Final Blog Assignment

One consequence I learned from the podcasts is the passion that each professional had for the early childhood field.  This was shown by the way they spoke about their programs and communicated their personal stories.  Having passion for the field you work in is essential in order to have the greatest positive influence on child's life. 

A second consequence is the knowledge and information I gained from various countries and programs.  I was able to get a better understanding of various programs and how each one of them impacted and made a difference in a child's life. 

A third consequence is the implications of access or lack of access to quality health care and the impact it has on children.  Health plays such a vital role in the development of a child.  Those without health care are without a great disadvantage.

One goal is provide awareness and access to high quality programs for all children.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts

I listened to a podcast provided by Irma Allen.  Irma is Chairperson of the Swaziland Environment Authority (the equivalent of the EPA in the United States), and a member of the World Forum Nature Action Collaborative for Children.  She is passionate about early childhood.  One of the challenges she faces is the ability to train teachers and community members with regards to early childhood.  Her focus is on the nature dimension of early childhood.  There are no classrooms and that nature is the classroom.  They take opportunities throughout the day to teach children what is happening in their environment.  In her conversation, she mentioned a person who once attended their early childhood center and he shared that this program helped him appreciate his country and his environment more. 

The website provided by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organizations gives information regarding education systems and how to strengthen them.  The section discussing early childhood has three of the main areas to focus on with trying to improve education programs.  The first category is access.  It is believed that learning begins at birth showing the importance of early childhood education.  The second category is quality.  It insures quality programs by providing trainings, materials, and curriculum that focuses on all children holistically.  The final category is investment.  This is an extremely important issue as many countries are struggling to provide the fund to create quality programs.  Providing quality programs to children and families is part of my professional goals and along with ensuring the needs of all children are met.  The information provided by the website goes along with my professional goals by addressing this issue in a much larger scale.

Sharing Web Resources

The Zero to Three website includes a section regarding maltreatment.   In this section, there are outside links to resources that respond to the needs of children and families impacted by maltreatment, violence, loss, and disaster.  The links included “Child Maltreatment” and “Defining Trauma and Child Traumatic Stress.  I chose to look deeper in the site “Defining Trauma and Child Traumatic Stress”.  This site spoke about the two different types of circumstances that children and adolescents experience trauma.  The first circumstance is called Acute traumatic events.  Acute traumatic events occur at a particular time and place and are usually short-lived.  Traumatic events include school shootings, gang related violence, natural disasters, serious accidents, sudden loss of a loved one, and physical or sexual assault.  The second type of circumstance is chronic traumatic situations.  Chronic traumatic situations is exposure to trauma that can occur repeatedly over long periods of time. Chronic traumatic situations include some forms of physical abuse, long-standing sexual abuse, domestic violence and wars.

This site also talks about child traumatic stress.  Child traumatic stress occurs when children and adolescents are exposed to traumatic events or traumatic situations, and when this exposure overwhelms their ability to cope with what they have experienced.  Children respond to traumatic stress in different ways.  Many children show signs of intense stress which include disturbed sleep, difficulty paying attention and concentrating, anger and irritability, withdrawal, repeated and intrusive thoughts, and extreme distress.  Even though some children bounce back from a traumatic situation they can suffer from long term consequences and effect their development.  Repeated exposure to traumatic events can affect the child's brain and nervous system and increase the risk of low academic performance, engagement in high-risk behaviors, and difficulties in peer and family relationships.

This website offers a section regarding Early Care and Education.  This section mentions the importance of positive early learning experiences and how it lays the foundation for later school success.  This section offers three links that include Child Care, Family, Friend, and Neighbor Care, and School Readiness Interactive Birth to 3.  All of these circumstances have the potential to provide high quality education for young children. 

After looking more into child maltreatment and traumatic stress it is importance to look not only at current situations, but also past situations that the child was involved with, in order to fully understand and support the child and family. 

International Contacts Part 2

I chose to listen to a podcast done by Delfenna Mitchell.  Delfena Mitchell is a director at Liberty Children's Home in Beliz.  Beliz is placed number one in child abuse in North Caribean.  Children who are in the home are either physically or sexually abused or abanded or neglected.  She spoke about a child who came to the home after being physically abused by family members and also watched his sister be abused.  This child did not speak a word for over a year.  Delfena Mitchell feels that it is important to allow children to take time to heal when children come to the home.  They allow children to be home schooled and placed in informal schooling with providing time to engage in various activities such as gardening and horseback riding.  One day while horseback riding with this child, he began to talk to her about the abuse he experienced in the past.  After that day, he began to open up more and more.  After listening to this story, it reminded me of the importance of allowing children to heal and open up on their own terms.  When working with children in any situation we need to be aware of the child's needs and be patient and give them the opportunity to become comfortable.

After viewing Harvard's University Global Children's Initiative, I noticed that many of the issues mentioned are issues that many of us face in our own communities.  The faculty has begun to build a porfolio of activities in three different domains.  The three domains include early childhood development, child mental health and children in crisis in conflict situations.  In the area of early childhood development part of the initiative is to provide new information based on research to key people involved in international education.  The second part is to fundraise money and pilot common assessments and programs to unify education around the globe.  Mental health is an area that has not been addressed sufficiently.  In order to help in this area funding is being allocated to provide supports in specific areas depending on the need around the world.  Another need is the need to support children who have experienced a crisis.  Programs are being created to help support chidren who find themselves in these situations such as the children in Haiti and Chili after the earthquake as well as the implications from malnutrition. 

While we see many of these issues in early childhood in our country we need to realize that situations could be much worse.  It is necessary for educational leaders around the world to collaborate in order for all children to get their needs met and become healthy individuals.