- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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/
I think these initiatives are a great first step to helping children receive better early education across the globe.
ReplyDeleteLorren-
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information. I believe there needs to be more support for children and their families in crisis. Many times, we don't understand the complex issues that arise from this. In my community, there isn't a lot of support for families in crisis but recently, numbers have been increasing and the community integration specialists are asking for support so they can support these families. I am glad to hear that Harvard is doing an in-depth study of this and looking at long term as well.
Victoria
Lorren, You make the point very well that we need to take into account the whole child. Working with children and families who are experiencing crisis is part of our work as early childhood educators. I believe we need to address the needs of the child and family in these circumstances if we are to be successful in educating young children.
ReplyDelete