Final Blog Assignment

The three consequences of learning about the international early childhood field for me in my personal or professional development are :

1. I would love to be part of UNICEF and maybe one day be part of the peace corp.
Here is UNICEF'S Mission Statement:

UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential.

UNICEF is guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and strives to establish children's rights as enduring ethical principles and international standards of behaviour towards children.

UNICEF insists that the survival, protection and development of children are universal development imperatives that are integral to human progress.

UNICEF mobilizes political will and material resources to help countries, particularly developing countries, ensure a "first call for children" and to build their capacity to form appropriate policies and deliver services for children and their families.

UNICEF is committed to ensuring special protection for the most disadvantaged children - victims of war, disasters, extreme poverty, all forms of violence and exploitation and those with disabilities.

UNICEF responds in emergencies to protect the rights of children. In coordination with United Nations partners and humanitarian agencies, UNICEF makes its unique facilities for rapid response available to its partners to relieve the suffering of children and those who provide their care.

UNICEF is non-partisan and its cooperation is free of discrimination. In everything it does, the most disadvantaged children and the countries in greatest need have priority.

UNICEF aims, through its country programmes, to promote the equal rights of women and girls and to support their full participation in the political, social, and economic development of their communities.

UNICEF works with all its partners towards the attainment of the sustainable human development goals adopted by the world community and the realization of the vision of peace and social progress enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.

I have am registering to be an online volunteer for UNICEF and will be advocating for UNICEF.  

2. Within the next five year I would like to be an volunteer for UNICEF and go on missionary trips outside of the United States.  I would like to help build early childhood centers, implementing the curricullum, hiring staff and training the staff in a a developed countries.

3. This class has opened my eyes and heart to children that live in developed countries and I want to educate people in the United States, my town and my own family on the issues and trends that children face everyday.

The one goal I would like to see for the field related to international awareness of issues and trends and the spirit of collegial relations is to have a class like this be part of a CDA requirement, Early Childhood Associates Degree or Bachelors Degree.  I also think it needs to be part of our stated manidated training for all Earlychildhood teachers.  Building relationships with international educators help us decrease the educational gap between countries.  What I discovered in the last eight weeks is that is we need unite as educators all over the world and make sure that we hold our countries accountable for meeting all the targets that were given to us by the United Nations.  Reforming Early Childhood Education is not just a state or country issue.   It is a international issue and if we want to see our children's children grow up to be productive members in our society than we need to start building relationships with our collegues from the global world.

Getting to know your international contact-Part 3

I did not receive any feedback from my international contacts.  So I had to visit UNESCO's Early Childhood Care and Education website.  

UNESCO mission to support early childhood policy development with the aim to build a foundation for a child's lifelong learning.  This organization 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.  This is how I view my mission statement for my school.

UNESCO believes in building intercultural understanding.  They do this through protection of heritage and support for cultural diversity.  UNESCO created the idea of World Heritage to protect sites of understanding universal values.  I also feel very strongly about supporting cultural diversity in my school.  I embrace all different cultures in our classrooms and ask our parents to bring an item that represents their cultures.  

When I graduate I would like to work for an organization that advocates for children's rights.  I joined CASA of Johnson County and I will be representing children that have been taken away from their parents.  I will be visiting them, talking to school counselors, doctors and then standing in court to tell the judge what is best interest of the child.  I really am impressed with ESD.  ESD also known as Education for Sustainable Development.  Education for Sustainable Development means including key sustainable development issues into teaching and learning.  They allow every human being to acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to shape a sustainable future.

I have always wanted to go to the United Nations in New York City.  There are so many organizations, committees and people that want to make sure that all children's basic needs are being taken care of.  They drafted the Muscat Agreement which was adopted by over 250 delegates at the Global Meeting on Education for All (2014 GEM).  The meeting was held in Muscat, Oman on May 12-14.  This agreement outlines overarching goal and a set of seven global targets for education post-2015.  The global targets that I feel will impact me are as followed:

1. Teachers- Target 6: By 2030, all governments ensure that all learners are taught by qualified, professionally trained, motivated and well-supported teachers.

2. Financing of education-Target 7: By 2030, all countries allocate at least 4-6% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or at least 15-20% of their public expenditure to education, prioritizing groups most in need; and strengthen financial cooperation in education, prioritizing countries most in need.

3.Early Childhood care and education-Target 1- By 2030, at least x% of girls and boys are ready for primary school through participation in quality early childhood care and education, including at least one year of free and compulsory pre-primary education, with particular attention to gender equality and the most marginalized (UNESCO).

