Getting to Know International Contacts--Part 2

I visited Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website and learned a lot about their goals and priorities in early childhood education. The center’s main focuses are working on the discourse around child health and development, supporting research on childhood development, and building leadership around the world. They have different activities and projects pertaining to the early childhood field, including development, mental health, and children in crisis situations. This program doesn’t operate just in the United States, it operates around the world. Their aim is to improve the outcomes in children’s lives. In early childhood development area, they work globally with others to increase investments in early childhood and expand different interventions for children. These certain kinds of projects have been held in Zambia and Chile. In child mental health area, they focus on addressing gaps in knowledge and the causes of health problems. This research has been conducted in China and in Caribbean nations. In the children in crisis situations area, they focus on the outcomes of children who have experienced some sort of major conflict in life (major earthquakes, malnutrition). I have learned a lot about their efforts and research involving young children globally. The same issues we face in the early childhood field, are some of the same issues other nations face also. They work together with these other nations to try to resolve these issues.

Resource

http://developingchild.hardvard.edu/initiatives/global_intitiatve/

Sharing Web Resources

The website I’ve been researching throughout this course is Zero to Three. I thought it was particularly relevant to investigate the maltreatment of young children. A few resources this week discussed how toxic stress can lead to other adult problems like heart disease and diabetes. This toxic stress can be caused by abuse, poverty, consistently moving from one place to another, and many more reasons. Out of the children who experience maltreatment, 59% are neglected, 18.4% are physically or sexually abused, 4.2% are mentally abused, and the remaining children had a combination of abuse types. It is because of this maltreatment that every 7 minutes an infant or toddler is removed from their home. Many children who experience this toxic stress respond in different manners. Some have trouble sleeping, trouble controlling their anger, difficulty paying attention, or even become withdrawn from others. Repeated exposure to this negative type of stress at early ages can in return affect children’s brain and nervous system. This result has an effect on school performance and relationships. This reinforces the thoughts and research of neuroscientists.

It is very important that these children have early support and intervention in order to restore mental, emotional, and physical health. Training and education for both parents and educators will assist in doing so. Programs like “Strengthening Families” and “Safe Babies Court Teams” educate parents on how to deal with a variety of stresses in life. Anybody can have a child, and many people do, but raising a child in a nurturing and caring environment is a key factor in the healthy development of children. Teaching parents about the necessities of childhood and what happens to children when these necessities aren’t met is in extreme need. I enjoyed how the resources on this website pointed out that simply educating parents about this information is just the first step. Families need direct resources at all times when they are in need, professionals that they can talk to and financial assistance.

Resources

http://www.zerotothree.org/maltreatment/

Getting to Know Your International Contacts

Unfortunately, I still have yet to hear from any of professionals outside of the U.S. that I have tried to contact. I have to admit that it has been an ongoing process over the last couple of weeks and it just seems like it isn’t going to be successful. So until I am able to do so, I have resorted to the alternative assignments.

I visited the World Forum Foundation’s website and listened to their most recent podcast (2-10-11). A conversation was held with Susan Lyon. She discussed that her passion for early childhood all started when a child suggested that the word “city” was a small word for such a big thing. She went to Italy and visited the Reggio Emilia school systems and decided to bring their concepts back with her to northern California. She started a program in 1994 called the Innovative Teacher Project. It consists of a network of schools from all over the world communicating every month about their progress in changing their school systems. These school systems are both public and private. It still continues today.

I also reviewed the Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre’s page (http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/) and specifically research childhood poverty in China. I was interested in this area due to its huge population of 1,336,718,015 (as of mid 2011). Poverty in China has declined from 250 million in 1978 to 35 million in 2000. It is mainly in the urban areas due to adults not being able to find work, a dismantling of the social security system, and movement of rural-urban migration. People who work in urban areas give small contributions to cover insurance for those in poverty but it excludes most of the poor residents. There are different government assistance programs (dibao), but it mainly reaches just 20-25% of the poor. These systems give households a certain amount of money based on family size, but it doesn’t take into consideration the specific needs of each member. For instance, one family may be a single mother raising three children or a disabled child. Certain members may cost more money for certain reasons. As family size increases, the more dependent members become. Many children don’t have medical insurance and suffer illnesses, which in turn lead to financial debt. The first nine years of children’s education is free, but even with this fact 75% of families in poverty can’t afford education expenses. Therefore, many children don’t finish school. Some even end up leaving to go work at very early ages.

Based on what I’ve learned so far in this course, poverty exists in every country. There seems to be an issue with not being able to reach all of the poor population, no matter what area is being considered.

Sharing Web Resources

The organization I chose to research is Zero to Three. The web link is listed below.

http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/

This website is designed to assist parents, caregivers, and educators of young children in their responsibility to help foster a healthy development in young children (specifically 0-3 years of age). It informs individuals of children’s growth and ways to support this growth. This organization has a newsletter and a journal. To be subscribed to the newsletter (From Baby to Big Kid), one should have children and you get it for free. This newsletter will give you information about the stage of development your child is at. The journal (Zero to Three), costs money to receive. This journal talks even more about issues and trends in early childhood. There is also a bountiful amount of resources one can find on this website.

The area that I looked further into was the Behavior and Development section on this webpage. In this section it lists the following issues in early childhood: early childhood development, brain development, challenging behaviors, mental health, early development, health and nutrition, mental health screenings and assessments, play, social emotional development, sleep, and temperament and behavior. All of these issues need to be taken into consideration when caring for infants and toddlers.

The issue that I investigated was brain development. There is an interactive diagram of the human brain. By selecting the infants or toddlers age and then clicking on the different areas of the brain, it gives information about that particular area of the brain and ideas about what parents and caregivers can do to assist in healthy development. This information pertains to prenatal through 36 month old children. It describes language, movement, emotional, cognitive, hearing, and vision abilities, and the list goes on. It even gives frequently asked questions along with the answers to these questions. A podcast is on this section of brain development with an interview with Dr. Gopnik (professor of psychology). She discusses how babies know much more than we all originally thought years ago and what parents and caregivers can do to nurture this brain development. There is plenty of information on this topic. Definitely check this out!

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

I have used The Global Alliance of NAEYC as a resource to get in touch with professionals outside of the United States. I looked into each website and chose certain people to email, with hopes of hearing back from them. So far I have tried to contact four individuals from Romania, Spain, and Canada and all attempts have been unsuccessful. I will continue to try to reach someone because I think it will be very interesting and insightful to talk with an educator outside of our country.

I chose to investigate the website Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families because I have read quite a few of their articles during my experience at Walden University. I have subscribed to some sort of electronic newsletter. The website seems very interesting. It contains information on child development mentally, physically, and emotionally in children from 0 to age three. I am really looking forward to looking more into this website and receiving their newsletters.