Networks for Integrating New Americans

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) and coordinated by World Education Inc, the Networks for Integrating New Americans (NINA) initiative supported diverse immigrant-serving organizations in five US communities to explore how greater collaboration through multi-sector networks might advance immigrants’ linguistic, civic and economic integration. Network Impact implemented the network development component of NINA, including network capacity building for the five place-based networks and documentation of lessons from their collaboration experiences.

Key insights that emerged over 22 months of implementation included:

• Immigrants must play a leading role in shaping, implementing and leading coordinated immigrant integration efforts

• Ongoing cultivation of relationships is key to building trust, buy-in and shared sense of purpose

• Anchor projects are critical to move from connectivity and alignment among members to active collaboration

• Networks need to function as a learning community. Without tools for self-assessment, coaching and technical assistance on promising network practices, network’s effectiveness may be compromised

The initial Theoretical Framework that guided the Networks for Integrating New Americans initiative can be found here

Project engagement : 2012-2013