Who We Are
The Cultural Orientation Resource Exchange (CORE) connects and supports refugee resettlement staff globally to deliver effective Cultural Orientation to help refugees achieve self-sufficiency in the United States.
How CORE Can Help You
Learn
Access the tools you need to master the basics of Cultural Orientation and enhance your delivery:
- Enroll in CORE’s Online Courses
- Attend upcoming webinars
- Browse Cultural Orientation best practices
Learn
Teach
Transform your Cultural Orientation delivery and deepen your knowledge of client needs:
- Download curricula, ready-to-use lesson plans, and assessment tools
- Learn how to integrate CORE’s digital assets for refugees
- Deepen your knowledge of refugee populations
Teach
New Resources
Apply Cultural Humility in Cultural Orientation
Cultural Orientation plays a vital role in the integration of newcomers. If you deliver Cultural Orientation, educating yourself about your clients’ background and culture is essential in facilitating a relationship of understanding and trust. This can be done by practicing cultural humility, awareness, and competency. This page provides guidance on how to apply these concepts in Cultural Orientation and on navigating communication across cultures.
Apply Cultural Humility in Cultural Orientation
Navigating Identity and Inclusion in Refugee Resettlement
In this course, you will explore concepts of identity, intersectionality, and inclusivity, with a focus on their relevance to refugees’ lived experiences. Through stories and reflective exercises, you will be able to define these terms, as well as identify strategies and take action to deliver inclusive Cultural Orientation (CO) and apply these concepts to other early resettlement services.
Navigating Identity and Inclusion in Refugee Resettlement
Promising Practice: Delivering Effective Remote Cultural Orientation
Cultural Orientation is usually an in-person learning experience. However, there are occasions where in-person delivery is not possible due to distance, health, or other constricting circumstances. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated an unprecedented move to remote delivery for the safety of participants and service providers. Remote Cultural Orientation is administered either by telephone, virtually, or through a combination of these two methods. While CORE has existing resources on How to Deliver Remote Cultural Orientation, the following promising practice provides additional in-depth guidance and tips.
Promising Practice: Delivering Effective Remote Cultural Orientation
Resettling to the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic Lesson Plan
COVID-19 causes respiratory illness that can spread from person to person. It is now a pandemic that is currently impacting countries worldwide. As refugees come to the United States, this global pandemic may present additional challenges to their resettlement. CO providers can use this lesson plan to keep refugees informed with credible, accurate information about COVID-19 and, as appropriate, its impact on their resettlement. CO providers are responsible for ensuring all information provided on COVID-19 reflects the latest guidance.
Resettling to the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic Lesson Plan
Deliver Remote Cultural Orientation
Ideally, Cultural Orientation is meant to be delivered in-person and in a group setting. However, this may not always be possible. Various factors, such as a location of a refugee prior to their departure or safety and security considerations for both the Cultural Orientation provider and refugee may necessitate remote Cultural Orientation. In order to ensure refugees still receive critical Cultural Orientation messages in these instances, CORE recommends the following remote delivery approaches and tips.
Deliver Remote Cultural Orientation
Delivering Interactive One-on-One Cultural Orientation
One-on-one Cultural Orientation presents unique challenges for facilitators. It can be easy to slip into a more teacher-centered approach and overload the learner with too much information. However, one-on-one Cultural Orientation can still be interactive and lends itself well to more customized learning.
In this course, you’ll learn tips and strategies to create and deliver interactive one-on-one Cultural Orientation. After completing this course, you are encouraged to use what you learned to develop an action plan for one-on-one facilitation within your own organizations.
Delivering Interactive One-on-One Cultural Orientation
