Viet-AID

The 20th Annual Conference of the National Association for the Education and Advancement of Cambodians, Laotian and Vietnamese Americans.

"Honoring Our Past As We Enter Our Future"

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Viet-AID Family Child Care Program: A Social and Economic Development Program in the Vietnamese american Community of Dorchester, MA

Presenter: Huong Nguyen, Program Development Director, Viet-AID, Dorchester, MA

Huong Nguyen is the Program Development Director at Viet-AID (Vietnamese American Initiative for Development, Inc.). She received her undergraduate degree at Tulane University and her Masters Degree in Public Health (M.P.H.) at Boston University. Huong has worked in the non-profit sector for four years. She worked in the New Orleans Public School system for two years before moving to Boston.

The purpose of this workshop is to provide the audience with an overview of the social and economic development impact that a Family child Care Program can bring to a community. The design of this unique program has created jobs with career paths for Vietnamese women with multiple barriers, enabled parents to work or attend school, increased community awareness and access to child care services, established a support network that has reduced the isolation experienced by many residents, and provided affordable, quality, and bicultural child care services to the community. Viet-AID FCC Program, created based on a community needs assessment, has been in existence since 1996. It was founded as a social and economic initiative to address the lack of employment and affordable, bicultural child- care opportunities in the Vietnamese American community. The program’s mission is twofold:

  1. to increase social and economic opportunities for low-income Vietnamese women to become licensed family child care providers and business owners; and
  2. to support a growing need for affordable, quality, bicultural child care services in the Vietnamese community.

Viet-Aid FCC Program focuses on the following components which the workshop will also address:

1) Skills training and technical assistance

  1. Child care services
  2. Community-side education