The Association of American Schools of Central America, Colombia, Caribbean &

Mexico (Tri-Association) has received a grant from the Overseas Schools Council

(OSAC),  which will permit the Association to invite school personnel (24) which deal with the Acculturation of International Students in our schools to a week of training in the summer of 2007 at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.  The planned dates are June 18-22.

The purpose of this project is to train 24 counselors/principals/student leadership personnel (max. 30) on the best-of-practice counseling methods that address the acculturation of international students in American schools overseas. The goals of the project are to:

1. equip school counselors with the relevant and current information for best practices in counseling international students who attend American schools overseas.
2. equip school counselors with the skills to empirically and systematically evaluate their schools’ counseling interventions designed to address the needs of international students.
3. equip school counselors with the skills to modify the existing school counseling programs, so that the needs of international students are properly addressed.
4. equip school counselors with the skills to train others either in their schools or across the American schools overseas system.
5. produce an effective international student counseling program that is replicable across the American schools overseas.

International students face numerous challenges that are unique to their status as “outsiders” and members of a minority groups within some American schools overseas. Most of the challenges faced by international students may be explained by the process of acculturation that these students are demanded to undergo. Counseling departments within American schools overseas have dealt with the unique characteristics of international students and the singularity of the acculturation experience in isolation, negating the development of consistent and cogent counseling programs to ease the international students’ acculturation. This project will result in the training of school counselors/principals/student leadership personnel and in the development of empirically supported acculturation counseling models for international students at several Tri-Association schools. Additionally, the project will result in a CD-ROM that will be distributed by OSAC to schools who want to develop a acculturation counseling program.