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Why was APA Family Support Services founded?
Founded in
1987
by Dr. Don Wong, APA consists of professionals and experienced
home
visitors who help families at-risk cope with the challenges of
raising young children. The obstacles created by
language barriers
and by cultural conflicts in conjunction with ignorance of
western
medicine, child care practices, and appropriate parenting skills
often prevent our families
from seeking and finding the resources
necessary to overcome their difficulties. There is a
pressing need
for agencies like APA to address the problems within the Asian
community.
APA is
a non-profit agency with locations
at San Francisco General Hospital
and in Chinatown. We are the only hospital based in-home
support
program in California specifically serving high risk Asian
newcomers
in transition by providing a cost-effective,
culturally acceptable
and comprehensive model of intervention.
Who does APA Family Support Services serve?
Asian Pacific Islanders are 35%
of San Francisco's population, many
of whom are recent immigrants. The "model minority"
reputation of
Asians often precludes the acknowledgment of problems within
the
Asian Pacific Islander community. Our mission is
to promote healthy
families and prevent child abuse and domestic violence
in the Asian
and Pacific Islander communities.
Many of
our new mothers are recent immigrants or refugees from China or
Southeast Asia who were traumatized before they came here with
post-war traumatic disorder. Others came as picture brides in
arranged marriages. Family violence, social isolation,
depression,
and financial hardship are commonplace. Due to their cultural
beliefs and language barriers, APA may be the only
link these Asian
mothers have to western society and its resources.
How does APA Family Support Services serve the community?
Through partnership
with San Francisco General Hospital, APA
provides follow-up medical
liaison services to Asian families
with newborn infants and children
under five years of age. We are present at the weekly Well Baby
Clinic to ensure continuity of care for our high
risk Asian babies.
We aim to provide a culturally sensitive approach of well baby
care
with emphasis on dispelling some of the superstitions, myths and
beliefs which interfere with proper infant
care methods and child
rearing practices. During APA clinic visits, the
SF General Hospital
medical providers also give timely
immunization shots and discuss
relevant health care issues to assist our families in securing
good
medical follow-ups. We also offer a weekly Infant Care
workshop in
Cantonese for postpartum mothers during their stay
at the hospital.
Our
bilingual/bicultural home visitors provide
weekly/monthly in-home
visits to help our newcomer parents understand the concepts of
child
development, as well as the physical and emotional needs
of their
children. Home visitors focus on teaching proper infant care,
nutrition,
safety measures, and parenting skills. Special emphasis
is placed on education with appropriate bilingual literature,
brochures, and video tapes regarding breast/bottle
feeding, bathing,
cord care, proper diet, emergency help, and birth control. These
services are provided for two years and are available in
Cambodian,
Cantonese, Laotian, Mandarin, Tagalog, Thai and Vietnamese.
We
provide emotional support to Asian families dealing with the
many
stresses they experience in a new culture with a new baby. Our
non-threatening, in-home counseling approach has
been instrumental
in detecting early aberrant behavior, dysfunctional parent-child
relationships, and explosive marital problems. We aim to prevent
child abuse and neglect through early identification and
intervention.
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