Sharing Web Resources: ISSA

I have been studying the International Step by Step Association (ISSA) website and reading the current ISSA newsletter for these past few weeks and have learned a lot from this web resource. As a professional, the section that is probably the most relevant to my professional development is the Global Network section. This section provides information on ISSA members and organizations (useful for contacting professionals in other parts of the world), the ISSA Newsletter (current issues in the field and ISSA projects), and ISSA’s partners (links to even more early childhood organizations and resources!).

The article I read this week was “New Publication: Early Childhood Development and Education in Emergencies: Country Profiles from the CEE/CIS Region.” This publication is the result of a project ISSA has been working on with UNICEF. The article describes this project which has focused how young children are included in emergency preparedness and response strategies in 5 countries in the CEE/CIS region (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Tajikistan). The results of the project found that “young children's needs and early childhood development (ECD) are generally absent from the emergency preparedness and response strategies in the region. Each of the five country profiles identifies a general omission of young children from emergency preparedness and response strategies” (Izsak, n.d.). From reading a little bit of the publication "Early Childhood Development and Education in Emergencies," I learned that this region has a lot of what the publication calls “emergencies,” including armed conflict, toxic waste, energy shortages, and natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, avalanches, etc.). In fact, Kyrgyzstan has about 200 natural disasters a year (ISSA, 2010)! Thinking about this gave me new insights into thinking about child development and how much the community and environment influences and impacts it. According to this article,” young children and the elderly are among the first victims and most vulnerable groups. Young children in emergency situations are more likely to experience life-threatening and other physically, emotionally, and socially extreme situations” and the “the negative impacts of emergencies on young children are multiple, affecting all dimensions of their development” (Izsak, n.d.). I just thought that this was really interesting and relevant today, especially in light of what is currently happening in the world!

In addition to this new insight, this article also showed me how other fields are supporting the early childhood field. The ISSA/UNICEF project was a result of poverty alleviation research (from the field of economics) and the article talks about how children’s brain development (from the field of neuroscience) is affected as a result from toxic stress which is the result from the “emergencies” in the region. This project is not only a collaboration of other fields but is working towards changing policies in the region so that young children and child development are better supported during times of emergencies.

This issue of how children are affected by emergencies in their region-whether they are from conflict or natural disaster is one that I think is particularly relevant today. The ISSA website has some really good information on issues such as these and what the early childhood programs in the region are doing to promote positive child development despite the challenges that they may face. Keeping up to date on global issues has helped me further understand just how many issues are affecting young children and their development today. Reading about this particular topic has made me wonder what is in place in my local community and region for young children in case of a natural disaster or emergency; I will now have to look into this!

References:

ISSA. (2010). Early Childhood Development and Education in Emergencies. Retrieved from: http://www.issa.nl/docs_pdfs/Unicef-country-profiles-final.pdf

Izsak, Eva. (n.d.). New Publication: Early Childhood Development and Education in Emergencies: Country Profiles from the CEE/CIS Region. Retrieved from ISSA website: http://www.issa.nl/news_publ2010.html

International Contacts: Alternative

I was really excited that I had heard back from 4 early childhood professionals in other parts of the world who said that they would like to be my contact, but unfortunately I have not heard back from them since then! Hopefully I will hear from them soon, but in the meantime, I listened to a podcast from World Forum Radio this week.

I chose to listen to Episode 6: Meridas Eka Yora. Mr. Yora is the founder and director of the institution Fajar Hidayah for Islamic Education, director of the Yayasan Fajar Hidayah Foundation, and has founded three boarding schools in Aceh, Indonesia for children who have been orphaned.

I picked this podcast because this week we have been discussing poverty and have looked at homelessness and how these issues affect children and their families. According to UNICEF, 29% of Indonesia’s population falls below the international poverty line of $1.25/day and there is an estimated 4,700 orphans (UNICEF, 2010). In the podcast, Mr. Yora talks about the orphans that he works with; most have been orphaned as a result of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake which killed over 225 Indonesians and left 500,000 homeless (World Forum Foundation, 2011). Others have been orphaned due to the conflict and war that has been going on for 30 years in Aceh. Mr. Yora talks about the challenges working with these orphans, he says that many have been traumatized-some having watched their parents being killed-and this has deeply affected them. The staff that work at his schools have had “special preparation” and act as family for the children as well as teachers in what Mr. Yora calls a “holistic approach” to create a home for the children (World Forum Radio, 2011). He talks about the challenges that the children face with not only losing their families but their homes as well, and how his program works to create a sense of home and community for them and provide them with the support that they need.

