Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Community Travel Ambassador training

In our Sunshine Garden Senior Day Care program, our staff works hard to help Chinese seniors lead active, healthy, and mobile lives. In that spirit, Sunshine Garden staff member Andes Kong has completed a Community Travel Ambassador Training course, sponsored by Sound Transit, King County Metro, and Hopelink. Community Travel Ambassadors are trained to help seniors, low-income individuals, people with disabilities and those with Limited English Proficiency access appropriate forms of available transportation. Now the approximately 120 seniors who come to Sunshine Garden will have better assistance than ever when they need to see friends, go to the doctor, or just do a little shopping.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

National Victim Assistance Academy

CISC Crime Victims Service Project Director Alan Lai was in Albuquerque, NM last week to attend the March 2011 National Victim Assistance Academy (NVAA). Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, the NVAA provides victim service professionals with skills and knowledge to better serve victims. The trainings were conducted by experts in the criminal justice field and focused on areas such as cultural competence, ethics, resilience, victims' rights, and leadership.

Congratulations to Alan for being accepted into this competitive program. He is pictured here with Carroll Ellis, the new Director of the NVAA.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

CISC Commended in Identity Theft Case

Today we received a letter commending CISC Crime Victims Service Project Director Alan Lai for his exemplary work in helping to crack a multi-state credit card and bank account takeover scheme based in Georgia, which targeted Asian immigrants up and down the West Coast.

Not only did Alan develop trusting relationships with the victims, he helped Department of Justice attorneys bridge the language and cultural barriers, and traveled with the victims to Georgia when they said they needed his support in order to testify.

With CISC's assistance, these Vietnamese, Korean, Laotian and Chinese victims, many of whom are small business owners, saw justice done with eight guilty pleas and one very short trial.

The US Attorney says that without CISC and the services of Alan Lai, "I am certain that we could not have been as successful as we were with the victims and the case."

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Students Meeting Students - in Mandarin

The CISC Step Ahead Preschool program had some special visitors last week - a Chinese-speaking middle school class from Lakeside School. It wasn't the students' first visit to CISC; they've also visited the Play and Learn program as part of their regular service learning trips. The Lakeside class is a mix of students who speak Mandarin at home and students who are learning it as a foreign language, and they had the chance to practice their Mandarin skills, play a few games, and visit the library with the Step Ahead kids. Maybe by the time our Step Ahead students reach middle school, they'll be making their own preschool visits?

Thursday, March 03, 2011

El Centro de InformaciĆ³n y Servicio Chino

Cultural Navigator program highlighted in La Raza del Noroeste!


"CISC offers a free Cultural Navigator program that helps Latino families find resources in the community." This article talks about Paula Marin Hernandez and her two year long search for help navigating American systems.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

An Unexpected Gift

At CISC, our clients show their appreciation in many ways. One of our clients, Mr. He, went a little further (and farther) than most: he had a flag specially made in Shanghai! Mr. He is the caregiver for his wife, and the two of them have been coming to our Family Caregiver program for assistance with housing and health insurance. The words on the flag translate roughly as: "Through adversity, I have experienced true compassion. When I face difficulty, CISC is always in my heart."