I have learned about another wonderful organization that help all children across the world. I have learned what their Targets are in 2030 and I hope one day I can be part of one of these great organization.  This class has opened my eyes up to so many new possibilities for my career as a child advocate.  One day I would love to take a mission trip to one of the developed countries and help the children in that country.  I believe in giving back to our society.  This class also open my eyes to see how other countries education system works and that we all are wanting the same goals for our children. 

Sharing Web Resources

The area of the web site that I primarly focused on was Under Policy Priorities.  I continued to explore this and I clicked on Juvenile Justice.

The link I clicked on talked about Advocate and Family Resources for Juvenile Justice.

ADVOCATE & FAMILY RESOURCES FOR JUVENILE JUSTICE

Creating a level playing field for all children is a mission that CDF cannot accomplish alone. We often work with or refer people to many other organizations nationwide who are working to improve the lives of children. A list of some of them is below.

- See more at: http://www.childrensdefense.org/policy-priorities/juvenile-justice/juvenile-justice

Than I clicked on Texa Care for Children.

Texans Care for Children Texans Care for Children works to improve the lives of Texas children by building commitment and action for improved public policy and programs. Their issues include: child poverty and family economic security; child and maternal health; children’s mental health; early care and education; child welfare; and at-risk youth and juvenile justice.


Here are the new reports I read.  This was very interesting and informative for me because I live in a town outside of Fort Worth, Texas.  This website gave me more insight in problems of the children in my area and the changing policies for children.

4/15/2014

New Report on Ways to Save Lives in Texas Foster Care

Coinciding with the House Human Services Committee hearing on Foster Care Redesign, Texans Care for Children released a report entitled "Safeguarding Children in Texas Foster Care,” outlining several policy recommendations to keep children safe in the state's foster care system.

4/3/2014

Report on DFW Child Care Shows Challenges Facing State’s Littlest Learners

Working families in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area face substantial challenges in finding high quality, affordable child care that fits their scheduling needs, according to a new report by Texans Care for Children.

2/18/2014

State Leaders Must Take Action on Tasers in Schools

Texans Care for Children and other organizations are calling on state leaders to ban the use of Tasers and pepper spray in schools.

10/22/2013

Most Child Victims of Human Trafficking Were in Foster Care First A hearing before members of Congress looks into what the child welfare system can do. I clicked on some of outside links and this is where it lead me to.  I clicked on an article for Invest Early in All Our Children.  This article was in The National Journal. Some of the issues that were in this articles are:  More than one in four children under age 5—nearly 5 million—were poor in 2012; and nearly half were extremely poor, living in a family of four with an income of less than $11,925 per year; In 2011, more than 1 million children ages birth through 5 were identified as having disabilities or developmental delays, and were served by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act; During the 2011-2012 school year, children learning English as a second language represented 12 percent of children in public school preschool programs; More than one in three of the almost 400,000 children in foster care in FY2012 were under the age of 6. Children with special needs often bring a wide range of physical and emotional challenges to early childhood programs. Sometimes their families lack basic essentials, including food, housing, and medical care. Some children may have unmet health and mental health needs due to increased exposure to violence, abuse, and neglect—and the stress that accompanies them. Others may need little extra help. The good news is that we now have abundant evidence that high-quality early childhood experiences can buffer the impact of challenges some children face and promote positive short and long-term outcomes. According to a 2013 report released by the Society for Research in Child Development and the Foundation for Child Development, while all children benefit from high-quality programs, children from low-income households, those with other special needs, and children learning English as a second language have the potential to benefit more. The report highlighted evidence from public preschool programs in Boston and Tulsa, Okla., as well as the federally funded Head Start program. Yes this website did add to my understanding of equity and excellence in early care and eduction.  This article talks about the how important early childhood is for children.  It also talked about the children that are at risked. A national commitment to a high-quality early childhood experience for every child must mean a targeted commitment for individual young children with different special needs. There must be training and other supports for staff working in early childhood classrooms so they can reach children suffering the stresses of trauma in their daily lives. There must be comprehensive services so no child enters a classroom distracted by hunger, sickness, or pain. Children in foster care, often victimized by abuse or neglect, and children who are homeless may need extra supports to ensure they do not slip between the cracks and miss the benefits of early child development and learning. Children with disabilities and those who are at risk of developing them need consistent access to early intervention services as they move through the continuum of early child hood programs. Parents and other caregivers must also be engaged as active partners in their children's early development and learning, and extra support should be offered parents when they need it. The Strong Start for America's Children Act recognizes that this is all necessary if we truly want to promote equal opportunity for all children and build a stronger society. All our children have it in themselves to be extraordinary. With supports, young children born into extreme poverty today and without consistent access to adequate health care or nutrition can become the nurses and doctors who will care for our children and grandchildren tomorrow. Infants and toddlers living in homeless shelters or in foster care can become the engineers and astronauts who race to the heavens and take humankind to places beyond our wildest imaginings. The Strong Start for America's Children Act really showed me insight about issues and trends in early childhood field.  This is the Strong Start for America's Children Act:

January 2014 

 

Strong Start For America’s 

Children Act (S. 1697/H.R. 3461) 

Offers New Hope For Children Birth Through Five 

 

High quality early childhood development and learning interventions serve as a buffer to the negative 

effects of poverty and provide a foundation for future success with lifelong benefits, particularly for the 

poorest and most vulnerable children. Studies have shown that children who benefit from high quality 

early childhood investments are more likely to graduate from high school, hold a job, and make more 

money and less likely to commit a crime than their peers who do not participate.1

 Nobel Prize-winning 

economist James Heckman estimates a lifelong economic rate of return of 7 to 10 percent per year 

per dollar invested.2

 Investing in quality early childhood development and learning is an effective 

poverty prevention strategy. 

The Strong Start for America’s Children Act encourages expansions of support for high quality 

home visiting programs, Early Head Start, Head Start, child care, pre-kindergarten (pre-K) and 

quality kindergarten programs to reach poor and low income children birth through age 5. 

 

The Act offers federal support for a range of high quality early childhood learning and 

development initiatives: 

 Guaranteed support for Pre-Kindergarten Access Grants for quality pre-kindergarten programs 

for 4-year-olds in families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), which may be 

provided by local education agencies, community-based early childhood education providers 

(such as Head Start and child care programs) or a consortium of the two. Twenty percent of the 

funds awarded in the first four years may be used for quality improvements to support high quality 

pre-K programs. Up to 15 percent of the funds may be used to provide high quality early childhood 

education programs for infants and toddlers in families at or below 200 percent FPL. 

 Competitive Pre-Kindergarten Development Grants to help states put high quality standards in 

place so they can, within three years, apply for the new Pre-Kindergarten Access Grants. 

 Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships to help child care centers and family care homes 

improve the quality of their services for infants and toddlers and children through age 3 so that 

they can meet Early Head Start performance standards within three years. 

 Improvements in the Child Care and Development Block Grant to strengthen the quality of 

child care, promote 12 months of continuous care for children and families and establish new 

demonstration and pilot programs to support low income families needing or receiving child care. 

 Encourages continued funding for the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting 

Program that offers voluntary evidence-based home visiting programs for young children and their 

families to promote maternal and child health, improve school readiness, prevent child abuse and 

neglect, support family economic self-sufficiency, reduce crime and delinquency and support 

community resources.  Encourages transition and increases access to high quality kindergarten, with special attention to 

full-day kindergarten. 

The Act promotes quality care for poor and low-income children, including those with special 

needs. Funded pre-K programs must: 

 Meet high quality benchmarks. 

 Serve 4-year-olds or 3- and 4-year-olds 

 Require high staff qualifications, including a bachelor’s degree in early childhood or a 

related field 

 Provide high quality professional development for all staff 

 Offer salaries comparable to K-12 teacher salaries 

 Meet evidence-based maximum class sizes and child-staff ratios 

 Offer “full day” pre-K 

 Provide developmentally appropriate evidence-based curricula and learning environments 

aligned with the state’s early learning and development standards 

 Provide accessible comprehensive services for children 

 Provide for ongoing monitoring and program evaluation to ensure continuous improvement 

 Reach out to children in poor and low income families. States must report annually on 

progress in providing access to high quality pre-K for children in families with incomes up to and 

including 200 percent FPL, including the percent of funds spent on children under 100 percent, 

between 100 and 150 percent and between 150 and 200 percent. 

 Promote partnerships for a mixed service delivery system that engages local education 

agencies and community-based early childhood education programs. 

 Perform outreach to homeless children, dual language learners, children in foster care, children 

with disabilities and migrant children to engage them in high quality pre-K programs. 

 Promote family support and parent engagement and assess with parents, community 

members and organizations a coordinated system to facilitate referrals and provision of services 

related to health, nutrition, mental health, disabilities and family support for children enrolled. 

 Encourage coordination, access and transition to high quality kindergarten. 

This act really summarized what I have been learning in my this class.