Since I have not been able to contact anyone else, I researched a little into poverty elsewhere in this region-India. Some background from the Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre (CHIP): India is a highly-populated country with a high percentage of people living in poverty, in fact, “India is home to the majority of poor people in South Asia” (CHIP, n.d.) and UNICEF says that 42% of the population falls below the international poverty line (UNICEF, 2010). The statistics for children are heartbreaking: about half of India’s children (62 million) under the age of 5 are malnourished and Indian children account for 20% of the world’s “out of school” children (CHIP, n.d.).

Reading about poverty in India from the CHIP website gave me some new insights and information about the issue of poverty:

1. Most of the anti-poverty programs in India are run by the central government. The measures they use include: increasing economic growth (through liberalization 0f the economy) specifically targeted programs (mainly rural employment creation/infrastructure development, self-employment, and food subsidy), land and tenancy reforms, participatory and empowerment-based approaches, and providing basic services to those in need. Since implementing these programs, poverty rates-both rural and urban- have declined (CHIP, n.d.).

2. Even though poverty rates have been declining, there is a large disparity between genders, classes, and castes. Girls have a smaller chance of survival than boys, are less likely to receive education, and more likely to be involved in child labor. In addition, lower social classes and certain castes are also less likely to receive education and social services, such as health care, due to lack of access and/or quality (CHIP, n.d.).

3. India’s social sectors also face challenges. In education, “a growing population, industrialization, and a globalizing economy that places a premium on information and technology, are stretching the capacity of India’s education system to deliver relevant and effective services” (CHIP, n.d.). Aside from this, there are 33 million poor children who need access to primary schools of high-quality and improvements are needed in the retention rates of poor children, girls, and children from certain castes (CHIP, n.d).

Looking at the issues from the podcast and researching poverty in India showed me even more complexities related to this issue. I learned that there are many factors that can be related to poverty including the environment (and natural disasters), gender issues, class issues, and other social/economic issues (such as war) as well. All of these factors not only play a role in poverty but they can play a role in the quality and access of social supports and services as well. In addition, the effects of poverty run deep and as a result children are put at a disadvantage. Fortunately, there are programs (such as Mr. Yora's and those run by the Indian government) that are working to combat poverty and related factors.

References:

Child Poverty Research and Policy Centre (CHIP). (n.d.). Country Overviews. Retrieved from: http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/

UNICEF. (2 March, 2010). Info By Country: Statistics. Retrieved from: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html

World Forum Foundation. (2011). World Forum Radio. Retrieved from: http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/

Sharing Web Resources: ISSA & Home Visits

I have chosen to focus on the International Step by Step Association (ISSA), http://www.issa.nl/. I learned from the information on the website that this organization works to connect early childhood professionals and programs while promoting “equal access to quality education and care for all children, especially in the early years of their lives.” Its focus is on providing educational services and advocacy tools for children and families, especially those ages birth through primary school. Although ISSA is a global organization, its “core members are the 29 nongovernmental organizations, located primarily in Central/Eastern Europe and Central Asia.” (ISSA, 2011).

The ISSA website does not have a weekly newsletter, but it does have a newsletter: ISSA Newsletter. I looked at its most current newsletter, Winter 2010-2011 and chose to read the article “Interview with Hea Algus, Estonia on Home Visiting." I chose to read this article and look at the topic of home visits because we have been talking about home visits and how changing demographics affect them so I was interested in another perspective.

The Family Visiting Program of Hea Algus is an Estonian program that reaches out to at-risk families through weekly visits with individual families and monthly activities for all families in the program. (Hea Algus is the program in Estonia that is associated with ISSA.) The interview was conducted with Liivi Türbsal, Executive Director of Hea Algus and she talks about how the need for the program’s home visits “came from the concern that there were many families in Tartu in which the parents lacked the skills and knowledge to develop and interact with their children and create a supportive environment for them.” (ISSA Newsletter, 2010- 2011).

