What We Do

Services

  • Helping immigrants navigate available services to address their immediate and longer term needs in transitioning to life in the US is a central focus. IFSI assesses each individual situation and forms a plan that includes receipt of direct services from IFSI as well as referrals to relevant agencies.

  • IFSI staff provide mental health counseling on-site and through home visits and referrals. These services are offered directly by qualified IFSI staff and our specialized partner organizations.

Programs

  • After-School & Weekend: Using the IFSI village model, each child is surrounded by a coordinated network of teachers, parents, community leaders, older youth, and fellow students to help students with academic skill building and a variety of enrichment activities.

    Summer: To maintain academic success, IFSI offers a rich summer program filled with skill building as well as a wide assortment of enrichment activities and engaging weekly field trips.

    Music and Performing Arts: IFSI understands that, together, art music and dance stimulate the brain and body, encouraging overall health in many ways. Movement combinations increase memory, order, sequencing and cognitive function. Creative dance also increases self-efficacy and learning, which is especially important for our immigrant youth, many of whom experience learning gaps. Music also fosters social cohesion, helping our immigrant youth to better integrate within their new communities.

  • Youth Leadership: IFSI trains and facilitates peer learning among high school youth with focus on media production, tutoring and advocacy skills. Partnering with the Boston Public Schools, IFSI identifies potential youth leaders offering training at BPS sites. Programming is also conducted across greater Boston through our regional coalition partners.

  • Adult Education: When new immigrants enter the IFSI village, they can acquire the skills they need most immediately—English language and computer basics. With this knowledge, students are introduced to vocational training to enhance job and career prospects.

    Workforce Development: IFSI provides a number of career related services including basic job preparedness and training, professional recertification and referrals to job fairs.

  • These courses are ideal for professionals who want to receive a certification to work as a nursing assistant or to simply take training classes to work as a care aid. We are currently accepting applications for the next phase of training and certification courses, which will begin shortly. The exact starting date will be announced soon.

Advocacy

  • IFSI works with each individual to assess needs and then advocates on behalf of each constituent to meet those specific needs

  • IFSI works continuously to educate the general public though news channels, rallies, publications like our Immigrant Stories and more

  • In collaboration with institutional partners IFSI advances systems supportive to immigrants and in which immigrants themselves are involved in decision making, policies formation and implementation.

  • Most recently, IFSI has been working hard to educate the public about the poor treatment and conditions experienced by refugees at our borders and detention centers.

Register for services and programs

Immigration Services

One Stop Approach

  • Legal Aid

    Understanding US laws and gaining access to legal assistance is essential for immigrants regardless of their immigration status. The specific applicable laws and beneficial programs for which one may qualify often depends on country of origin, specific legal status and family situation. The U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services https://www.uscis.gov/ provides the most current information on US government laws, policies, opportunities and resources pertaining to immigration. IFSI keeps abreast of these laws, how to access programs, and provides direct support as with Temporary Protective Status (TPS) applications for which Haitians often qualify. When beyond our expertise, IFSI provides referrals to our legal partners.

    IFSI’s Legal Aid Services include TPS, CHNV Parole, Asylum and Work Permit Applications.

  • Housing

    Housing is a basic need and one of the first things a new immigrant must arrange upon arrival. Methods for renting or purchasing a home or apartment differ markedly from country to country, and the United States housing market may consequently appear complicated and intimidating. Most immigrants obtain short-term emergency shelter before looking to rent if they do not have family members or friends to live with.

    IFSI educates immigrants on this process and often is able to identify temporary housing, provide furnishings and some funds for rent and, over the course of the pandemic, emergency food security.

  • Healthcare and Health Insurance

    The complex nature of the United States healthcare system presents many barriers to access for immigrants. With a patchwork of coverage options, understanding where and how to sign up for health insurance and which plan to choose is confusing.

    Though immigrants in many communities around the country can access health care at community health centers, regardless of immigration status, such care is often limited to preventative and primary care. This leaves many types of specialty care inaccessible to undocumented immigrants, causing many to go without or delay access.

    IFSI helps immigrants navigate these challenges to secure coverage. Over the course of pandemic we hosted and sponsored vaccination clinics, COVID-19 testing, and information sessions.

Educational Programs

Educational Philosophy

IFSI’s educational programming for both children and adults is at the heart of our mission. We take pride in creating a nurturing, safe environment which sparks curiosity, in-depth learning and personal growth. In the process participants gain confidence, a better sense of direction and personal agency. Our skilled instructors are bi-lingual in Haitian Creole, English, French, and/or Spanish and offer clear, culturally adaptive instruction.