 

                                                            

Getting to know your international contacts-Part 2

     The Zambian Early Childhood Development Project was launched in 2009 with the objective to 
not only identify the key determinants for child development in the medium- to long-run in a 
sub-Saharan African context, but also to generate the first comprehensive assessment of child 
development in Zambia today. As has been pointed out by many researchers in this field, measuring child development is a complicated task: child development is a multi-faceted construct, and the multitude of developmental domains explored in the literature makes it difficult to identify the right tool for child assessment. The task is challenging in even the most tightly-controlled and technologically advanced testing environments in developed countries; it is even more complicated for field researchers within the developing world, where societal norms differ substantially across regions 
and change rapidly over time. In this project, we have made a major effort to combine as many 
measures and aspects of child development as possible in a single survey tool, while ensuring 
that the tool is appropriate for, and respectful of, local culture. The results of the first such 
comprehensive assessment are presented in this report.  From a policy and child developmental perspective, the results of this study highlight the large  differences among Zambian pre-school children both within and across regions. We hope that the data collected as part of this project as well as future work in this area will not only improve our understanding of child development in this context, but also help identify key interventions towards improved outcomes in a rapidly changing developing world (Zambian Early Childhood Development Project)."  Zambia children are facedwith so many obsicles including diseases  in their early years.  The main factor in this study that affects a child's development is their economic status.  Most children live in poor, unsaitary homes with out even clean drinkning water.  
       " The Global Children's Intiative,  launched Núcleo Ciência Pela Infância, its first major programmatic effort outside the United States. In collaboration with local experts, this project aims to use the science of child health and development to guide stronger policies and larger investments to benefit young children and their families in Brazil. 
This program with other organizations engage in the following activities: 

• Building a scientific agenda and community of scholars around early child development;
• Synthesizing and translating scientific knowledge for application to social policy. This will include working with the Center’s longtime partner organization, Frameworks Institute, to effectively communicate the science of child development in the Brazilian cultural context;
• Strengthening leadership around early childhood development through an executive leadership courses for policymakers;
• Translating and adapting the Center’s existing print and multimedia resources for a Brazilian audience (Applying the Science of Early Childhood in Brazil)".

Social Economic status affects how a child develops no matter what region of the world they live in.  This is a global issue and the local, state and federal goverments need to make sure that their are policies in place and proper funding for early childhood educational programs.     

Sharing The Web Resources

                              The Organization I chose was the Children's Defense Fund. 


"We are a national organization with the capacity to work for children at federal, state and community levels across the country. 
"Priorities for elected officials to ensure the future of every child

We are committed to reclaiming our country, our core values and spiritual foundation for our children and families. Too many children live in poverty and suffer from preventable illness, neglect, abuse, inadequate education and violence. These problems are solvable if we each do our part. Right now, our nation has the ability to:

• End child poverty;
• Guarantee every child and pregnant woman comprehensive health and mental health coverage and services;
• Protect every child from abuse and neglect and connect them to caring permanent families;
• Provide high quality early childhood care and development programs for all children;
• Ensure every child can read at grade level by fourth grade and guarantee quality education through high school graduation; and
• Stop the criminalization of children at increasingly younger ages and invest in prevention and early intervention."

(http://www.childrensdefense.org/).

Priority: Provide High Quality Early Childhood Development Programs for All.

The Problem: Only three percent of eligible infants and young children (0-3) are enrolled in Early Head Start and less than half of children eligible for Head Start are enrolled. Quality child care and preschool programs are crucial to level the playing field and ensure every child entering school is ready to learn.

Why It Matters: Studies reveal that those enrolled in high quality early childhood education programs are subsequently more likely to complete higher levels of education, have higher earnings, be in better health and be in stable relationships, and are less likely to commit a crime or be incarcerated.

What Must Be Done: We must make early childhood development programs accessible to every child by ensuring such programs are affordable, available and of high quality.

 (http://www.childrensdefense.org).  "Investments in early childhood are vital to the success of our nation's youth. Extensive research has shown that early childhood programs significantly increase a child's chances of avoiding the prison pipeline. Furthermore, these programs have well-documented economic and societal value. Studies have shown that investments in quality early education can produce a rate of return to society significantly higher than returns to most stock market investments or traditional economic development projects.

Despite these encouraging reports, thousands of children across the country are still waiting for the chance to participate in quality early childhood programs. CDF fully understands the need for consistent, quality education and care beginning at birth. Our nation simply can’t afford not to significantly increase investments in early childhood development and care, or to keep leaving so many poor babies and toddlers behind".

( http://www.childrensdefense.org).

This organization has many resources.  I never realized how many different organizations there are to help children in the United States and all over the world.  The reason I chose this organization is because it focuses on the children in our country.  I really think this is a very great organizaion.  They have headquaters in multiple states.