Getting to Know Your International Contacts- Part 2

I listened to Episode 6 podcast on the World Forum radio that interviewed Meridas Eka Yora. He has opened 3 boarding schools for children who were orphaned by the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.  His goal is to try and give children a "normal life".  His foundation is known and respected.  It is important that leaders take action and create a place where others can go to find help and to be of help to those in need.  For the children who were orphaned during this tragedy, their lives were changed for the better because one person cared.  It only takes one person to start a chain reaction of help to those who need it.  One person who knows the contacts of others who are able and willing to help children.




As I reviewed the Center on the Developing Child website I found they are creating work groups to focus in on  and learn more about important areas in early childhood systems.   "Guided by these strategic objectives, the Global Children’s Initiative has begun to build a portfolio of activities in three domains:

• early childhood development;
• child mental health; and
  
• children in crisis and conflict situations.

Each of these domains is being guided by a designated faculty working group that will facilitate continuing cross-disciplinary collaboration; design and implement new projects; and engage additional faculty, students, and collaborators beyond the Harvard community" (Center on the Developing Child, 2011).  It saddens me that we have to have a focus on children in crisis and conflict situations because in my mind children should not be involved in such states of despair.  Childhood for many children is not how I remember my childhood or how my children will remember theirs.  My children had a huge upheaval in their lives that caused our family great stress but it is nothing compared to the stress that some children have to live with daily.  I was able to get counseling for my children and form a network of support through family and friends when our family crisis took place.  Many children do have such support and systems in place to receive the same.  Children should not have do deal with such strife in their young lives.

Global Gathering in Moscow Put Spotlight on Early Childhood Issues-"In 2000, the world’s governments established a set of ambitious international goals—such as ending extreme poverty and hunger, ensuring that every child worldwide completes at least a primary education, and reducing child mortality by two-thirds—to be achieved by 2015. While progress has been made towards these targets, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), 2015 is not so far away, and governments are struggling to meet their obligations" (Lawton, 2010).  It is clear that issues affecting children are happening all over the globe and many countries are struggling to find ways to lessen the impact these have on young children.  I am curious to see how close the countries come to meeting these goals by 2015!

The website offers a direct link to their journal as well as signing up for their mailing list. I signed up for their email newsletter.  With so many resources in our field I sometimes become overwhelmed and forget which sources to check out.  Signing up for newsletters and updates from important sites such as this remind to educate myself on their newest research and support for our field.

References:
http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/

http://www.fajarhidayah.com/en/photogallery/others/Fajar_Hidayah_brief_history.pdf

http://worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wp/current-work/world-forum-radio

Sharing Web Resources

The Division for Early Childhood (DEC) has many usable components to its website.  I feel one of the most important is their "About DEC" tab.  Under this tab numerous resources can be found for early childhood educators, policy makers and researchers.  The resources found here are the DEC Position Statements, Concept Papers and Recommended Practices.  I felt the Position Statement titled "Responsiveness to Family Cultures, Values and Languages was a valuable resource for educators.  This paper defined culture and values.  It discussed the importance of individualized services and that responsiveness "grows from relationships that have a mutual respect and appreciation for individual culture, values and language" (DEC, 2002).  I think it is important for early childhood educators to value and respect the parents, families and children in their classrooms.  That being said another area that affects children and families is poverty. Continuing to value that family regardless of their economic situation is vital to relationship building that must take place to create the best environment for each child.

Once a person becomes a member of the DEC they can join a special interest group.  The special interest groups form to discuss topics such as research, professional development, Children's Action Netwrok (CAN) and early intervention. 

The DEC has also appointed work groups to work on a strategic plan for 2009-2012.  Each work group has a goal to focus on.  One goal states "to advance governmental policies that promote evidenced based practices for infants, young children and families" (DEC, 2010).  I think the DEC would need evidence from research to show early intervention works for young children, economists to show that early intervention saves money in the long run for services provided for children with special needs and the politicians as a voice writing policy that continues to fund research and fund early childhood initiatives. 

I feel that as I grow as a professional in the early childhood field I find their is an abundance of advocacy work that needs to be done.  Our voices will need to be constantly heard to continue the funding for our field.  Research will need to continue to show the needs of children as well as the results of quality early childhood for all children, economists will need to continue to show the "return on investment" and that early intervention and early care and education for all children is cost effective and politicians will need to continue to push for policies and funding that help the children and their families of our nation.

Reference
The Division of Early Childhood  http://www.dec-sped.org/About_DEC

International Contacts-Part 1

I took the alternative route in creating a contact in another country.  I chose to listen to a podcast on the World Forum Foundation Radio website.  Episode 3 by Delfena Mitchell was about a child living in Belize at Liberty Home, a residence for children who have been abused. Belize is a country in Central America that has the #1 incidence of child abuse in the Caribbean.  Belize has a population of 300,000 with nearly 50% under the age of 18.  Thirty nine percent of children live below the poverty line (www.libertyfoundation.org.uk).  Delfena talks about Joe, a young 9 year old who came to Liberty Home 9 months prior to her podcast with his 6 brothers and sisters.  He had not spoken in over a year.  He had been physically abused and had observed his sister being abused.  They tried home schooling him at Liberty Home and then sending him to the town school but he was kicked out of the school the first week.  After being at Liberty Home for 9 months he finally spoke to Delfena while they were on a horseback ride. He told her his grandmother had beat him with a stick and when he was hungry he would hide under his bed to eat so that the other children and adults would not take the food from him.  After Joe began to talk they created a schedule for him that consisted of 2 hours of education and the rest of his day outside playing in the gardens.  With the combination of going back to school and medication in a matter of weeks they saw huge changes in Joe (http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/radio.php).  After listening to this podcast I chose to research Liberty Home. 

