The document summarizes the learning experience of a student who completed a group assignment on family support systems. The assignment involved researching the South Asian Women's Rights Organization (SAWRO) agency. The student gained knowledge on settlement and family support services, and found child care support and integration services particularly important. The student also learned about the challenges immigrant women face integrating into Canadian society and how agencies like SAWRO help address issues like language barriers, housing, employment, childcare and culture.

1. Reflection
The group assignment ‘Family Support Systems: Report and Presentation’ in the course
‘ECEP 232: Understanding and Communicating with Families’ was very challenging in respect
of attributes and relevance. Our group worked on the agency ‘South Asian Women’s Rights
Organization (SAWRO)’. I have gained valuable knowledge from this assignment, as I had to
overview of the different Settlement Assistance and Family Support Services offered by the
agency. Out of their programs, I found two elements of the agency services very important for
the families and impressive to me. These are Settlement & Integration Services, and Child Care
Support. These two programs had much impact on my learning processes. Canada is a country of
immigrants with diverse cultures and communities. Approximately 260,000 new immigrants
come to Canada each year, and about 30% of them choose Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to stay.
Immigrants face varieties of problems. Common problems are to find suitable housing,
meaningful employment, and schools for children. Canadian government has different social
agencies to support newcomers.
(http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/13991/legal_matters/immigrants_to_toronto.html)
While doing the assignment with this agency, I understood that it has been effectively
supporting women in their social integration in Canada. It works to improve the quality of life
for women, seniors, youth, children and families, maximize their fullest potential to become
contributing members of the Canadian society. This agency corrected identified that when
women come to Canada from South Asian countries, they face barriers to be integrated into the
Canadian system. Important problems are language, housing, employment, child care, and
culture. Sometimes newcomer women become frustrated that ultimately deteriorates their health
and wellbeing. This agency has been trying to support women solving these problems through
different services.
SAWRO helps in Child Care Support for the newcomer women. It assists low income
people applying for child care benefits and subsidies. It also provides with informal child care
support at cheaper rate like $3-5 per hour.

2. In this course, another group presented about services of ‘Boost’ that provides with
specialized services on child abuse prevention and intervention through education and
awareness. After the presentation, I found that ‘Boost’ is a very resourceful and helpful agency
for growing up of all children and youth in a safe, healthy, and nurturing environment. Boost
offers programs and services to any child, youth, and family who are living at Toronto. Programs
of this agency include:
Assessment and Treatment
Prevention and Public Education
Child Victim Witness Support
Relationship Skills for Violence Prevention
Court Preparation Programs
Coordination and Support for Services.
Among these programs, Bullying & Peer Abuse element of the Prevention program seemed to
me very vital event for social and family support. Bullying can impede the rights of children to
learn and play in a safe environment through negative effects on the playroom, classroom and
community environment. It retards growth of self-esteem among children, and can have lifelong
physical and social effects on children. The agency educates to aware people about basic issues
of bullying like-
Concepts of bullying
Types and patterns of bullying
Warning signs and concerning behaviours for bullying
Proactive steps to prevent bullying
Reactive strategies to respond to incidents
Development of policies and practices.
(http://www.boostforkids.org/AboutUs/MissionValues.aspx)
Another group presented on the agency ‘Scarborough Women's Centre (SWC)’. This
agency provides with information and connecting women with resources in the community or at
the centre. It distributes printed materials about women's services, and anonymous and
confidential information about housing, legal, emotional health, training etc. It publishes
information booklets, and displays at various health and information fairs in the community. It
supports Case Management & Counselling for women who want to make plans to change their

3. lives. It also offers informal support in the community for women in transition like women
leaving an abusive situation, re-entering the workforce, recent divorce or widowhood through
matching with a supportive mentor volunteer as one-on-one basis.
SWC provides workshops and support groups on topics of concern for women. It offers
targeted programs for newcomer women, young women, and women with disabilities. It also
arranges Adult Literacy/English Conversation Tutoring for women who want to improve their
conversational English or literacy skills.
http://www.scarboroughwomenscentre.ca/aboutus/?pg=7
As a global citizen, this learning outcome has provided me with abundant information
and understanding about communicating families, identifying newcomer women’s family
problems, and services available for them. These experiences and skills will help me later on to
communicate families more easily and comfortably. I also learned how to better understand the
world of immigrants, and types of abuses with children, youth, women, and newcomers. I will be
able to interpolate these skills into my profession as an ECE. This assignment also provided me
with in-depth knowledge about the immigration, settlement and adaptation services, information
about sick kids, and young parent resource centre. This assignment closely relates to my future
goals. If I would be an ECE in child care centre, I would need to communicate with different
people. I need to communicate with people who came from different continents (such as, Africa,
America, and Asia etc). I have to give them resourceful information for their meaningful and
effective integration into the Canadian society.
Bibliography
1. SAWRO. http://sawro.wordpress.com/
2. Boost. http://www.boostforkids.org/AboutUs/MissionValues.aspx
3. Scarborough Women's Centre. http://www.scarboroughwomenscentre.ca/aboutus/?pg=7

4. Understanding and Communicating with Families
(Individual GC&E Reflection Paper)
Nasim Khan
Student ID# 300621777
Course code & sec: 230/001
Instructor: Sheila Sullivan
November22, 2012