The Recognition of Policy Makers in the Early Childhood Field

This week we have been discussing how policy makers, economists and scientists are recognizing the importance of early childhood education to the future of America.  Exciting changes in early childhood policy are being made that have the potential to drastically impact the early childhood field.  One very positive change on the horizon is a new legislative bill, The Child Care Protection Act, being introduced that will require comprehensive background checks for all licensed, regulated and registered child care providers.  The National Child Care Resource and Referral Organization, Child Care Aware of America, is highly supportive of this new legislation.  I have attached a link to their position below:

http://www.naccrra.org/news-room/press-releases/2013/3/child-care-aware®-of-america-supports-the-child-care-protection-act-

This bill is certainly needed because, as the Child Care Aware website stated:

Child Care Aware® of America has released six reports that examine state laws and regulations with regard to child care centers and family child care homes. The most recent reports have found that only 13 states require a comprehensive check for staff in a child care center. Only 11 states require a comprehensive check for individuals licensed to operate a family child care home.

Child Care Aware has long been a strong advocate for the health, safety and quality of child care centers across America.  This new bill is an exciting change and will provide more accountability for child care providers.  Perhaps one of the shocking reasons this bill is finally being implemented is from research presented by Child Care Aware in their publication, Why Aren’t We Outraged? Children Dying in Childcare Across America (July 2012) http://www.naccrra.org/sites/default/files/publications/naccrra_publications/2012/why_arent_we_outraged_july_30_2012.pdf

As a Center Director of a high quality child development center, I appreciate this legislation and the standards that it will require more child care centers to meet.  All children deserve to be cared for in environments that are healthy, loving, safe and educational.  Parents should be able to leave their children with providers knowing that their child is safe and loved.  There is not an excuse to have any other type of environment for children!

Childhood Poverty in Romania

The impact of Poverty on Romanian Children:

Early Childhood Professional, Theresa Creel, has worked with different advocate organizations on behalf of Romanian children over the past 17 years.  Ms. Creel primarily works with the Institute for Human Dignity, which supports children’s rights and provides charity for children living in poverty in Romania. Ms. Creel also works with Jesus the Hope of Romania, which advocates for educational aspects for children in poverty, children with AIDS, orphaned children, disabled children, and support of higher quality education for children in poverty. 

I asked Ms. Creel to share her thoughts and experiences related to child poverty in Romania.  Ms. Creel (personal communication, March 18, 2013) responded:

There was great hope when communism collapsed in December 1989 after years of tremendous suffering under the totalitarian regime of Ceausescu. Unfortunately, this hope has often been challenged by continued and widespread poverty, and there are extreme situations for a large segment of Romania's vulnerable populations. I remember going to Romania for the first time more than 17 years ago after communism fell, and being emotionally devastated by the poverty and thousands of abandoned children. Romania was nicknamed "The Land of Orphans." There are still children who live on the streets, some I have seen living underground in sewers to keep warm in the winter-living with dead animals. I have visited hospitals where children with HIV were huddled together in one room with children diagnosed with tuberculosis. I have seen hundreds of children with little or no medical care and limited educational opportunities. Alex was abandoned when he was four years old. His mother put him on a train with two sandwiches and Alex suffered terrible abuse living on the streets of Timisoara, Romania. I remember Cosmin who was abandoned by his mother because he was HIV positive. She left Cosmin on the steps of a hospital where he died when he was a young adolescent; no one wanted him in life and no one would claim his body in death, so he was placed in a building behind the hospital for several days until a charitable organization offered to bury him. I have visited rows of cribs of abandoned and healthy babies in hospitals where they lived until they were almost two years old; it was not unusual for the infants to receive only about five minutes of personal attention per day. The depravation and lack of love and stimulation left many of these children disabled; after the hospital, they went to live in orphanages.  I remember going to one home to bring food for a single mother of four children. She had a blind infant (caused by the inappropriate amount of oxygen as a premature baby). Their home had one light bulb working because a neighbor had wired electricity from their home to help her as she could not pay her electric bill. There are not words to really describe this kind of poverty.

It is not only the children who are greatly impacted by poverty in Romania. A large segment of the population is Roma and the Roma are often more uneducated and unemployed. Discrimination against this ethnic group is fairly common. There are also limited safety nets for support of the elderly or disabled, and it is not unusual to see them living on the streets or in terrible living conditions. Walking down a street on Christmas Eve, I saw a young man trying to dig for a piece of dry bread on the street. His hands were crumpled and he could not grab the bread. He explained how he had been in a car accident and became disabled, and could not find a job. I bought him dinner and arranged for him to have a place to go regularly to eat.