Liberty Home's website is www.libertyfoundation.org.uk.  Liberty Home serves 40 children at a time that have been abandoned and/or physically or sexually abused.  Many of the children have disabilities, special needs or are HIV positive.  Their mission is to build trust with the children that come to live with them.  They set up primary care givers for each child so they have one person they can form a relationship with.  Liberty Home does not just provide food and shelter but also respects, nurtures and treats children as individuals.  They strive to ensure successful placements in foster and adoptive homes.

To learn even more about children and poverty I researched the Childhood Poverty website at www.childhoodpoverty.org.  After reading about a couple of countries I learned that in 2001, India had 1.03 billion citizens and 260.2 million of them were living in poverty in 1999-2000.  Poverty can happen in any country, in cities as well as rural areas.  It will take years to wipe out poverty in any country because there are many factors that need to be changed to decrease and eliminate poverty.  When poverty effects children it has life long effects on their brain development and growth.  In some countries, such as India, gender biases also play a role in poverty.  Girls are kept out of school and given inferior health services.  To completely eliminate poverty gender biases must be changed, children must be given better health care as well as nutrition, education must be provided for all children so they can grow up to find jobs that will sustain them and their family.  Governments must step in to create better schools, better jobs and better lives for the people of their countries.  Eliminating poverty for any country will not happen quickly, but over time it can happen.

References

Liberty Home http://www.libertyfoundation.org.uk/projects_libertycareprogram.html

Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/

World Forum Foundation. http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/about.php

World Forum Foundation Radio. http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/radio.php

 

Shared Web Resources

As I have studied diversity this week and its effect on children, families, classrooms and communities I feel there is one area that we have forgotten to cover.  Children with special needs are part of every community, most classrooms and some families in our areas.  These families and children need our support, guidance and encouragement as much as the families from other cultures do.  I feel it is important for teachers to understand the rights of the child and the family so they can better support them in the classroom.

I have chosen to learn more about The Division for Early Childhood (DEC).   The DEC is one of 17 divisions of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC).  Their websites is http://www.dec-sped.org/.  The DEC is about promoting policies and advancing practices to support children with special needs.  I chose to research this site because as I present Special Quest trainings I want to have the most up-to-date information to present to the educators in my class on working with children with special needs.  The DEC is nonprofit and is funded through membership dues and professional development activities.  The DEC is hosting it's 27th Annual International Conference On Young Children with Special Needs & Their Families in Maryland on November 17-19, 2011. 

A tab titled "Policy/Advocacy" is at the top of the page and important one that links families and educators of children with special needs to the topics related to policies being set and advocacy that needs to be done.  They discuss what is happening in Washington regarding funding and budgeting as well as links to click on for more information regarding the budgets.

There is a button to click on the website that is called "recommended practices"  I think this is a great piece to have on the website to keep teachers and families up-to-date on the best practices to reach the goals of the child.  They use research as well as knowledge and skills from those who with children with special needs to create their recommendations section. 

As the internet is used for information gathering for parents and educators I feel this website is an important resource for families of children with special needs and for all educators.  Some teachers feel that they do not need to learn about children with special needs or how they can support them because they do not currently have these children in their classrooms.  My advice to them is learn it now before you have a child with a special need so that you will feel prepared to support that child and family.  There is nothing worse than feeling inadequate as a teacher and unable to fully support the children and families in your classroom.  So being prepared for anything is the best course of action in my book.  I think a prepared teacher, though she will not have all the answers, will feel ready to help, assist and love any child that walks through her door.

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

It seems connecting with Early Childhood Professionals in another country is going to be harder than originally anticipated.  I used The Global Alliance of NAEYC to connect with professionals in other countries.   I attemped to contact Singapore, Czech Republic, Canda and Romania through the emails provided on The Global Alliance of NAEYC site.  Those emails were returned as undeliverable.  I still have emails awaiting reply from Haiti, The UK UNICEF and Italy UNICEF organizations.  If I do not hear back from them I will have to use the alterative activity.  I have logged onto the World Forum Foundantion and located the podcasts.

The website I plan to learn more about over the next 8 weeks is the DEC (The Division for Early Childhood) website.  I chose this website because I am a member of the CEC (Council for Excpetional Children).  I joined the CEC to learn more about providing services for children with special needs because I provide training through Special Quest and determined this organization would have information that I could use to expand my knowledge and assist me in providing higher quality trainings to the educators in my area.  I receive the EC (Exceptional  Children) publication as well as the Teaching Exceptional Children publication from my membership in CEC.  I found that I have been so busy with work and school that finding the time to use the CEC or DEC websites has not been easy.  This class will force me to navigate and learn the DEC and CEC websites so that I can use them as resources in the trainings I present and I can recommend them to and assist others in using the sites.

Amy
Resources
The Global Alliance of NAEYC http://www.naeyc.org/resources/partnership/globalalliance

UNICEF has local organizations and representatives worldwide. http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html

The Division for Early Childhood
http://www.dec-sped.org/ 
(Review also the position statements: http://www.dec-sped.org/About_DEC/Position_Statements_and_Concept_Papers )

Council for Exceptional Children http://www.cec.sped.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&Template=/templates/CECHomePage.cfm

World Forum Foundation. “A foundation whose mission is to promote an on-going global exchange of ideas on the delivery of quality services for young children in diverse settings.” http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/about.php 

Website: World Forum Foundation Radio. Includes links to podcasts of conversations with early childhood professionals.
http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/radio.php