The part that struck me as most relevant to this week’s topic is how the program restructured due to the needs of the community’s changing demographics. It was founded in 1997 but began to work solely with at-risk families in 2000 and then expanded to meet the needs of families with children birth-7 years rather than birth-3 years (ISSA Newsletter, 2010- 2011). This gave me a new angle to think about for the issue of changing demographics: it’s may not just be the diversity of languages and cultures that are changing; changing demographics also encompasses socioeconomic statuses and age groups too.

Reading about the Family Visiting Program of Hea Algus was really interesting and I saw that it had the same goals as home visiting programs here in the US do: to support child development through educating parents. We have been talking about how family visitors should reflect the populations that they are serving; the family visitors in the Hea Algus program have backgrounds in "medicine, special education, speech and language therapy, social work, or psychology" plus additional training (ISSA Newsletter, 2010-2011). Having a wide range of fields involved probably helps meet the needs of the families the program serves. 

Here is the link to the Hea Algus website if you are interested, I found it really informative and it has information on its home visiting program (you may have to translate it though!): http://www.heaalgus.ee/.

References:

International Step by Step Association (ISSA). (2011). Retrieved from: http://www.issa.nl/

ISSA Newsletter. (Winter 2010-2011). Retrieved from ISSA website: http://www.issa.nl/newsletter/10/winter/network2.html

Expanding Resources

I am really interested in learning about education and development from an international perspective… actually I think I am sometimes more interested in what is happening abroad than here (probably the reason why I have my BA in International Studies!). So I am super excited about establishing a professional contact from outside of the US, this will be a great resource to have and learn from!

I looked at the Global Alliance of NAEYC’s website (http://www.naeyc.org/resources/partnership/globalalliance) for the email addresses of some potential contacts. I am interested in the Central European/Asian region so I chose some email addresses from that area and emailed them…unfortunately some emails were returned as the addresses were not correct and some I just did not hear back from. So the next day I researched some more and sent out more emails. I am hoping to get an email back soon…I sent out quite a few emails so with any luck I will end up with 2 or 3 contacts, but for now I do have 1 contact! An early childhood professional in Bulgaria has agreed to be my professional contact, I am looking forward to learning more about his work and program!

In addition to this, I am looking forward to expanding other resources. I have chosen to focus on the International Step by Step Association (ISSA). The website for this organization is http://www.issa.nl/. It was hard to narrow it down to one website, but this program seems really interesting and ISSA is the organization that my contact works for-so it will be neat to learn more about the program in general and then learn about it through his perspective and experiences.  

My Supports

I am lucky to have a strong support system, something that I have especially realized this past year after the birth of my son and raising him as a single mom. I think that the biggest factor in my support system is my family. My family has supported me emotionally (by giving me encouragement, love, and acceptance), practical support (watching my son when I am at work), financially (helping provide food and shelter for us) and physically (helping care for my son when I had a sprained wrist and could not easily lift him!). I have other supports that I rely on besides my family; I have my friends and colleagues for emotional support, a daily planner for practical support (to keep track of my work schedule, lists, appointments, etc.), and a vehicle and stroller for physical support (so that I can get to work and take my son places without having to carry him all the time!) If I did not have these supports in my life, I think things would be a lot more difficult. It would be hard to get my daily tasks done and hard to provide the care my son needs.

One asset that I have is that I am familiar with the area I live in (I was born and raised here in San Diego) and I speak the dominant language fluently. I imagined that if I were to move to a foreign country where I did not know my way around and did not speak the dominant language I would face many challenges.  I would imagine that the supports I would need would include access to someone who could help me translate, a map or directory of services (such as grocery stores, hospitals, child care, etc.), and access to transportation, whether it be public or private. If I were in a foreign country and did not know my way around and did not speak the dominant language, it would be hard to complete my daily tasks and provide for my son without supports such as these. Without access to translation, I could not ask questions, receive help, or communicate with anyone. Without knowing where services were I would not be able to have access to the doctor in case of emergency or shop for food. And without transportation, or knowledge of how to use the transportation, I would not be able to go anywhere that was not within walking distance.

Imaging having a challenge like this really makes me thankful for the supports that I do have in my life. It also helps put things in perspective of why it is so important for professionals to help provide supports to the families and children we work with-we might not be aware of the challenges that they are faced with!    