There are no overnight fixes to address the level of poverty or all the myriad complex issues in Romania, but there are opportunities to help and make a difference. As with all genuine help, there are best methods and better provision. For abandoned and orphaned children, this means finding families they belong to, not orphanages they survive in. It means compassion that translates into effective support of micro-enterprise, educational opportunities, training for leadership in all spheres of community life, and it means improvement of healthcare and other systems. While no one person can effectively change everything - individuals, organizations, and churches can do something. It is always a privilege to be a small part of something that benefits another person.

According to the UNICEF Website, Romanian children from poor and rural areas are more likely than other children to be abandoned, institutionalized, to drop out of school, and later to be found on the streets. Furthermore, there are emerging issues such as children left behind by parents migrating to other countries in search of better job opportunities. 
Weaknesses in preventive and integrated community-based services, combined with poor family care practices and changing social norms and values have lead to these manifestations (http://www.unicef.org/romania/overview.html).

Save the Children and UNICEF have called upon political parties to undertake ten commitments to improve the situation of children in Romania.  These ten commitments have been included in a Manifesto for Children, launched on November 20, 2012 – to mark the Universal Children’s Day.

By endorsing the Manifesto, initiative supporters commit to promote in the coming period public policies that will contribute to the:

1.  Provision of quality social services for child protection and for the prevention of child separation from family (through: preventive public policies; adequate funding to deploy at least one social worker in every community; no placement of children under three and children with disabilities in institutions);

2.  Social inclusion of disadvantaged Roma children (through: access to education, social and health services for Roma children);

3.  Prevention of violence against children (through measures in schools, in the society and related to the use of new technologies and the online environment, including by supporting parent education and positive discipline);

4.  Protection of children with disabilities (through: education, health and social protection services for them and by addressing discrimination and stigmatisation);

5.  Provision of quality health care to mother and child (through measures and funds that can help to reduce maternal and under-5 mortality rates);

6.  Development of services for children’s mental health (through public policies and access to medical and recovery services, including by setting up new mental health centers);

7.  Delivery of quality education to all children (through: adequate budgetary allocations; drop-out prevention; early education promotion);

8.  Strengthened cooperation between the public sector and non-governmental organizations (through: NGO involvement in public policy development and budgetary allocation decision making; by capitalizing on the expertise of NGOs; by working together to develop specialized services for children);

9.  Enhanced consultation with and participation of children in decision making (through: strengthened Student Councils; access for children to useful and child-friendly information; authorities’ consultation with children);

10.           More efficient monitoring and management of child rights implementation (by setting up Children’s Ombudsman; mandating a specialized unit to oversee child rights application and relevant evaluation; choosing local and county agencies responsible for managing child rights fulfillment). 

(http://www.unicef.org/romania/media_21062.html)

The new insights have I learned from my professional exchanges and information I have gathered from the UNICEF Romanian website is that poverty, diminished healthy conditions, lack of education, and social issues has had devastating and inhumane effects on children.  I am deeply saddened and horrified of the conditions that these children must endure.  There is much to be done to advocate for child’s rights and wellness in Romania.  However, improvements can happen with the support of policy changes, increased societal education, and the increased efforts of charitable organizations and individuals.  I admire Ms. Creel’s dedication in advocating on behalf of these little ones.  In previous studies we learned that early childhood professionals are often the voice of children, because in situations such as these, children do not have a voice.  It is up to us to make a difference!

Sharing Web Resources

Last week I posted the links for the two web resources I chose, but here they are again.

National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies
 http://www.naccrra.org/
 (Newsletter: http://capwiz.com/naccrra/mlm/signup/ )

The more I explore this website, the more I learn of the many resources offered to both child care providers and parents.  I have not received their newsletter yet, so I researched several of the news postings and articles that the website shares.  One that interested me the most was a March 7, 2013 press release report titled, Child Care Aware of America Supports Findings of New Federal Report on Youth Physical Activity.  This report shows how Child Care Aware of America is supporting an ongoing commitment in partnering with the Let’s Move! Child Care initiative and professional development opportunities that empower providers to help children make healthier choices related to physical exercise and healthy eating.  I believe one key issue associated with early childhood today is the dangerous rise of childhood obesity, stress, and other chronic diseases, such as heart disease, hypertension, or type 2 diabetes.  These are major results from lack of exercise and healthy eating in children and adolescents.  I look forward to reading more about this issue in a link to the federal government’s guide to increase physical activity:

http://www.health.gov/paguidelines/midcourse/pag-mid-course-report-final.pdf

Association for Childhood Education International
  http://acei.org/
 (Review also these online resources at: http://acei.org/knowledge/ )

“Every child in every nation deserves a childhood full of 
hope, joy, freedom, and promise for the future” (ACEI, 2012)

I chose this website as a resource for current international early childhood issues and trends.  This site offers a large amount of information on the changing demographics and diversity in the early childhood field.  One article that I found especially interesting is titled, The Decade for Childhood 2012-2022 – The State of Childhood  http://acei.org/decadeforchildhood .  It presents five overall goals for the decade including addressing the need for cultural acceptance:

ACEI’s Goals of the Decade:

            1. Promote and protect childhood as a unique and critical stage of human                    development.

            2. Explore childhood from interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives.

            3. Identify issues that erode childhood.

            4. Advocate for children's rights as a vital element of childhood.

            5.  Translate the "Ten Pillars of a Good Childhood" into policies and practices that benefit all children 

Retrieved from: http://acei.org/programs-events/the-decade-for-childhood-2012-2022/page-4.html

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

Over the next eight weeks, I have been asked to broaden my perspective about the resources available in the early childhood field, as well as evaluate early childhood trends and issues both in the United States and in other countries. 

