UNESCO’s “Early Childhood Care and Education

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization) advocates for Early Childhood and Education programs that attend to health, nutrition, security and children's development and learning. UNESCO works with Member States and other stakeholders to encourage implementation of the Moscow Framework so that all young children develop their full potential.   

• Quality = As of right now there is not criteria for quantifying Early Childhood Care and Education but they provide recommendations to consider including pedagogy materials, personnel training, service setting and parental education and involvement. 
• Access and Equity = governments providing resources among different populations but emphasizing individuals that live in disadvantage regions.  

I enjoyed reading over this website but have learned that all countries are struggling to find the appropriate criteria for highly qualified educators.  Through this week we have read many recommendations for highly qualified teachers but there are no policies.  After looking over this website I browsed a few State Department of Education websites to see what they consider "highly qualified" and many stated holding a BA and having the credentials/license for teaching, but through our discussions we have learned it is much more than that.  You can own the paper that states you are a licensed teacher but that doesn't mean you are qualified.  We have to have the love for working with children and wanting them to be life longer learners. 

Reference:

United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization. (2012). Retrieved from: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/

Quality Preschool for All

After the State of the Union address this week I thought it would be appropriate to look into the details about Obama's plan for Pre-K.  I received the e-newsletter from Early Ed. News Clips on a daily basis and Friday, there was a full article about Obama's plan for Pre-K.  There are three main components to the plan

1. A state-federal partnership to guarantee pre-K to all 4-year-olds in families at or below the poverty line and to have teachers with the same level of education and training as K-12 instructions. (The Washington Post)
2. Expand on Early Head Start and expand on programs that already exist.  
3. Expand Nurse Family Partnerships which provides home visits to mothers who are pregnant through age 2 of the child to promote good health and parenting skills.

I feel that this is a good plan and in the right direction for early childhood but we have a long way to go.  Now, its time to put this plan into action by first creating the partnerships with school districts and getting the education and training that teachers need to become qualified instructors. 

References:

New America Foundation: Early Ed News Clips. Retrieved from: http://earlyed.newamerica.net

 

The Washington Post. Retrieved from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/14/read-obamas-pre-k-plan/#comments

Global Children's Initiative

Global Children's Initiative is part of The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.  Global Children’s Initiative has built activities in three domains: early childhood development; mental health; and children in crisis and conflict situations. Each area is lead by a group of individuals that will facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration and design and implement new projects.

1. Early Childhood Development- under this domain Global Children's Initiative plans to educate leaders in international organizations the best way to show science of child development to key policymakers.  They also have several pilot programs going on in Zambia and Chile to increase preschool quality.
2. Child Mental Health- with this domain Harvard faculty want to identify the scope of the problem across countries and develop an evidence-based approach in policy that will be responsive to all cultures.
3. Children in Crisis- this group is working with other departments at Harvard to incorporate a science-based development perspective into managing children's well-being in regards to natural and man-made crisis.   The science-based development will focus on immediate circumstances as well as long term.  

It is the Initiatives hope to education and conduct trainings to incorporate all three domains.

As educators, we look at the "whole" child and need to include children's mental health and crisis that they may have been through when developing relationships.  I feel that this initiative is taking the "whole" child into consideration as well and advocating for unaddressed issues that have been surfacing for a long time.


Reference
Global Children's Initiative. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (2012) Retrieved from:    http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/global_initiative/

Web Resources- Childcare Aware of America

I chose Childcare Aware of America website (http://www.naccrra.org) and one interesting article I read from this website was advocating for quality early childhood programs and providing studies about why quality is important for young children.  This article is relevant to my professional development because I want to assist programs in my area to become high quality and receive 5 stars. Having this article is helpful to show other early childhood educators and families the importance of quality. 

One section of the article discussed how many parents think that childcare workers are trained.  "More than two-thirds of parents believe child care programs are licensed, caregivers undergo a background check, are trained in first-aid and CPR and are trained to recognize and report signs of child abuse. Actually, standards vary by state and many states have minimal or no such requirements" (The National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, 2012).  This made me think of this issue in new ways and how we have a long way to go to make quality programs and we need to start with simple things to make our children safe like trained first-aid and CPR staff.  This article also made me research my own state and I learned that a law was just passed Jan. 1, 2013 that all childcare providers must conduct a background check.  For the years I have worked in the field I always thought this was a state law.  Learning the new law brought a new insight to me and I am glad that my state has stepped up to the plate to undergo background checks but I know that we have a long way to make high quality programs.

Researching the website more there are several campaigns going on including Background Check Campaign and Don't Cut Childcare Campaign that Childcare Aware of America support.  There is also a section just for Public Policy.  The whole section has information about how there are many politicians supporting early childcare. 

Another issue that I found insight about was helping families and children cope with traumatic events.  I have gained insight that this is another issue happening in our educational environments that we need to be aware of.  The website gave helpful resources for families and educators on how to talk with children about traumatic events. 

References
The National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies,  2012. QUALITY CHILD CARE MATTERS. Retrieved from: http://www.naccrra.org/sites/default/files/default_site_pages/2012/ccgb_quality_matters_jan2012.pdf