National Early Childhood Websites Report on Support of Business World

The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) puts out a electronic newsletter called Child Care Aware of America. This is the national website that I have chosen to follow for this course. In the May 22, 2013 edition, there was an article about Toyota Car Company partnering with the National Family Literacy Center to do a six year $175,000 grant to create a new literacy model that will expand it beyond the walls of the classroom and into homes and communities. This reminds me of a grant that I have been involved with from the Kellogg Foundation (the cereal people), and I had always just assumed that it was philanthropic of them to put money into a grant for early childhood, but I am beginning to see in terms of economic benefits. If companies such as Toyota and Kellogg put money into early childhood, those children will grow to be consumers of their products. I was also interested this week when North Carolina announced that they would be losing Smart Start funding that business leaders came to their defense. Tsegga Medhin, Manager at IBM (Raleigh); Bill Millett, President of Scope View Strategic Advantage (Charlotte) and Steve Reinemund, Retired Chairman and CEO at PepsiCo (Winston-Salem) were among the company leaders that signed a letter encouraging the Governor of North Carolina not to cut the funds. I think it is wonderful that people with clout, like those company heads listed above, are understanding that early childhood is important. We have talked in other discussions this week about the unintended consequences of economists becoming involved with early childhood-but one of the good consequences of big business getting involved is that programs have higher quality, and that is also good for all kids!

The Child Care Aware Newsletter had several interesting topics in it this week, including one on helping children cope with disaster. My daughter lives about 1/2 hour from Moore, OK and, although the children in the child care center where she works were not hurt, this tragedy is affecting them directly. I appreciate the electronic newsletter format because the articles in it are so much more timely than the paper forms, and can really help children, families, and early childhood professionals when they need it!


Resources:
http://CCAoA@multibriefs.com
http://info@first2000days.org

Poverty and Early Childhood Programs Outside the U.S.

Poverty is something that affects children in every country of the world. Some countries believe that the income level of a child's family should not preclude them from having a quality early childhood experience, and that is what I found when spoke with my friend from Canada and my friend from Spain. Gail is a lead teacher in school district preschool program in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She has a co-teacher, and they have 20 children in a morning session and 21 in an afternoon session. 3 and 4 year old children from low-income families whose parents are working have their preschool fees completely paid for through government subsidy. Gail explained to me that Canada has a socialized system for education, and all children can attend programs that have low teacher-child ratios and certified teachers (G.Engleman, personal communication, May 23, 2013). Unlike the system in Utah, where
programs can charge whatever they'd like (and good programs charge more), and parents often have to choose between quality and affordability. Estephania is a teacher in a preschool class in Malaga, Spain. She is the only teacher in the class but there are only 12 children. Public education starts at 3 years old in Spain and children go to school for part of the day from ages 3-6. All families are entitled to free schooling through 12th grade. She explained to me that Spain has the lowest birthrate of all the European countries (1.5 children per household), and this is encouraged through economic benefits for parents who choose to have fewer children. If a family does have more than 3 children they are given additional public assistance. She also explained that parents are encouraged to wait until they are older (late 20's. early 30's) to have children so they are more financially prepared for them.(E. Gallardo, personal communication, May 22, 2013).

I can see the benefits for national financial system that recognizes the importance of early childhood and plans for children's education as a part of its infrastructure. Both Spain and Canada have systems set up that allow for all children over the age of three to participate in education, regardless of the parent's income level. They plan ahead instead of trying to come up with pieces of subsidy money to plug the economic holes that exist for so many. The United States spends a lot of time trying to close the achievement gap, when the issue could be solved by adopting a system that was more proactive instead of reactive.

National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies Website

 The web resource that I chose is the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies or NACCRRA and the link is http://www.naccrra.org/  Their mission is to promote national policies and partnerships to advance the development and learning of all children and to provide vision, leadership and support to community.

