Final Blog (International Contact Benefits)

Although, I did not get a chance to get connected internationally, I enjoyed visiting the international websites as well as stay abreast of current international issues via World Forum Radio. The benefits of such are as follows:

(1) It creates a world outside of your own. I often times find myself becoming complacent in the issues that I witness daily, being a teacher and a parent. When I became connected with World Forum Radio and gained a chance to explore various international websites I began to limit my complaining and become educated on the issues that affect our world, as a whole.

(2) Conducting these assignments has helped me to successfully add World Forum radio along with other resources to my professional repertoire. As, I go on my educational journey I am able to adjoin resources to my professional portfolio, knowing that someday I will utilize them.

(3) I gained a chance to dialogue with my colleagues and read about their international experiences. I have always celebrated the opportunity that Walden presents to students, which is the ability to collaborate with others. Its during through discussions, blogs and formal/informal chats that I get a chance to expand my knowledge the most.


Although, I never made contact, internationally my goal is to one day achieve creating a relationship, professionally, with an EC expert that has just as much passion for students and families as I.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 3

UNESCO’s Early Childhood Care and EducationWebsite:

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/

***3 new insights:


I am glad that I gained a chance to view this website, I have never heard of this organization/effort and I have added this website to one of many many EC professional resources:

* I became interested when I read UNESCO's mission. UNESCO's mission is similar to that of Head Start and Early Head Start. Nevertheless, internationally this program faces broader and deeper issues than that of American based programs. A portion of their mission statement is as follows:

"The foundations of human development are laid during the child's early years and thus early childhood requires an integrated approach to the child's care, development and learning.

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) is more than a preparatory stage assisting the child’s transition to formal schooling. Today, early childhood policies are placed within a broader context of social development, gender equity and poverty reduction.

UNESCO leads the international policy drive for an integrated early childhood care and education system that encompasses both the well-being and holistic development of the child. Our mission is to support early childhood policy development with the aim to build a solid foundation for a child’s lifelong learning.

UNESCO actively works with Member States in their efforts to develop and strengthen their national capacity to meet the first goal of the 2000 Dakar Framework for Action, which aims to expand and improve comprehensive early childhood care and education for all" (UNESCO, 2012).

*While exploring the site, I clicked on the 'Who's Who' tab and was able to see the different people who are connected with UNESCOs initiative throughout the world. Thus, since I was not able to make contact with any international professionals thus far, I emailed a few of those professionals included on the 'Who's Who' page and I hope to hear from them soon. I truly used this resource/website to make an international resourceful connection. We'll see how it goes...

*Since one of our issue/trends in this course is 'quality' I decided to click on the 'quality' tab located under the Early Childhood space. When navigating this icon, I discovered that UNESCOs stance of quality in care coincides with that of what we have been learning and researching in class. UNESCO states, "High quality childcare, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, promotes motivation, confidence, good cognitive and linguistic development and school readiness" (UNESCO, 2012).

Sharing Web Resources-week 6

National Black Child Development Institute

http://nbcdi.org/

*Follow some of the outside links that you have not yet explored. Where do they lead? On the NBCDI website, I clicked on the T.E.A.M tab and it led me to "T.E.A.C.H Early Childhood D.C. I learned that TEACH/TEAM was a scholarship opportunity for individuals who wanted to educate our disadvantaged children in hopes to stabilize the teaching field/workforce and hopefully put an end to the high turnover phenomena!

In 1990, Child Care Services Association created the Teacher Education and Compensation Helps (T.E.A.C.H.) Early Childhood® Project to address the issues of under-education, poor compensation and high turnover within the early childhood workforce.  The T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Project gives scholarships to child care workers to complete course work in early childhood education and to increase their compensation.
T.E.A.C.H. is built on four components:
Education: T.E.A.C.H. helps participants to earn a required number of college credit hours in early childhood education each year.
Scholarship: T.E.A.C.H. offers counseling and financial support to pay for college courses and fees, books, travel, and time away from work.
Compensation: T.E.A.C.H. recipients earn a compensation bonus or raise after successful completion of a year of education.
Commitment: T.E.A.C.H. recipients agree to continue their service as a child care professional in their current early care and education setting.
(National Child Development Institute, 2012). 



*Thoroughly search one area of the site. What do you find?
I decided to explore the 'AFFILIATES' tab, and I found the many cities that affiliate with the NBCDI. The closest affiliate that is located in my area is the affiliate in Houston, Texas. Although, I could pass this information onto EC professionals who live in these respective cities.




*If you receive an e-newsletter, follow a link related to one of the issues you have been studying. What new information is available? I have not received a newsletter but you can access ALL of their newsletters on their website. The newsletters have innovative strategies, thoughts, research and information that's important for parents, children, teachers, EC professionals and the general public.