This week, I have tried to establish contacts with early childhood professionals who work with organizations in other countries:

UNICEF: I sent an email requesting contact information regarding current issues and trends in the early childhood field.  I have received an automated email replay stating that the request has been sent to a person working in this field of interest and I am waiting to hear from that person.

Spain: World Association of Early Childhood Educators.

The contact, Juan Sanchez’s personal email came back as unable to send, however, I am still waiting to hear back from the contact request I made through the organization’s website.

Haiti: Step By Step Program/Tipa Tipa

I am still waiting to hear back from an email I sent to Dominique Hudicourt, the representative of this program.

Romania

I have established contact with early childhood professional, Theresa Creel, who

has worked with different advocate organizations on behalf of Romanian children over the past 17 years.  Ms. Creel primarily works with the Institute for Human Dignity, which supports children’s rights and provides charity for children living in poverty in Romania. Ms. Creel also works with Jesus the Hope of Romania, which advocates for educational aspects for children in poverty, children with AIDS, orphaned children, disabled children, and support of higher quality education for children in poverty. She has worked a little with Casa Minuanta (Oradea, Romania), a school for disabled children, and now open to other children as well.  Additionally, Ms. Creel has lead and arranged for teams to build playgrounds, install bathrooms, and provide health education to a school in the poor village of Doclin, Romania. The school was originally built in 1776! She comments that they have, “Cute babies in that school!” I am very fortunate to have this amazing early childhood professional, and personal friend and mentor, as a contact to learn more about the current issues and trends in Romania.

I will also expand my early childhood resources by examining different early childhood organization’s websites:  I chose one in the United States, and one that has international connections:

National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies


http://www.naccrra.org/
 (Newsletter: http://capwiz.com/naccrra/mlm/signup/ )

I chose to examine the Child Care Resource and Referral Website because I am the director of a child care center and felt that the information I could learn from this website would directly impact me professionally. Child Care Aware of America works “with more than 600 state and local Child Care Resource and Referral agencies to endure that families in every local community have access to quality, affordable child care.  To achieve our mission, we lead projects that increase the quality and availability of child care, offer comprehensive training to child care professionals, undertake groundbreaking research, and advocate for child care policies that improve the lives of children and families” (naccrra.org, 2012).

I found this website helpful and look forward to examining these following resources that it offers:

*Online training for child care providers

*Recent reports and current trends related to the early childhood field

*Parent community information: becoming a child advocate, training, receive free e-newsletters

*Free webinars and trainings on early childhood topics.  One that was of great interest to me was the “Let’s Move! Child Care” campaign that presented information in promoting more physical activity and providing healthier food choices in early childhood

*Information about child care quality, school readiness, parent perspectives, child care demographics and cost in each state.

Association for Childhood Education International


http://acei.org/
 (online resources at: http://acei.org/knowledge/ )

I chose to review the ACEI website for international information on early childhood education issues and trends. 

The ACEI’s mission is:

“To promote and support the optimal education development, and well-being of children worldwide, and to influence the professional growth of educators and the efforts of others who are committed to the needs of children in changing society.  We have a consultative status with the United Nations” (acei.org)

*I loved the resource it provided on global news in the early childhood field

*I am also looking forward to examining more issues that are addressed in their website blog.  I quickly looked at this and found the following information very applicable to what we have already learned about in other courses:

According to ACEI: The Ten Pillars of a Good Childhood Include:

1.                   Safe and secure places for living, with learning and access to health care, clothing, and nutritious food

2.                   Strong families and loving, consistent caregivers

3.                   Social interactions and friendships

4.                   Creative play and physical activity

5.                   Appreciation and stewardship of the natural environment

6.                   Creative expression through music, dance, drama, and the other arts

7.                   Education that develops the full capacities of the child—cognitive, physical, social, emotional, and ethical

8.                   Supportive, nurturing, child-friendly communities

9.                   Growing independence and decision making

10.       Children and youth participating in community life.

http://acei.org/blog/entry/attacks-on-education-1.html

*ACEI also takes part in many early childhood initiatives – the current initiative is a global partnership with UNICEF and other major organizations on children with disabilities http://www.unicef.org/disabilities/index_65319.html