February is Parent Recognition Month. Strengthening Families Washington, of the Department of Early Learning for Washington State, believes there is no better way to recognize a parent, grandparent, foster or adoptive parent than by acknowledging the numerous and impressive things they do to strengthen their family and those around them in their community.
Seattle's Child is proud to sponsor the Washington Unsung Hero Awards, recognizing our everyday heroes and honoring the important role caregivers play in children's lives. There are 28 nominees for the 28 days of February, and Seattle's Child will highlight each and every one.
Congratulations to the Unsung Hero for February 24: Winnie Tat – Seattle, WA:
The Board of Directors of Open Doors for Multicultural Families is honored to nominate Winnie Tat for the 2013 Unsung Hero Award. Winnie is one of the founding board members of Open Doors and recently she informed us that she had to resign from the Board because she needed to be involved with the transition planning and program for her son with Autism. Ever conscientious, she felt she could not be a good board member and give enough time to helping Open Doors. Because our board members value Winnie and want to recognize her for all she has done, we decided to nominate her for the Unsung Hero Award. We believe that she is truly an unsung hero as a parent for her now teenage son.
Winnie grew up in a traditional Chinese family in Vietnam and lived there until 1989 when she and her family were able to escape and come to the US. This was a very good thing for her as she was finally able to re-unite and marry her longtime boyfriend who had come to the US five years earlier. Winnie's family went to New York and settled there. As her husband's family had come to Seattle, Winnie and her new husband settled in Seattle.
They started their family in 1990 when her first son was born. Her second son was born five years later and two years later was diagnosed with Autism. As with all families with children with Autism this diagnosis was a major change for Winnie. During the first five years in Seattle Winnie and her family had lived as a traditional Chinese family and acquired only very basic English. She had very little understanding of the diagnosis and the information given to her in English by the medical community.
Winnie was working as an optician. She quit her job in order to take on the bigger job of understanding her son's disability and learning to navigate the healthcare system so that she could obtain help for her son. She did get connected to Kindering Center in Bellevue and was able to enroll him as soon as they had an opening for him. However, she lived in Seattle and did not yet drive. Summoning all her courage, she learned to drive in the Seattle to Bellevue traffic.
Shortly thereafter she also got connected to the Experimental Education Unit at University of Washington and that drive was at least shorter for her. Now English language became the challenge. She was not able to ask questions about her son and his program and communicate her concerns to the teachers and therapists. She could only observe closely what the professionals were doing but did not know the why of their actions. She wanted to learn from the teachers so she could continue doing at home what they were doing with her son. Language and cultural issues caused many misunderstandings between Winnie and his teachers at the EEU and then later in Seattle Public Schools. Having no peer models or parent support, this became a time of confusion and depression for Winnie. She did not understand the early intervention system and felt that she could be doing more to help her son if someone explained to her and kept her informed in either Vietnamese or Chinese.
Eventually Winnie did receive information first from the Vietnamese outreach worker at the Arc of King County and later from a Chinese parent who was the Chinese outreach worker there. According to Winnie these two people helped her on the road to gaining understanding and the needed services for her son.
Since that time she has been in touch with many Chinese and Vietnamese parents and has been helped and has in turn helped many, many families. She has also developed an amazing grasp of English, enabling her to advocate confidently for her son and members of her ethnic community. She has a very comprehensive knowledge of resources in the Seattle area and has done everything she can do to help her son on a daily basis. The cultural barriers and misunderstandings continue at school for Winnie and her son. Few people understand cultural differences and misinterpretations and the problem that these can cause better than Winnie. She has developed a very good understanding of supported employment. She has now been employed as a very successful job coach for more than five years at a major employment agency, once again making the drive from Seattle to Bellevue. She knows what people can do if given the opportunity to be employed and wants these opportunities for her son. She will continue to be a powerful advocate for him.
Our board will miss Winnie but we know she will always be there for her son and for all other families and their children. And we know that she will be explaining everything to them in Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Vietnamese or English. She is our hero and we hope you will recognize her for all she has been through and all the progress she has made for herself, her family and the larger community as well.
Nominator: Ginger Kwan & Susie Schaefer