*Does the website or the e-newsletter contain any information that adds to your understanding of equity and excellence in early care and education? Yes, the NBCDI networks with most of your foremost early childhood programs (i.e. Head Start, Zero to Three,... I discovered a link/section entitled PreK-3rd. PreK-3rd is dedicated to creating equity in ensuring that all children are prepared in every area of development for formal education.




*What other new insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field did you gain this week from exploring the website and/or the e-newsletter? I strolled upon a section located under the initiatives tab entitled, 'Entering the College Zone (ECZ)' this is a great program. It provides children in the middle/high school level an opportunity to gain information on colleges and assists them in preparing for college, in terms of filling out financial aid, applications, SATs,...

Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 2

I subscribed to World Forum radio weeks ago and I recently listened to a podcast featuring Barbara Jones. Barbara Jones, better known as "BJ", successfully launched and operated Pine Grove Montessori School 20 years ago. She recalls heading out to Southern California to find an ideal early childhood experience she had read in books all the while, looking for a job. She found a job opening for a Montessori school teacher. She received a surreal response and by the Montessori director who stated that she had a' psychic feeling' that Barbara would apply for the job. She found this intriguing and worked in the program for years and decided Montessori was the way to go. She continued to study the Montessori philosophy and later in life found a vacant school house where she could make her dream of opening a Montessori school come true. When the property for her school came available she made arrangements to open a private Montessori, historical school house. She speaks in awe of the property and the place in which the school is still located and shares her excitement about her continuing experience in working with children in the early childhood field.




Global Children’s Initiative” website (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/)

3 insights:

The Center's Global Children's Initiative has started a portfolio containing activities in the following areas: Early Childhood Development, mental health and children in crisis and conflict situations.

Information on each domain is as follows:

Early Childhood Development
 

Child Mental Health

Mental health concerns constitute a massively under-addressed issue that has significant implications for the broader health and development of children and societies. There is an urgent need to identify the scope of the problem within and across countries and to develop evidence-based approaches in policy and service delivery that are responsive to diverse cultural contexts. To respond to this challenge, a working group of Harvard faculty is developing a focused agenda in research, education, and public engagement to address significant gaps in knowledge and service delivery. The following three initial projects have been selected to launch this effort, subject to sufficient funding:

• Assessing the state of child mental health services in Shanghai, China;
• Developing and evaluating family-based strategies to prevent mental health problems in children affected by HIV/AIDS in Rwanda; and
• Addressing child maltreatment and mental health outcomes in three Caribbean nations (Barbados, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname). 

To strengthen their policy relevance, each of these projects is being designed to include an economic component to analyze allocation effects in the supply and demand for services.

Children and Crisis 

The Global Children’s Initiative is currently exploring potential synergies with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, both of which have extensive experience working in emergency situations across the world. The goal of this effort is to foster interdisciplinary collaboration that incorporates a science-based, developmental perspective into the assessment and management of child well-being in a range of natural and man-made crises, focusing on both immediate circumstances and long-term adaptation. Two issues are the initial focus of activity in this domain:

• Exploring comparable approaches to surveying child status in post-earthquake Haiti and Chile.
• Bringing the science of child development into strategies for addressing acute malnutrition.

Global Children's Initiative. (3, February, 2012). Global Children's Initiative-Activities, Frontiers of Innovation, Knowledge generation. Retrieved from
http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/




The first priority in this area is to adapt the successful work the Center has conducted in the United States for a broader range of strategically selected audiences, in an effort to energize and reframe the global dialogue around investments in the earliest years of life. To this end, we plan to educate the leadership of key international agencies, publish and disseminate papers to establish a strong scientific framework for global work, and conduct systematic communications research to identify the most effective ways to translate the science of child development for global policymakers.
The second priority is to generate and apply new knowledge that addresses the health and developmental needs of young children in a variety of settings. Initial projects that are in various stages of planning, fundraising, and implementation include the following:

• Assessing quality in early childhood environments and programs in diverse global contexts;
• Piloting assessments to measure child development outcomes linked to malaria control strategies in Zambia; and
• Expanding effective interventions to improve preschool quality in Chile.

The Center also plans to convene research forums to facilitate collaboration among a wide network of scholars globally to share findings and co-develop publications.

Sharing Web Resources (continued)

National Black Childhood Development website

*Particularly relevant information:
While exploring the National Black Childhood Development website, I found the 'news' tab to be the most insightful. Under the 'news' tab there was an article featured by the name of, "Let's Move: Child Care State Challenge", one way to promote healthy childhood development is to ensure that exercise and healthy eating is a part of the lives of families and children. Currently, at my school we are promoting an initiative by the name of "Junk the Junk food" this article helped me to provide children and families with facts that coincide with the program.


*Controversial Issue:
While I did not find any specific controversial issues, I did find it peculiar that it was hard to find information on how to become involved, locally. One of the suggestions I may later post to the site is to include a variety of local community/neighborhood activities that our society can become involved in.


