National Refugee Children and Youth Resilience Program

Dear Colleague Letter 26-01

Current as of:

October 29, 2025

 

Dear Colleague:

ORR is pleased to announce that the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) has been selected as the grant recipient for the National Refugee Children and Youth Resilience Program (NRCYR). In this project, ORR seeks to strengthen support for children and youth from birth through age 24 who are eligible for the Refugee Resettlement Program. Through this funding, the program expands child welfare and protection capacity at refugee-serving agencies through training and technical assistance (TTA), partnership and outreach, crisis intervention and case consultation, and assessment and evaluation services. Refugee-serving agencies include ORR-funded grant recipients and sub-recipients as well as other organizations not funded by ORR but that work with refugee children, youth, and their families, such as schools and state and local child welfare agencies. USCRI will operate the NRCYR grant under the name Refugee Youth Resource Center (RYRC).

The goals of the program are to:

(1) strengthen the child welfare capacity and expertise of refugee-serving agencies through training and technical assistance;

(2) improve communication and coordination between local child welfare agencies, mainstream service providers, and refugee-serving agencies to ensure that they are educated on, and can help resolve, issues impacting refugee children, youth, and their families; and,

(3) ensure that refugee children and youth who are at risk, or who are in crisis, have access to case consultation and crisis intervention services that promote safety, stability, and well-being.

USCRI will conduct a needs assessment to identify topics and methods of training and technical assistance that refugee-serving agencies need to support the well-being of refugee children and youth.  RYRC will provide child and youth focused technical assistance, outreach, and case consultation that complements the work of Switchboard , the ORR-funded refugee technical assistance project that provides refugee-related training, technical assistance, and resources that are not specific to children and youth.

RYRC has developed a website and helpline that refugee-serving agencies can use to request training, technical assistance, and case consultation from the RYRC multidisciplinary team of subject matter experts.

For additional information about RYRC, please contact ORR’s Division of Refugee Children Services at  ORRrefugeechildren@acf.hhs.gov.   

 

Sincerely,

 

Angie Salazar
Acting Director, Office of Refugee Resettlement
Administration for Children and Families