Summary

Learning about child development from an international perspective throughout this course has helped me to become more culturally responsive. In order to be culturally responsive, I must keep an open mind to differences and by learning about other cultures it reinforces this behavior. It is important to learn about cultural diversity in order to understand the issues that children face today. In order  to truly be a child advocate, one must understand more about children from around the world. I found it very interesting that many parts of the world are working towards similar goals in the field of early childhood. We face different obstacles, but with having similar values and by using current research about the importance of the early years in regard to brain development and the impact of toxic stress we work together to support and protect children everywhere.

One personal goal that I have from this course is to continue to learn more about the issues that children and families face around the world today. By paying attention to the news or visiting some of the websites I learned about in this course, I can stay more up to date on current events related to the global field of early childhood.

UNESCO's "Early Childhood Care and Education" website

From exploring the UNESCO’s “Early Childhood Care and Education” webpage I learned about a few new things this week that are happening around the world in Early Childhood Education.

1- “On December 19, 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170  declaring 11 October as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world”  (www. unesco.org).  I thought this was really cool and enjoyed reading about what is being done to help create equal opportunities for girls around the world.  Here is a video to watch about a project being done in Senegalese:

2- Under the Access and Equity tab, I found out about an Education for All (EFA) initiative. “Participating countries committed themselves to “expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.” Governments were particularly urged to expand equitable access to quality early childhood services underscoring the importance of instituting policy in favour of the poor” (www.unesco.org).  Education for All tries to promote early childhood education as being a part of a child’s basic or primary education. The importance of early childhood needs to be understood and valued before governments and businesses invest in it.

3- Visiting the UNESCO “Early Childhood Care and Education” website helped to remind me how important child advocacy is. It is key to making improvements and promoting equity and access to quality early childhood care and education around the world.

Reference:

United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2014).  Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/

Exploring the NAEYC Website

Featured on the NAEYC website this week is an article titled “10 NAEYC Program Standards and Accreditation.” This relates to the topic of Equity and Excellence in a couple of different ways. First it explains the standards that the NAEYC created to promote quality in child care programs for accreditation. “The standards define what NAEYC—the world’s largest organization of early childhood professionals—believes all early childhood programs should provide” (NAEYC, 2014). The article explains the ten standards to parents so that they better understand what a high quality child care program, preschool or kindergarten should look and feel like. The standard categories are: relationships, curriculum, teaching, assessment of child progress, health, teachers, families, community relationships, physical environment, and leadership and management (NAEYC, 2014). By educating parents on what quality should look like, parents are more likely to expect programs to meet the standards and select a program that is of higher quality.

On the position statements link, the position statements on diversity and assessing English Language Learners in the early years address the topic of equity and excellence as well. I also found a whole new section of the website specifically geared toward families by clicking on the “For Families” link at the top of the home page. NAEYC For Families webpage offers parents a variety of resources including advice from other parents on a blog, music, a newsletter to learn more information about a specific age group and more. There are a wide variety of articles written by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D. and Joshua Sparrow, M.D. that offer parents advice on many different topics including mealtime and having an only child.  Under the “Topics” tab at the top of the home page, there are even more articles on topics related to promoting your child’s development. Another page on the website allows families to search for local NAEYC accredited child care programs and offers many different articles about selecting quality child care. The NAEYC For Families web page seems to be an excellent resource to share with families.

Reference:

NAEYC For Families website. Retrieved from http://families.naeyc.org/

NAEYC. (2014). The ten NAEYC program standards. Retrieved from  http://families.naeyc.org/accredited-article/10-naeyc-program-standards#sthash.MPqzJHa9.dpuf

Global Research on Surviving Child Adversity

On the "Global Children's Initiative" website this week I read about research that is being done to understand the long-term impact of children around the world surviving adversity in childhood. The first study I read about is currently being done to learn more about children that became child soldiers in Sierra Leone during the civil war and to understand more about how that is affecting their current relationships and family situations. By learning about the impact of major adversities, researchers hope to create ways of helping and developing effective intervention strategies. "In Sierra Leone, for example, 'We’ll be able to understand the longer-term adult functioning of people who’ve been through a range of toxic stress exposures—and the impact on their intimate partners—and understand the dynamics of parenting and child-rearing where interventions might be helpful"(Lawton, 2014).

The second study that I read about is being done in Rwanda to research the affect on children in families where the parents have HIV. According to the research, many parents view the disease as a "death sentence" affecting the way they interact with their children. In turn, "their children can harbor lingering fears and misunderstandings about HIV infection—in some cases, afraid to touch their parents or eat from the same cooking pot" (Lawton, 2014). By learning about these family situations, researchers hope to help parents meet the needs of their children (Lawton, 2014).

“There are very few prevention-oriented interventions in global mental health for children,” Betancourt notes. “And doing that work earlier in a preventive model is going to be so much more cost-effective than waiting for [children] to get severely depressed and suicidal, or drop out of school. Then, you’re trying to undo those very severe sorts of consequences” (Lawton, 2014).


This article opened my eyes to some of the severe adversities and stress that children and families around the world are facing. Much of the research I read about is focused on children and families in the United States, but I think this research being done globally is very important to fully understanding child development and learning about ways to help children fro around the world.


Reference:
Lawton, M. (2014). Studying the Effects of Global Adversity, Two Generations at a Time. Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/faculty_and_staff/faculty/faculty_spotlights/theresa_betancourt/