On Oct. 14, Redmond’s Family Resource Center, a nationally-recognized, “one-stop campus” for accessing community services, officially welcomed another partner, the Eastside Cultural Navigator Program (ECNP).
Located in Suite A-7 at the Family Resource Center, the ECNP is closely aligned with agencies such as the Seattle-based Chinese Information and Service Center. The Cultural Navigator program assists immigrants and refugees who speak little or no English and need guidance to obtain housing assistance, health care or other human services. This may include referrals to the proper agencies, providing reference materials, helping the clients complete application forms and helping them with follow-up instructions.
At an opening reception for the Redmond ECNP, Alaric Bien, executive director of the Chinese Information and Service Center, said this new office is greatly needed due to Redmond’s diverse population. The largest numbers of immigrants and refugees in this area speak Spanish, Russian, various languages of India and various dialects of Chinese. However, the ECNP will seek translators/interpreters for those who speak other languages, too.
Bien said the need goes beyond language difficulties. The ECNP and all other agencies in the Family Resource Center are introducing “American social systems … we have to tell them how it works here,” he explained, because of confusing cultural differences for newcomers from other nations.
Some walk in to the Cultural Navigator office because they’ve visited another agency in the Family Resource Center, but “in most immigrant communities, it’s all word-of-mouth,” said Bien.
“The program got off to a rough start, but as it has matured, it is learned that there are trustworthy people here,” he added. “A lot of families come here or to the other (Cultural Naviagtor Progam) Eastside office, at Crossroads — in the ‘mini-City Hall,’ in Bellevue. Everyone here at Family Resource Center pitches in to make this work, when they see Cultural Navigator strapped, when there are so many families in need right now.”
To learn more about the Family Resource Center, call (425) 869-6699, e-mail info@familyresourcecenter.org or visit www.familyresourcecenter.org.
