Getting to Know International Contacts

CENTRAL African Republican Conflict Podcast, By Suzanna Beukes

The political crisis in Central African Republic has escalated to a complex humanitarian emergency.  Millions of people have fled their home due to the brutal violence of the terrorists groups.  UNICEF’s Humanitarian campaign has raised nearly 2.2 billion dollars. This money will be used to provide food, shelter, and medicine for the refugee families and children. Without this help it’s estimated that over 75,000 children will suffer from sever malnutrition.  Even with the money, access to the remote country of Bouar proves to be a challenge for humanitarian groups such as UNICEF.  UNICEF has partnered with other humanitarian groups to get the resources to the families and children that need it.

Insights from the UNESCO website

From 2/17/14- 2/20/14 UNESCO hosted a mobile learning in service for teachers in Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Senegal. This in service provided teachers with different strategies on how to use mobile technical devices such as telephones to enhance classroom instruction. The benefits, challenges, access, and questions of online security of mobile devices were also discussed in the workshop. As technology continues to increase in our society my professional goal is to learn how to use different gadgets such as I-pads, tablets, and even cell phones to provide additional learning opportunities for the children in my class.

2-20-14 was “World Day of Social Justice”! Part of UNESCO’s vision includes the universal recognition of human rights to help build a better world. Massive global poverty, wide spread social inequalities, and severe environment destruction are just a few of the social ills that plague our world. UNESCO is doing its parts to promote social justice by setting up global partnerships that are based on rights, democratic negotiation, and the delivery of global public goods. I truly believe everyone is entitled to a quality education. My professional goal towards social justice is to learn more about different cultures and resources so I can be more responsive to the families of different nationalities.

UNESCO was created in 1945 and since then has worked to show that education plays a critical role in human, social, and economic development. While they have many programs to promote international education the program that was most impressive to me was the “Lifelong Learning Systems”. In this program UNESCO helps countries implement and improve education system ranging from early childhood education to post-secondary education.  As an infant teacher I realize the importance of early childhood education and the systems that follow it. Knowing the importance of each of the educational systems my professional goal consists of receiving the latest training and information so I can provide quality learning opportunities for the children and families in my center and throughout the community.

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

·         Follow some of the outside links that you have not yet explored. Where do they lead? Some of the outside links of the “Child Aware America” website that I chose to follow was the Crisis and Disaster resource segment. These two links led me to information about resources that can be used to help parents, caregivers, school professional, and referral agencies during traumatic events. I was happy to find many of the informational links were in Spanish and French.  Children, The, Kid power: Helping Children Regain their Emotional Safety After a Tragedy, and Mental Health America: Talking to Kids about School Safety were other links that offered further early child education support.

• If you receive an e-newsletter, follow a link related to one of the issues you have been studying. What new information is available?  One of the issues that I’ve been following is the lack of infant and toddler programs in our country. Over the last three weeks I’ve been following the Office of Administrating for children and Families to see if any changes were in place to improve this issue. I’m excited to report that Tuesday 2/11/14, The Administration for Children and Families has begin its webpage for Early Head Start and Childcare partnerships.  As an infant teacher this is exciting to me because it will expand high quality early learning programs to over 100,000 infants and toddler.

The following items are found on this website

• overview of the Early Head Start – Child Care Partnerships Initiative
• Learn more about the President’s Early Learning Initiative
• Learn how to apply for ACF Grants
• Explore resources to develop successful partnerships between Early Head Start (EHS) grantees and family child care
• View a toolkit on blending and braiding early childhood program funding streams

·         The issue this week concerned overcoming barriers such as awareness, accessibility, and responsiveness with in the early childhood field.  The newsletter featured an article that talked running a high quality early childhood center. Some off the key components were encouraging family involvement, maintaining an enriching curriculum, and promoting safety in and outside of the child care facility.  Under the article was links to different ways a teacher can promote each of these standards.

·         Equity and Excellence was reflected in the “Cost of Childcare “segment. An article comparing childcare costs to college tuition was found in the newsletter. Marcikrivean states 12,000 is spent annually on an infant’s childcare expense.  It turns out that the monthly average of childcare for an infant costs more food for a family of 4.   The expensive cost of quality childcare explains why middle income families lose out. They don’t qualify for state and federal funded programs like Head Start but they can’t afford 12-17,000 childcare expense. In many cases families have to decide work or childcare.   Childcare in the United States is by no means equal and many times the level of excellence depends on the how much the families can afford.

