GAP Program Services for Karen Refugees in St. Paul, MN

Introduction and Program Background

GAP — Guadalupe Alternative Programs — has served St. Paul's Latino youth on the West Side for the last fifty years. Programs like GAP exist to promote the wellbeing of St. Paul, Minnesota's Latino student population by offering services such as counseling, educational programs, emergency resources, and job assistance (GAP, n.d.). While GAP still assists the Latino student population, the demographic landscape has shifted: the Latino population in the agency has decreased, opening GAP services to students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. This transition has created a pressing need to understand the needs of the current GAP student population.

The current population consists of English language learners, refugees (primarily Karen refugees), and low-income students. Social work interns at GAP recognized external factors that may affect these students, which prompted a desire to promote wellness across the current GAP student population. This research study is meant to provide an understanding of the potential hurdles the current GAP student population faces, by asking GAP students whether they are satisfied with GAP services and by assessing their level of awareness regarding available resources.

Statement of Problem

The community has historically viewed GAP as an agency serving Latino students (GAP, n.d.). Established in 1967, GAP's main mission was to offer various opportunities for Latino students in the areas of skills development, education, and personal growth. These students were typically young high school dropouts living on the West Side of St. Paul, Minnesota. However, the mission objectives have changed in the last decade. GAP has grown from assisting underserved Latino youth to assisting underserved students from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

In recent years, the dominant population being served by the agency has become Karen refugees. The need arose to understand the potential factors contributing to the difficulties experienced by the current GAP student population. Several of these issues include transportation, language barriers (most Karen clients speak the Karen language), and needs for legal assistance, educational opportunities, and job assistance. By recognizing the needs of GAP students, GAP staff also identified a lack of resources required to provide such assistance. Without adequate resources, GAP students cannot accomplish goals of academic success. To fully assist GAP students in meeting current academic demands and managing the stress of perceived barriers, further action must be taken to understand the student population and improve existing services given the constraints of limited resources.

Literature Review: Understanding Karen Refugees

The Guadalupe Alternative Program has changed significantly in the last decade. Prior to recent changes, it successfully met the needs of a majority-Latino student population in Minneapolis–St. Paul. While GAP has historically achieved success in helping that student population, the influx of Karen refugees into the agency has led to some ineffective practices and obstacles for both GAP staff and GAP students. This literature review is intended to illustrate the barriers faced by Karen refugees and to identify services that can be improved to meet the needs of the current student population.

The Karen People and Their Culture

To understand the current GAP student population, it is important to understand what life is like for Karen refugees. Karen refugee women, for example, maintain traditions that help them preserve elements of the culture they left behind when they migrated from their homeland. One article highlights the standing tradition of weaving among Karen refugee women. Weaving provides social support, economic survival, and empowerment for these women, and it offers a clue toward helping Karen refugee GAP students find purpose and connection to their culture (Stephenson, Smith, Gibson, & Watson, 2013). Weaving provides roots as well as a means of socialization that the Karen people deeply value.

A second article examines literacy practices among Karen refugee women and their children, offering insight into Karen family literacy both inside and outside the home. Karen refugees practice literacy through participant observation, memorization, reading texts aloud (recitation), and computer use (Quadros & Sarrob, 2016). Because research on the Karen people remains limited, these documented practices can shed light on ways to improve literacy among GAP's Karen refugee student population.

Language barriers represent another critical aspect of Karen refugee life. An Australian-based study examining English language participation, achievement, and education among the Karen people found that Karen refugee women perceived significant difficulties with English language communication and proficiency. They also demonstrated additional barriers to education stemming from socio-political, cultural, and gendered factors (Watkins, Razee, & Richters, 2012). To improve outreach to Karen refugee GAP students, GAP staff must become aware of their backgrounds, culture, and resettlement challenges.

Karen refugees have endured a multitude of hardships, including war trauma and torture, and these experiences have contributed to significant mental health distress within the population. One study found that the extent of torture among the population led to depression, PTSD, and distress among older Karen refugee women (Shannon, Vinson, Wieling, Cook, & Letts, 2015). Counseling services offered at GAP must take these obstacles into consideration.

These obstacles are frequent and render the population especially vulnerable. One article details the struggles of Karen refugees and traces their refugee status to a longstanding civil war with the Burmese government (Bartholomew, Gundel, & Kantamneni, 2015). Through phenomenological examination, the authors identified four themes, the most significant being redefined selfhood and loss resulting from oppression. These feelings and identity changes may factor into outreach and counseling efforts at GAP.