*Economists, Politicians, Neuroscientists information:
While exploring the site I began to recognize how much financial support is available for early childhood programs and initiatives. I mentioned above the NBCD's effort to bring awareness to Healthy habits. Well, the NBCD gained financial support from Sam's Club/Walmart in the amount of $300,00 to support this initiative. I can definitely learn much of these tips on gaining support and resources to support a great cause.


*New insights and trends:
As we all know, February is Black History Month, although, I know the names of many African Americans that lent a hand in building this country, I began to read upon the people and bios that I have yet to hear of. For example, I learned of, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams who founded Providence Hospital in Chicago in the year of 1889.

National Black Child Development Institute. (2012, January 14). Mission, publications, history, initiatives, news, affiliates. Retrieved from http://nbcdi.org/

Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 1

Podcast: I had the pleasure of listening to an interview with Susan Lyons an educator who wasinspired about the different facets in which children learn. She studied abroad, specifically in Italy and learned about how language affects children throughout the world. She brought back this in depth information and enlightened educators in the United States, focusing in her hometown of California. She implemented school programs for teachers and children, and focused on improving the quality of education in public schools. She started the project 10 years ago and is excited to say that her ventures paid off. Children are learning as never before and teachers are teaching with new innovative information and language tools that has never been utilized before. Susan Lyons takes pride in her work as an EC professional and continues to delight in impacting children and families around the globe.



Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre’s Insights: I decided to look at how poverty affects the society of the country of China. It was enlightening to find that the poverty has decreased in recent years. The site attributes this decline to "far-reaching processes of economic and social transition  " (Child Poverty Research and Policy Insights, 2012). Information also states that the country of China receives the most money from economic dealings and trade, except for the US. For the country, this could be good and bad, meaning the country's inhabitants are limited by the hold the country has put upon investment and employment. As far as childhood poverty is concerned, "4.2 million Chinese children live in absolute poverty and 8.7 million live in disadvantaged conditions" (Child Poverty Research and Policy Insights, 2012). Life expectancy for infants at birth is 71 years of age.

While navigating the Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre's Insight, I found an interesting quote, "Deepening understanding of the main causes of childhood poverty and poverty cycles, and increasing knowledge of effective strategies to tackle them in different contexts" (Child Poverty Research and Policy Insights, 2012). This quote rings true, my understanding has deepened to the point of advocacy. Not only do I feel as if I must take a stance as an EC professional, but I must stand because I am a human that values life.

Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre. (2012, January 19). CHIP activities, International, country overviews. Retrieved from: http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/

SHARING WEB RESOURCES





National Black Child Development Institute http://nbcdi.org/

Since 1970, the National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI) has remained steadfast in its mission –“To improve and advance the lives of black children and their families through education and advocacy.” With a focus on early childhood education, child welfare, elementary and secondary education, and health, the Institute accomplishes this mission by:

1)      Serving as a vital information resource to all individuals who work directly with children, in particular child care professionals, educators, parents, social workers and academicians; and

2)      Providing direct services at the local level through its nationwide affiliate network composed of volunteers, who work in concert with the Institute to improve child welfare services, provide access to universal early care and education, build family support services, and provide vital information on children’s health. (National Black Child Development Institute [NBCDI], 2012).

Issue/Trend:

I was astonished by the level of success this organization has achieved:

• Conducting a landmark study on children in foster care which resulted in subsequent progressive national policies;
•  Advocating successfully for progressive adoption policies and subsidies that permitted older and single parents to adopt;
• Working successfully to create public policy and influence legislation that directly affects the lives of African American children by testifying before Congress on every significant child care bill from the Comprehensive Child Development Act of 1970, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, the School Construction Act of 1999 to the Consequences for Juvenile Offenders Act of 1999 and orchestrating a special hearing on parenting in 2000;
•  Working to gain public support to provide access to universal early care and education which has become a priority for governors in more than half of the states;
•  Promoting publicly supported quality child care programs for mothers who were entering the work force in increased numbers, resulting in the enactment and special allocation of funds by a substantial number of states for child care; 
•  Implementing and expanding a community based nationwide intervention/prevention program entitled Entering the College Zone from five to twenty five cities to get more disadvantage middle school students on the college track;
•  Providing leadership to agencies like the National Institute of Health (NIH) to decrease health disparities; and 
• Building and nurturing partnerships with organizations ranging from the National Education Association (NEA), the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a number of corporations like, United Parcel Service (UPS), Proctor and Gamble (P&G), State Farm Insurance Companies, and government agencies like the National Institute of Health (NIH)

(National Black Child Development Institute [NBCDI], 2012).

******I always hear about the overall accomplishments of other renowned Child Development Agencies/Associations,  but I seldom hear about what other cultures (specifically my own) are doing to further healthy development in children and families...

National Black Child Ddevelopment Institute. (2012, January 14). About, mission, initiatives, history. Retrieved from http://nbcdi.org/