As I was looking through the website I came across a section about poverty under the About Child Care tab. There were many interesting facts and resources, but one resource that peaked my interest was about the role that home visiting plays in ending poverty. The idea is that home visitors go into homes to work with parent and provide resources that support children's early years. This helps the children get a better start in hopes that they will continue that momentum and be successful in school and eventually life in general. I have done home visits as an Education Specialist with Head Start, and I am familiar with the Office of Home Visiting in Utah, but I have never had the importance of this program explained to me in terms of being a specific tool to actually break the cycle of poverty. 

Another topic that caught my eye was a news report under the News tab about two sisters, child care providers from the Middle East, who were arrested for child abuse because they swaddled infants too tightly. This made me think about our assignment this week regarding changing demographics and diversity. According to an article about the history of swaddling it is a common practice in many countries, and it is done for a variety of reasons: transportation, calming, warmth, bone growth, and safety. I even found a reference to an article written in 1990 about millions of infants in Beijing China being tied up in bags of sand, with only their heads peeping out, and left completely alone for most of each day. This is done so they will be safe while their parents are working in the fields. It is not until a child is completely mobile (12-18 months) that they are taken out of the bags and , at that point, they are required to help in the field. It makes me wonder if maybe these sisters were just doing what they considered to be best practices...?

Sources:

• http://www.naccrra.org/about-us/our-vision-and-mission

• http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_23100669/day-care-owners-charged-excessive-swaddling

• Smith, L. (2011, January 31). Swaddling: A historical, cultural, and lactational perspective. [Webinar Presentation]. Retrieved from http://www.bflrc.com/ljs/documents

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding my Resources

New class-time for new posts! This class is called Issues and Trends in Early Childhood and I have been given two assignments...1) To contact and correspond with two EC professionals from other countries and 2) Research a professional resource.

When I first heard about this assignment my mind immediately went to a friend who lives in Canada, who I haven't talked to (except through Christmas cards) since 1988 when she left the states and moved back to Canada! We both ended up as ECE professionals because we wanted to be with our children, who were born right around the same time-they were actually the reason we became friends. I didn't have her number so I emailed the contact on the NAEYC Global Alliance partnership, in hopes of getting her email, but the address listed on the website came back undeliverable. I wrote to her and asked if she would do this and she said yes. Her name is Gail and I am excited to correspond with her because I am very interested in the differences and similarities that happen in ECE in a country that is very like the U.S. in some ways and very different in others.

The second contact came through my friend who is from Malaga, Spain, and who ran a child care center there for several years. I called her and asked if she still knew of anyone who was in ECE in Spain. I wanted to correspond with someone in Spain because I lived and taught there for a year, and I value that culture very much.  She got a hold of her mother, who went to a local child care center in Malaga, and I am corresponding with a teacher by the name of Estephenia.

The resource that I chose to research is NACCRRA. I am very partial to this site because I work directly with the Resource and Referral Agencies in Utah and know how valuable they are to the success of the providers and the sanity of the parents! I like this website because it has sections for both parents (ie: How to Choose Quality Care) and providers (ie: online training). We use both of these resources in our state QRIS system which is another part of my job. They also have a section just for military families, and this is important to me because my daughter is a military wife!

My Supports

I feel very fortunate because I have a lot of supports in my life. I have a wonderful husband, a terrific family, great friends and colleagues, a beautiful home, and an outstanding supervisor at a job that I love. The people in my life, especially my husband, have been there to celebrate the successes, work through the difficulties, and  support me when times get hard. My home is my sanctuary, and it is the place where I feel the safest, most creative, and most authentic. My supervisor and my job allow me to stretch myself and experience the most amazing things in the early childhood field. If I lost all of these supports it would be extremely difficult for me, especially if I lost everything and everyone all at once! If one or two of these supports were gone, the other supports would help me through, and I would survive. If I lost everything all at once it would be horrible, but somehow I would create another support system and go on.

The imagined challenge that I chose is becoming blind. I believe that all of the support factors that I have in my life would remain, they would just be altered a bit. I would also need to find additional supports such as: an Occupational Therapist to teach me how to negotiate my daily needs, public transportation because I would no longer be able to drive, and The Blind Center to learn how to read Braille. If I were blind and these supports went away I would not only be devastated, I would also be restricted in what I could do. Depending on how long I had these supports in my life before they disappeared I might not know how to do very basic things such as get food from the grocery store or go to work. Having a challenge, such as blindness, can make the loss of a support system even more dire than losing it as a person without a special need.

