare down.

Now 64 and a semiretired administrator on assignment, Belcher watched powerlessly as Ibrahim bounced from his home in the Indian Village public housing project to four different foster-care homes in the region before finally landing, in January, at Keystone Newport News Behavioral Health Center, a residential mental-health treatment center for teens…

…This is a story about the morass that immigrant families find themselves in when key facts aren’t just lost in translation; they’re also buried in bureaucracy…

…Most service providers are well-meaning, added Liberian-born Danielle Taana Smith, a Rochester Institute of Technology sociologist who studies refugee assimilation. “But they lack cultural understanding.”

What Taana Smith used to hear murmured occasionally, she now perceives as a steady drumbeat: “People are saying they were better off in the refugee camps because they may not have had much, but they had hope.

“Now, they’re realizing it’s easier to escape from a refugee camp than it is from an urban ghetto,” she said…

…the situation exploded in August 2009 when Toure thought she was signing paperwork to have Ibrahim placed at Sanctuary, the crisis intervention facility for youth.

Because interpreter services weren’t provided at that time, it wasn’t until later that she learned she had actually signed away her custodial rights, Toure said. She also didn’t realize that she’d been charged with abuse and neglect at the same time — until she was terminated from her school housekeeping job following a background check, she said.

“They said I hit him,” Toure said. “I didn’t hit him, but we always argue, and he always threatens to call his caseworker.”

The situation so angered Belcher, who had become like a mother to Toure — opening her mail and taking her to doctor appointments — that she hired lawyer Onzlee Ware to represent Toure. (The case is currently being reviewed by a regional social services administrator.)

Thus began the shuffling of the boy amid four different sets of foster parents, all of whom complained about the same disruptive behaviors that his mother had, according to documents provided by Belcher and Toure.

While cases involving legal action always require interpreters, Department of Social Services Director Jane Conlin said it’s not always clear during home visits when an interpreter is needed. As for immigrant parents communicating with social workers, she added: “I think it’s more difficult when parents may not speak English and where there may be some fear in general of the government… Read more here

But what about the basic responsibility that refugee resettlement
contractors and county social workers have to provide interpretation/translation? That probably would have made all the difference in the world in this case. (If it’s not “clear” to officials that an interpreter may be dispensed with, then isn’t it clear that they need an interpreter?) At the end of the day these public servants don’t care because its simply a nuisance to them, and they don’t suffer all the damages that result from this lack of accountability – only the immigrant parents and children do.

Note: 1) Social services working with the courts took away the six children of a Burundian refugee woman in Idaho, also apparently due to lack of interpretation, and bureacratic mistakes and misunderstandings.; 2) Combining poor social work and poor prosecution work with love of power has also driven people from their home countries – causing them to become refugees.