Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

 

 

            This week I spoke to Taesha Rowe who is and early childhood professional originally from Jamaica where she was a high school teacher.  Mrs. Rowe is currently stationed in Naples, Italy on a military base. She has three children and is a wife to an active duty member. Mrs. Rowe’s husband has been in the Navy for 16 years. They have been together for 18 years but married for 11. Mrs. Rowe has been with the Department of Defense (DOD) for nine years. She started working as a flexible employees with a child development center in Connecticut.  Mrs. Rowe moved to Virginia with her husband and children and worked as a toddler program lead teacher at a DOD child development center.  Currently Mrs. Rowe works with DOD as an Assistant Director at the child development center in Naples, Italy (Taesha Rowe, personal communication, November 28, 2014). 

I asked Mrs. Taesha Rowe about issues in excellence and equality in early childhood field: How do you measure excellence in Early Childhood?  Mrs. Rowe discussed how it was difficult to do so.  However, Mrs. Rowe discussed how the lives we impact are not subjected to a particular test to measure the caregiver's success. Unlike the elementary level where the teacher's success can be measured by the academic success of her students, in early childhood it is usually about the parent's view on their child's development. Not only is this the first difficulty, but there are other obstacles. Excellence in early childhood education, I believe, is limited because of the guardians' understanding on the service offered. Many believe that early childhood education is about "baby sitting" and "potty training." Caregivers may not be encouraged to strive for excellence because of others opinions of what they do. Despite all these different pieces, Mrs. Rowe feels there is still excellence in the field. Caregivers who have identified each child in their care as an individual and treat him/her as such, focuses on how individual children meet their milestones  (Taesha Rowe, personal communication, November 28, 2014). 

There are a few issues with equality in the field. Gender is certainly a consideration in the early childhood field. There are still parents who feel "uncomfortable" with male caregivers. Mrs. Rowe discussed how she had situations where parents have approached her and asked "Does Mr....... change my daughter's diaper?" or "Is Mr...... allowed to be alone with my child during nap time?" In Mrs. Rowe’s experience, early childhood is predominantly dominated by young single females. Another issue of equality in early childhood is caregivers of the minority groups who are in management positions. While there are many caregivers of minority groups working in the classrooms, managerial positions are usually held by White Americans. It is however fair to say that this trend is changing slowly (Taesha Rowe, personal communication, November 28, 2014). 

Sharing Web Resources

    

 

          I have e-mailed Zero to Three in order to register for the e-newsletter.  I have not yet received a link to access the newsletter. Until I get a response I also e-mailed NAEYC.  I browed Zero to Three’s website at www. http://www.zerotothree.org, and I was able to access the featured update. The topic was the 2014 budget proposal of President Obama. In the proposal there is a large investment on the field of early childhood education with the focus on learning.  The funding focuses on supporting children and families that utilize or need access to Early Head Start with 1.4 billion dollars to expand these supports. To ensure programs provide high quality for the working families that need to place their children in programs, 200 million dollars is planned to be allocated. A 10 year span is planned using seven billion dollars to ensure children and their families have the ability to use programs that provide high quality such as child care  ("The President’s Budget Proposal: A Groundbreaking Moment For Our Nation’s Babies", 2013).

With the budget plans this will help support implementing home visits to reach more families in the community by investing 15 billion dollars spanning 10 years. To support children during their development the plan helps parents learn about evidence based practices to support their child’s development in all areas including their brain. With the President’s plan the budget plans to help by staring early with young children’s education by supporting children and families to ensure the programs provide consistency, implement practices that are evidence-based, and provide high-quality. These efforts also supports parents by helping them nurture and support their child’s development into adulthood ("The President’s Budget Proposal: A Groundbreaking Moment For Our Nation’s Babies", 2013).

In conclusion, I learned that it is important to continue to invest in supporting children and families early.  The need is to ensure that program are high-quality.  According to U.S. Department of Education (n.d.), “Today, fewer than three in ten 4-year olds are enrolled in a high-quality preschool program...Studies prove that children who have rich early learning experiences are better prepared to thrive in kindergarten and beyond.” In the multimedia segment Dr. Grace discussed how there was not enough word about how early childhood programs need support and how funds have been “underutilized” (Laureate Education, 2011). The information provided by Zero to Three helps get more information out about how there is a plan to support early childhood education.  I think it is important for organizations to continue to provide information about research, benefits, and funding that will support children and families throughout the child’s educational journey.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 1