Expanding Opportunities for Inclusion

In the discussion, I mentioned that I had a wonderful opportunity to be a part of project called Expanding Opportunities for Inclusion. Out of the work some really great stuff happened that I want to share. These are the goals that we accomplished during the project.

Utah Expanding Opportunities for Inclusion Successes

• Awareness and Information Sharing-

• Use DEC/NAEYC Position Statement to determine common language around Special Needs and Inclusion
• Identify and contact appropriate stakeholder agencies to be included in an annual meeting to establish collaboration opportunities and information sharing
• Create a resource page for the Care About Childcare and the Child Care Professional Development Institute (CCPDI) websites that list agencies that support special needs
• Create a white paper that promotes the idea of “ALL MEANS ALL!” for distribution

• Coordinate Professional Development-

Stakeholder agencies will contribute to a coordinated well prepared early childhood workforce, which is knowledgeable and supportive of early childhood development and inclusive practices.

• Professional Development Connections update to CCPDI website
• Online resources available to all providers and parents
• Special Needs Education at Higher Ed level
• Promote Ages and Stages Developmental Screening Training statewide
• Share the 40 Special Needs OCC Endorsement
• Include stakeholders in the development of the Quality Recognition and Information System (QRIS)
• Space that allows all early childhood entities, including those that directly support Special Needs, to advertise their professional development opportunities on the CCPDI website.
• An award for child care providers who are strongly supporting inclusive environments in their child care programs-the All Means All Award

  

Here is a link to QRIS system-go to "Parents-Search" 

www.careaboutchildcare.utah.gov

Here is the letter that childcare programs receive when they earn the All Means All Award. They get this by taking 40 hours of Special Needs Training, having the Special Needs tab on their QRIS inviting families of children with special needs to become a part of their program, and having earned quality criteria on their QRIS Quality Indicators tab.

All Means All Inclusion Award

Congratulations! You have qualified to receive the “All Means All Inclusion Award” for supporting children with special needs in your program! This award is given to child care providers and programs that support the idea that all young children need meaningful opportunities to develop skills, establish a sense of self, and lay a foundation for life-long learning. Child care providers do this by providing access to an inclusive quality programs. They also seek out services that enhance children’s overall early learning and development, and that benefit the child, the family, the child care professional, and the community. This improves the chances for children of all abilities to lead healthy, productive lives. Thank you for remembering to include ALL children!

 

 

My Connections to Play

You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a years’ worth of conversation 

~Plato

The opposite of play is not work-it’s depression

 ~Brian Sutton-Smith

 

I love the topic of this weeks blog because it takes me back to my childhood and makes me smile. I was fortunate to grow up in a safe neighborhood where there were lots of children. My sister and I would get up in the morning, have breakfast, and take off to play. The mothers in the neighborhood would feed lunch to all of the children who were at her house at noon, and then everyone would go home for dinner…often re-emerging after dinner to play a game of kick-soccer or hide-and-seek.  We got to know each other very well through, and when we couldn’t go out and play it was awful! My favorite toys were my Mrs. Beasley doll, my costume box, and my swing set. All of these things required my imagination, and none of these items had an “on” switch or batteries. Children today are surrounded by electronics and closed-ended toys that only have one purpose. However, when young children are given the chance to have unstructured play using items that are open-ended, their creativity does emerge. My hope for young children today is that they are given opportunities by their parents and caregivers to experience long periods of child-directed play, especially outside, with no toys that plug in or turn on.

I love to play and that is a HUGE reason why I was drawn to the field of early childhood! I am in administration now, but I never pass up the chance to go into a classroom and play with the playdough or dig in the sandbox. I am still very playful, and it sometimes gets me into trouble with colleagues that have forgotten that learning/producing and playing do go hand in hand. I think that my early experiences of hour upon hour of creative play have made me a more innovative adult and a better advocate for the early childhood field.