Children’s Programs

  • Children's Afterschool & Weekend

    IFSI provides small group and individual homework help after school and on weekends. English language instruction, health, recreational and community service activities are offered as well an enrichment courses including musical instrument instruction, dance, chess club, coding and robotics. IFSI also provides test preparation for exam and independent school entrance.

  • Children's Summer

    Summertime at IFSI is an exciting time for Pre-K to 6th graders. IFSI is teeming with academic skill building to reduce summer learning loss and enrichment activities including music lessons, art, dance, theatre, physical fitness, field trips and STEAM projects giving students the opportunity to explore new interests.

  • Children's Music

    IFSI offers musical instrument instruction for the absolute beginner all the way up to virtuoso training! In addition to individual instruction, IFSI places emphasis on ensembles to encourage teamwork, practice and performance.

    Individual lessons offered once week and ensembles group practice on Saturdays. Recitals are held 2-3 times per year.

Register Here

Youth Leadership Program

IFSI works with high school age youth to promote a sense of responsibility and community service. Through leadership training and instructional workshops they become motivated to give back and support younger children in their social, academic and enrichment pursuits.

We partner with local youth organizations like The Boston Center for Youth and Families (BCYF) to staff our summer children’s programs. In the process our youth gain valuable work experience while serving as role models for the younger children.

Adult Programs

  • Adult Education

    IFSI’s Adult Education programs address factors that hinder our adult learner's stability and social integration from language barriers and mental health challenges to unpredictable work schedules and technology issues. We also provide vocational training across diverse sectors such as the culinary arts, nursing assistant, personal entrepreneurship and business.

  • Workforce Development

    Job readiness often requires training and work related counseling to best adapt one's interests and skills to fields of study and local job markets. IFSI provides training, direct support, referrals and application assistance for entry to vocational training programs & colleges and universities including financial aid assistance. In addition IFSI hosts job fairs and helps with certification for new immigrants with professional training.

Register Here

Advocacy

Advocacy is one of IFSI’s three pillars grounding our mission and strategic implementation. Our approaches to advocacy span 3 major areas: Case Advocacy, Citizen Advocacy and Systems Advocacy.

Case Advocacy

IFSI accompanies each immigrant and family from the moment they call or walk in the door. In this sense case advocacy begins with empathy, seeing one’s humanity and ensuring that they feel seen and respected by our staff. From there we ask questions, provide timely information and guide them along a path towards self-sufficiency and social integration. We provide access to services for satisfying basic needs while empowering them through education, legal aid and a sense of community by joining the ‘IFSI Family’.

Citizen Advocacy

IFSI educates a broader public on factors driving migration, what it means to live in a ‘country of immigrants’, and the rationale behind welcoming and integrating immigrants versus villainizing them. The resulting understanding and insights inspire US citizens to take direct action in support of recent arrivals - the vulnerable and less affluent as well as those with stronger professional backgrounds. This form of advocacy is achieved through Dr. Gabeau’s frequent interviews with local and national media, collaboration with partners on specific advocacy campaigns, and IFSI’s own media platforms.

Systems Advocacy

These efforts center around advocacy with institutional partners that advance systems change as with the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) and the Massachusetts Immigrant Collaborative. IFSI is a founding member of the MIC Collaborative which is comprised of 15 immigrant led organizations all of which now have a ‘seat at the table’ informing local, state and national policy makers. Their voices, backed up by research, help policy makers better understand the immigration landscape, immigrants’ contributions to local economies and vital importance of immigrant supportive responses to ever evolving conditions. The nature of these timely, scaled responses range from changes to public policies and laws which protect immigrants, to increased allocations of public funds and private foundation giving for emergency services and longer term programming.

Advocacy Spotlight

Since the 2022 events at Del Rio, Texas, the movement of immigrants across many US states has been met with an  upsurge in  nonprofit organizations acting as receiving entities– helping to house and eventually integrate them within their new communities. This also led many of these nonprofit organizations, including IFSI, to organize rallies highlighting hostile events and instilling a broader understanding for how these vulnerable people are deserving and an asset to our nation.

One of the largest local rallies took place in front of the JFK administrative building in Boston bringing the demand for action right to the steps of our legislators. During the rally representatives from numerous Haitian organizations called for the Biden Administration to end Title 42. They also demanded that Border Patrol Agents stand in solidarity with the migrants and that those applying excessive force such as whips on migrants be dismissed immediately.