Nashville, TN – Thanks to a grant received from the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, the Tennessee Office for Refugees (TOR) is currently funding programs in Smyrna, Knoxville, Memphis, and Nashville to help public schools that serve large numbers of refugee students. 

TOR, a department of Catholic Charities of Tennessee, was designated in 2007 by U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement to administer all federal funding for refugee services statewide.

Schools face many challenges in meeting the needs of refugee students. To help schools overcome some of these challenges, the Refugee School Impact Grant funds programs that provide school orientation, teacher training and after-school programming to help ease the transition into public schools for newly-arrived refugee students and their parents.

The programs are coordinated and operated by agencies with experience in serving refugees in their local communities.    

"Another key component of the grant is that it provides knowledgeable and experienced staff to serve as liaisons between the resettlement agencies, parents and students, and school personnel," said GiGi Rose, technical assistance specialist and Refugee School Impact Grant coordinator at the Tennessee Office for Refugees.

The agencies currently receiving funds from the Refugee School Impact Grant program are the Nashville International Center for Empowerment in Nashville, Catholic Charities in Nashville, Bridge Refugee Services in Knoxville and Catholic Charities in Memphis.

“We have set standards to measure the efficacy and outcome of these services to ensure that goals are met,” said Rose who has worked at Catholic Charities since 2006 in a variety of roles to provide services to refugees.