Issues and Trends: Change, Contexts, Consequences, and Constraints Revisited

One consequence of learning about the international early childhood field, it provides awareness on the challenges other countries experience in providing and establishing early childhood care and education. Then it gives the opportunity to view what techniques other countries use to prepare their children educationally. Finally it allows the opportunity to compare the United States to that country and determine similarity or differences in the two countries apply it to personal and professional development.

The goal I have in regard to international awareness is to keep exploring website to gain more understanding on the issues, trend and challenges of early childhood on every level. I feel that having collaboration with other professionals in other countries will help to develop the early childhood field even more and ensure that we have the components need to develop successful children.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

One of the new ideas or insights I gained about issues related to international early childhood education that relate to my professional goals is UNESCO and the Council of Europe are finalizing guidelines for policy-makers towards ensuring the right to basic education for Roma children, with particular emphasis on improving access to early childhood educational opportunities and their transition to quality primary education. These guidelines, entitled “Including Roma and Traveler Children in early Childhood Education Services” are expected to significantly contribute to making Roma’s and Travelers’’ rights to quality and successful early childhood education a reality, and to guarantee an easy transition to primary school.

The next insight or ideas that relates to my goals is the ECCE workforce is often made up of a diverse group of pre-school teachers, care workers, and other professionals. Adequate training and work conditions are essential so they can integrate the content and practice of early childhood care and education and address the transition to formal schooling. The service setting and physical infrastructure may vary greatly within countries. Regular inspection and follow-up of the service setting as well as adequate health and nutrition components are also crucial for meaningful learning to take place.

The final insight or ideas that relates to my goals is a section on a conference held in November of last year entitled The Convention on the Rights of the Child. The conference covered information on every child having the right to an education. It is an example of the largest number of ratifications of any convention. What is needed now is a sharper focus on the universal and effective application of the right to education. The gap between ratification and implementation can be seen in the 69 million children, most of them girls, who are still deprived of their right to basic education. Even those children who do have access to school often suffer from poor quality education and leave school without having acquired basic skills.

As guarantors and promoters of the right to education, they must reflect these obligations in their Constitution and laws and take steps to improve education policies and strategies to give it effect. The biggest challenge is to eliminate disparities in education and to ensure that the core obligations of States regarding the right to education remain in the forefront, not only for accelerating progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, but for pushing the Education for All agenda forward. The right to education is not only a human right in itself but also essential for the exercise of all other human rights.

Reference
Early Childhood Care and Education retrieved from (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/)

Excellence and Equity of Care and Education for Children and Families (Part 2: Availability, Accessibility, and Affordability

In following outside links that I have not explored yet, I was drawn to a section entitled Early Care and Education. This resource provides information on the things that parents should concern themselves with when preparing to welcome their baby home and plan to return to work, what are the qualities they should be looking for in a child care setting? What is considered a high-quality child care setting for infants and toddlers? How do you prepare your baby or toddler for the transition to child care? 

From the newsletter there was a podcast series available entitled New “Little Kids, Big Questions”. This is available to help parents and professionals “plug in” for information on how to raise children, ZERO TO THREE is meeting the need with its new podcast series. While everyone seems to have an opinion about how to handle parenting challenges, this podcast series empowers listeners to find their own way through, using research as their guide. Little Kids, Big Questions is a series of 12 podcasts with leading experts that translates the research of early childhood development into practices that mothers, fathers and other caregivers can tailor to the needs of their own child and family.  This information does add to my understanding of equity and excellence in early care and education it indentifies that parents really want the best for their children but sometime they may not know what the best really is. The resource provides a snapshot of the best resources for children.

The new insight about issues and trends in the early childhood field I gain from the newsletter is ZERO TO THREE secured another major competitive contract from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the Health Resources and Services Administration to operate the new Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Technical Assistance Coordinating Center.

The Center will provide coordinated training and technical assistance to states and grantees to identify the fundamental aspects of home visiting programs across selected evidence-based program models; promote the implementation of a service mix which ensures strong outcomes for vulnerable children and families; help each model convey what it does best, for whom, why, and how it works and how it can be improved by creating strong research to practice learning communities and foster strong interagency collaborations at both the Federal and state levels to help facilitate the performance of programs within a system context.

Reference:

Zero to three. Retrieved from http://www.zerotothree.org/

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

The three new insights I gained about early childhood systems around the globe came from the Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website. As I explored the site I found it interesting that in order to improve early childhood education Un Buen Comienzo (UBC), established a program called A Good Start it is a joint task in Santiago, Chile to improve early childhood education through teacher professional development. The program targets children four to six. years old it to improve the quality of education.  The focus area is language development.  It is designed to intervene in critical health areas, improved school attendance, socio-emotional develop and include family involvement.  UBC also integrated a comprehensive evaluation and an arbitrary experiment in the schools. This is particular longitudinal evaluation in early childhood education has not been carried out in any other country in Latin America and place Chile in the forefront of demonstrating high quality education.

In further reviewing the site I gained insight about the Global Children Initiative with regards to Children and Crisis. The goal of this effort is to foster interdisciplinary partnership 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. There are two issues that are the initial focus of activity in this field. They are exploring comparable approaches to surveying child status in post-earthquake Haiti and Chile and bringing the science of child development into strategies for addressing acute malnutrition.

The third insight deals with child mental health concerns this issued is under addressed  but has significant  consequences for the broader health and development of children and society.  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 address this issue a working group developing a focused agenda in research, education and public engagement to address the gaps in knowledge. The project selected to evaluate under this project is 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). 

Reference:

Center of developing child Harvard University, (n.d,).Retrieved fromhttp://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/global_initiative/global_children_s_initiative__activities/

Sharing Web Resources

The information that seemed particularly relevant to my current professional development from the Zero to Three website deals with a video that explains how funding is disburse in the early childhood field by congress.  This video explains how children and their families will suffer as a result of budget cuts everywhere. It explains that due to funding in the area of early childhood that is only way some families can afford early childhood services. If funding is cut some parent may be forced to quit their jobs to support their children because childcare may become too expensive. As a result I feel that it place those individual farther into poverty.

The idea of placing more interest in the area of play is the ideal I felt could be controversial. I now strongly believe in the benefits of using play as a resource to learning.  Sadly today there are still people that feel that it is more important to place emphasis on academic as oppose to using play to develop children academically.

The information that the Zero to Three website contains that adds to my understanding of how economists, neuroscientists,or politician’s support of the early childhood field again refers to the area of funding to the early childhood. It is important to advocate for funding in this field because of the long term risk extend to the nation not just to the children and their families. The nation will not have well qualified and developed employee in any area or they will have a very limit supply.

Finally the other new insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field I gain from exploring the website deals with Caring for Infants and Toddlers in Group: It provides parent with developmentally appropriate practices and the latest information about the elements of quality care that supports optimal development and learning for young children. This resource is very informative.

Reference:

Zero to three.(2011) Retrieved from http://zerotothree.org/.