     On UNICEF website www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/index_childpoverty.html, I was able to access UNICEF’s Global Study on child poverty and disparities.  This led me to the Child Poverty Blog.  Once I got on the webpage I clicked on the child poverty report for Namibia.  While reading the report I gained insight on the high level of poverty among children that lived in Namibia.  According to the report, 1 out of 3 children living in Namibia live in poor households.  The households may consist of one or more adults that stay home to take care of their young children or an elderly family member. The rate of poverty also increase when no one is working in the household, a female caregiver of the children has only primary education or no education at all.  Poverty also exists in the households of Namibia when there is a lack of money to take care of everyone. Due to the low income children grow up with lasting impacts such as low birth, higher death rates, stunted growth and poor outcomes in education.  There are also concerns with children’s well-being.  In Namibia children have less access to help meet their basic needs such as medical care and receiving an education.                                                               

     I also gained insight about the immediate need to address the poverty concerns in Namibia.  There was an assessment done using the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2009/10  to provide “the evidence on the extent of child poverty, the children who are most likely to be poor and the impacts the social grants have on reducing child poverty” (“Child poverty in Namibia: A child-centered analysis of the NHIES 2009/10,” 2012, p. 4). According to the assessment, another level of poverty resulted in a large majority of children in the household not having access to some material goods.  Some of those goods are cell phones or telephones, vehicles, refrigerators, televisions, stoves that are gas or electric and bicycles.                                             

     Finally, I learned that social grants play a role in reducing poverty levels in Namibia.  According to the assessment report, one of the grants that has supported a large number of children in poverty is the old age pension support.  The old age pension supports individuals over the age of 60.  There are also child maintenance grants that are for children under 18 years old.  The grant extends to 21 years old if the child attend college.  In order to be eligible for the grant the household has to fall in a certain level of poverty.  Implementing the social grants in Namibia have shown some improvements to decrease the number of children growing up in poverty.  “If the household would not receive any grants, the poverty rate among them would be 61.9 percent rather than the 38.9 percent currently experienced in household receiving grants” (“Child poverty in Namibia: A child-centered analysis of the NHIES 2009/10,” 2012, p. 18). 

 

Sharing Web Resources

The newsletter I subscribed to was Zero To Three.  The website is ZERO TO THREE Community online: http://www.zerotothree.org.  I got an e-mail response from the site administrator on November 1, 2014.  In the e-mail I was notified that I would not have access to the E-newsletter for two weeks.  I chose Zero to Three to learn more about the organization.  It is a nonprofit organization that provides information on how to nurture children during early childhood.  Information is available to parents, teachers, professionals and policymakers. The organization also provides trainings and support to individuals involved with young children.  Zero to Three’s mission is to ensure young children ranging from birth to toddler are provided a good start in life.

I was able to browse the website to find out more information.  While browsing an issue that caught my eye was the topic challenging behavior.  Currently I work at a child development center where we are noticing an increase in challenging behaviors.  I am the trainer for the facility and I am always looking for information to bring back to the teachers and families.  One training opportunity stood out to me specifically.  The training is for professionals working with military and veteran families.  I work at a military child development center.  The program is not open to the public only to military personal and department of defense employees.  The training charges a fee for the trainers to provide training at a fee of three thousand dollars for a full day.  Some of the training topics offered are: coming together around military families: supporting young children through challenging times and coming together around military families what babies need.  Teachers and families also have an opportunity to listen to audio-conferences and webinars on the same topics.

 

 

Getting Ready-Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

       To begin establishing professional contacts early childhood professionals I referred the blog resource pages.  My initial instinct was to contact my sister who is also an early childhood professional who is currently stationed in Korea.  I emailed her to see if she could help connect me to some professionals that work at the military child development center.  I also emailed several early childhood professionals listed on the research page.  I went onto The Global Alliance of NAEYC and e-mailed several professionals that were listed.  I e-mailed Jane Lim from Association for Early childhood Education, Blesilda Rios from the center for Early Childhood Care & Development, Juan Sanchez from World Association of Early childhood Educators, Yvonne Dionne from Canadian Child Care Federation, and Dominique Hudicourt from Step by Step Program/ Tipa Tipa.  I have not yet had a response from anyone that I e-mailed.  My plan is to call NAEYC directly to see if they can refer me to some professionals I can make contact with or use the alternate choice for the blog assignment.

           I decided to study and find out more information about PEW Charitable Trusts.  I subscribed to their newsletter to find out information.  I chose this organization because I have had the most experience working with preschool age children.  I also chose to find out more information about National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators because most of my early childhood jobs have followed standards set by NAEYC.  Lastly, I subscribed to Zero to Three because to find out more information because I work as a training specialist and support children and families in my program about children’s development.