In order to involve more parents in school activities and assist parents in staying in touch with school updates, myself, Isabella Yan, School Settlement Worker, created an online parent-community group for the newcomer parents at Ryerson Community School in October. On the Web WeChat platform parents of this school are linking up with the Settlement Worker and other parents to exchange opportunities and ideas in both Mandarin and English. It is a big boost to parent involvement (in particularly non-English speaking parents) and ensures timely, effective communication on school issues and parent concerns. The Settlement Worker’s role is to provide culturally sensitive support between school and newcomer families. On WeChat, we are able to obtains feedback on school issues from parents, such as, what kind of books the students are interested in, and pass them to the Principal. In addition, WeChat allows us to assistance with informal translation for those non-English speakers. For the newcomer parents, WeChat facilitates school information updates and also helps the school provide effective guidance to parents in supporting their children’s homework. A big achievement for this online community group was that through this involvement, we were able to help the school recruit the suitable parents to volunteer for the school nutrition program. This assistance has helped the school lunch program tremendously in preparing better, tastier lunches for the students. Parents were glad to receive recognition for their volunteer work from the school and also very pleased that they can make contributions to the school.

Isabella Yan, School Settlement Worker