·         All parents want to know that their child is safe while they are at work. I ran across an article on the website that explained parent’s frustration on the difficulty of finding quality daycares because of waiting Lists, lack of online information and overloaded inspectors.   When trying to find a quality early child care center it’s recommended that  parents stop by unannounced, for random visits and inspections, volunteer in the day care to get to know the staff and watch them interact with her children and call state of  licensing department to see if there were any complaints lodged against the day care. The unfortunate fact is even with doing all of this, children can still be at risk and many times the parents won’t know until something traumatic happens. This article made me realize the importance of background checks and accountability in early child development centers.

Getting to know International Contact

CENTRAL African Republican Conflict Podcast, By Suzanna Beukes

The political crisis in Central African Republic has escalated to a complex humanitarian emergency.  Millions of people have fled their home due to the brutal violence of the terrorists groups.  UNICEF’s Humanitarian campaign has raised nearly 2.2 billion dollars. This money will be used to provide food, shelter, and medicine for the refugee families and children. Without this help it’s estimated that over 75,000 children will suffer from sever malnutrition.  Even with the money, access to the remote country of Bouar proves to be a challenge for humanitarian groups such as UNICEF.  UNICEF has partnered with other humanitarian groups to get the resources to the families and children that need it.

 

Insights from the UNESCO website

From 2/17/14- 2/20/14 UNESCO hosted a mobile learning in service for teachers in Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Senegal. This in service provided teachers with different strategies on how to use mobile technical devices such as telephones to enhance classroom instruction. The benefits, challenges, access, and questions of online security of mobile devices were also discussed in the workshop. As technology continues to increase in our society my professional goal is to learn how to use different gadgets such as I-pads, tablets, and even cell phones to provide additional learning opportunities for the children in my class.

2-20-14 was “World Day of Social Justice”! Part of UNESCO’s vision includes the universal recognition of human rights to help build a better world. Massive global poverty, wide spread social inequalities, and severe environment destruction are just a few of the social ills that plague our world. UNESCO is doing its parts to promote social justice by setting up global partnerships that are based on rights, democratic negotiation, and the delivery of global public goods. I truly believe everyone is entitled to a quality education. My professional goal towards social justice is to learn more about different cultures and resources so I can be more responsive to the families of different nationalities.

UNESCO was created in 1945 and since then has worked to show that education plays a critical role in human, social, and economic development. While they have many programs to promote international education the program that was most impressive to me was the “Lifelong Learning Systems”. In this program UNESCO helps countries implement and improve education system ranging from early childhood education to post-secondary education.  As an infant teacher I realize the importance of early childhood education and the systems that follow it. Knowing the importance of each of the educational systems my professional goal consists of receiving the latest training and information so I can provide quality learning opportunities for the children and families in my center and throughout the community.

Sharing Web Resources

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


The Providers section of Childcare Aware of America has information about child care licensing, training, and how to start a child care business, staff it, and maintain a quality childcare facility. I found the Leadership Matters webinar to be helpful in teaching early childhood professionals how to be leaders in their schools and community. 

The Disaster preparedness allowed me to reflect on VCU's current emergency plan. While I feel my center has a plan that promotes safety in the case of an emergency, I do believe there this site provided areas where we can improve on. I look forward to talking with my colleagues and supervisors to see different things we can add to our emergency plan for safety and improvement.   

The Take Action segment gave information of how early child professionals can get involved with local and national leaders and explain the importance of quality child care.  Our observations and opinions are the best information for researchers, economist, politicians, and neuroscientist because we deal with children and education on a daily basis. As the site said, "Every voice counts"! It's truly are job to show people in different professionals the importance of early childhood education.

The Don't cut Child Care and Background Check Campaigns were just a few of the advocacy efforts that were made by Child Care Aware of America. While I'm very aware of the constant battle of  trying to save child care by explaining its value, I was taken by surprise to learn that there is no national safe guard to ensure that care providers don't have a criminal background.  Nearly 11 million children are left in the hands of people who may or may not be criminals. As a parent this frighten me, and I will be joining the 2014 Background Check Campaign.

I found each of the segments of this website to be very enlightening and I look forward to learning more information about the issue and trends of early childhood programs in the near future!