My Connections to Play

Me playing outside, 1991

“A three year old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm.” -Bill Vaughn 

“Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.” -William Stafford

Growing up, my siblings were my playmates and we were outside playing constantly, rain or shine. We did not have many material toys but we played with everything-rocks, shells, flowers, leaves-anything we could get our hands on. We imagined everything, we could be on a boat, in another country, escaping from somewhere…the possibilities were endless! We used our imaginations and everything became a toy but I think one of the essential play items was dirt. It sounds strange, but that was what my siblings and I played with the most. We could build mountains, cook soups, throw it, garden…we were always playing with dirt!

Me playing in the dirt, 1989

 When I wasn’t playing with my siblings, or when we were playing inside, I was playing with my stuffed rabbit, Yellow Bunny. I could imagine anything with my Yellow Bunny, he could be a baby or a friend; he could talk and go on adventures with me. Yellow Bunny was my constant companion and essential play object- he could even turn a long trip in the car into an adventure because we could play anything!

My sister and playing dress-up
with Yellow Bunny, 1991

My parents were very supportive of our play. My mom was always encouraging us to go play outside and gave us scraps of cloth for our doll’s blankets or old buttons for our treasures. She would help us think of ideas and adventures to go on and never laughed at our games, even though looking back now, some of them were pretty silly!

I think play has started to change from the time I was young. Today it seems that more and more children are playing inside and not using their imaginations as much, on the computer or with video games- or not even engaging in play at all and instead watching TV. Play is not really encouraged in school anymore with the stress on academic achievements, standards, and accountability so I think that true play and its importance is being lost on the future generations. I always try to encourage my students to play, but I can only do so much when they are tempted by a shiny electronic at home and not encouraged to imagine. Hopefully some of the play skills they learn with me will become ingrained and they will develop a love for play that they can carry on and share! I also hope to pass on my love of play to my son. He too loves the outdoors and playing with rocks and sticks. At 14 months, he has so much to learn about the world; he does not have many material toys either but I encourage him to play with things around the house…right now his favorite “toys” are the potatoes in the cupboard-he could play with these forever!

My son playing, 2010

Hopefully the importance of play is recognized, both in the classroom and at home. Play helps foster healthy development in so many ways and can lead to academic success as well. The benefits of play are not just found in early childhood, they carry on through adulthood as well!

Immunizations

Immunizations are an important part of child development. Since immunizations have been developed and their use has become widespread, many diseases have been prevented and childhood death rates have gone down. I recently took my son in for his 12 month well-baby visit and I was amazed at how many vaccinations he received just at this visit-a total of 6!

Schools in the United States (and many childcare programs as well) require that children’s vaccines are up to date before they can attend. This helps ensure that children are receiving their vaccinations and helps prevent outbreaks.

However, vaccines are not available to many children worldwide-often times due to their high cost. In 2009, a new initiative, Advance Market Commitment (AMC) was launched to help fund the “development and manufacturing of new vaccines for developing nations” as well as help set guaranteed prices for the vaccines and allow countries to start planning immunization programs for when the vaccines are available (Luffman, 2011).

In Nicaragua, between 80-99% (depending on the vaccination) of children are immunized with the available immunizations (UNICEF). Nicaragua was the first developing country to receive vaccines from AMC when the pneumococcal vaccination program was launched in December 2010.  Pneumococcal diseases (such as pneumonia) are the cause of death for 1/5 of Nicaragua’s children under the age of 5 (Luffman, 2011) so this program could potentially prevent many deaths.

I am lucky that my son has access to so many vaccinations and hopefully the AMC initiative will help many more children and families gain access to them as well. AMC’s goal is to include 40+ countries in its pneumococcal vaccination program by 2015- it’s estimated that if reached this could potentially save 900,000 children’s lives (Luffman, 2011)!

Researching this topic helped me gain more knowledge about the importance of immunizations in early childhood. In this field, it is important to learn about all aspects of child development, including health. The information that I gained about this topic can be shared with parents and families-one resource that I found particularly informative on vaccines was the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/.

References:

 AMC: Advance Market Commitment for Vaccines. (2007). Vaccine AMCs. Retrieved from: http://www.vaccineamc.org/index.html.

Luffman, Laurinda. (5 January 2011). Children in Nicaragua are first to receive new pneumonia vaccine. SOS Children’s Villages. Retrieved from: http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/children-in-nicaragua-are-the-first-to-receive-new-pneumonia-vaccine.

UNICEF. (2 March 2010). Statistics: Nicaragua. UNICEF. Retrieved from:  

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nicaragua_statistics.html.