Boise State is offering three new certificates, the first beginning fall 2011, focused on delivering and administering services to refugees living in southwest Idaho. These new offerings are part of a larger formal Boise State effort to collaborate with the community to improve refugee services and awareness.

Offered through the School of Social Work, the undergraduate- and graduate-level certificates will prepare students to work effectively with refugees. They are intended for community members in programs that serve refugees, as well as both undergraduate and graduate students in Boise State’s social work, nursing, criminal justice and education programs interested in working with refugees. The certificates will be available for continuing education credits in the first year of the program and full academic credit in fall 2012.

“These new programs are answering a need in the community to provide more academic support for people serving the growing refugee population in the region,” said Butch Rodenhiser, director of the School of Social Work. “We are offering something that is vital to the health of the community and is a commitment by Boise State and the School of Social Work to meet the needs of a very vulnerable segment of the area’s population.”

In 2010 alone, 821 refugees from 17 different nations were resettled in the Boise area, according to the Idaho Office for Refugees, one of Boise State’s partners in meeting the needs of the refugee population. Most came from war-torn areas in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Since 1998, the Idaho Office for Refugees has helped resettle more than 7,200 refugees in the area.

“Without these programs, we cannot meet the needs of this hard-to-serve population,” said Kathy Tidwell, director of Boise State’s Institute for Families and Communities. “We have seen that quality of service is not where it should be and we need much more awareness among people who work with this population.”

The program’s foundational certificate is open to both undergraduate and graduate students and will include a focus on the principles behind refugee resettlement, working with refugees across cultures and case management with refugees. The advanced certificate offers two tracks: the advanced macro practice certificate for undergraduate and graduate students and the advanced graduate clinical practice certificate. The advanced certificate focuses on introduction to refugee program supervision and management, advanced refugee macro practice, introduction to clinical services with refugees and advanced clinical services for refugees.

“This is an exciting new program that Boise State should be very proud of,” said Jan Reeves, director of the Idaho Office for Refugees. “It is the product of a great partnership and will become a valuable resource for the refugee resettlement system in Idaho. Few universities have a program like this.”

The program is, in part, the result of a formal agreement signed in 2009 by Boise State and Mountain States Group, a diverse non-profit organization working in health and human services, to collaborate on helping refugees rebuild successful lives in Southwestern Idaho and on educating Boise State students and the community toward these efforts. In addition to these new certificate programs, Boise State offers or participates in a wide range of refugee-centered classes and initiatives, many through the university’s Service-Learning program, including:

• Hosting an annual conference centered on refugee issues
• Internship programs with agencies that work with refugees
• Classes in which students provide English as a Second Language tutoring, case management, employment services and job skills training to refugees or use their knowledge of language and language acquisition to assist refugees and other English learners in the community
• A community-work study program in which the Service-Learning Program placed two students, each working about 15 hours per week, at the Agency for New Americans to assist with case management and to help coordinate more than 100 Boise State service-learning students
• Academic classes and workshops for Boise State students focusing on refugee resettlement and issues of refugee integration into American society
• Facilitating the admissions process for refugees interested in enrolling in academic programs at Boise State