Sharing Web Resources

Through the course material and from colleagues’ posts, I realized that I am interested in learning more about African American and how to support them in the way that culturally relevant to them. I was reflecting myself of the program I am working at, I found that when we plan for culturally relevant events or activities we always considered the minority like Asian and Hispanic groups, but we missed the African America group. I asked myself why? The reason is we considered them as American because of they speak English. Some of the African American family told me that they  do not like people label them as African American because they consider themselves as American and they are not from Africa, they prefer people call them Black. I found that they do not participate in our Family Committee Meeting or other school event. Therefore, I want chose to put more attention on African American cultures and chose the web National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI) (NBCDI, 2013a).

 The mission of NBCDI is “to improve and advance the quality of life for Black children and their families through education and advocacy”. It has over 38 years of history.  It also launched with Blac Women’s Commnity Development Foundation and as “a national advocacy group to improve life circumstances of Black child through policy change” (NBCDI, 2013b).

I found one of their programs “Parent Empowerment Project” (PEP) attracted to me, as I want to learn ways to engage the Black family.  This PEP was initially decided to work with parents in a 3 years demonstration project to develop curriculum and tested to use in setting all across the country, then when it improved to PEP 2.0, it became a parenting curriculum based on the reflection from the parents and family facilitators. The PEP is a “ comprehensive, culturally-relevant, self-discovery curriculum for parents and guardians to improve their effectiveness as the primary positive influence in the lives of their children” (NBCDI, 2013c). Additionally, it “empowers parents to succeed and reinforces parents’ sense of pride in themselves, their community and their history” (NBCDI, 2013b). The program supports parent to learn what is the best for their children, know best what they need to be better parents, given the proper information and resources to support parent to make the best choice for their children and etc. The PEP curriculum focused on 6 topics:

Topic 1: Reflections

Topic 2: Health and Wellness

Topic 3: Child Growth and Development

Topic 4: Positive Guidance

Topic 5: Literacy

Topic 6: Transition to Early Care & Education

This program seems like a great guidance for me to find resources and specialist to support me to build a trust relationship with Black families. First, we need to be positive with their comments and ensure the family engagement activities reflect on their cultural or need. We could ask parent to reflect on what their needs / goals for their children. Then from there, we could create topics that they are most interested to learn, also empower them to make best choices for their children by showing them the positive outcome.

                NBCDI also pointed out our current policies at the federal, state, district and school levels rarely provide sufficient support to educators or parents to promote family engagement, especially to engage a diverse range of families. They also “do not possess the depth of cultural relevance that allows the curriculum to fully resonate with Black parents, in particular” (NBCDI, 2013b). Therefore, it is critical for us to put more effort on family engagement by working with local community members who have deep understanding and experience working with diverse groups. This is also my goal this year to reinforce family engagement particularly empower African American families to participate.  

References

NBCDI (2013a). Retrieved from: http://www.nbcdi.org

NBCDI (2013b). Retrieved from: http://www.nbcdi.org/who-we-are/who-we-are

NBCDI (2013c). Retrieved from: http://www.nbcdi.org/what-we-do/parent-empowerment-project)

Getting to Know Your International Contacts

While I am still waiting to find a professional to discuss about poverty, I moved on the podcast format. Unfortunately, the Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre’s web site recommended for this assignment was unavailable. I found another page the podcast channel from Institute for Research on Poverty (http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/media/podcasts.htm). I listened one of the issue “The Prospects for Second-Generation Latino Young Men in the Inner City” by Maria Rendon, UC-Irvine discusses her study of second-generation Latino young men in urban poverty neighborhoods and their common attitudes about life. 

In 2007, Rendon interviewed a group of second generations of young Latino immigrants living in the poverty area in Los Angeles, who are either dropout of high school, completed high school or completed four-year universities about their perspective as second-generation immigrant minority. They all seems optimistic about life as they see their parents were working hard to migrate to this country and live better than where they are form. They tends to think if you work hard in this country, you will get something eventually, for example, you may able to purchase a house even it is in a rough area, which they may not able to do so in their home town. 

Rendon did follow up interviews in 5 years later with her interview subjects, she found that most of these young men are still optimistic about their life and future. They tend to hold a sense of responsibility to have a more advance life than what their parents provide to them or at least have similar life. For example, if their parents were able to purchase a house, they would think they should be able to as well. Two men in these subjects, who finished at least college level,were able to find a job as a bank teller. And most of the subjects were ending working and continue to stay in their neighborhood. Rendon found this sample links to the lack of social network as they were from minority and poor community.

These findings did not surprise me but enlighten me to reflect on why we do not see many administrators or higher ups people are minorities. Although we see an increasing amount of minorities and women in higher paid job or administrative job, without doubt that US-born group or middle class group has more advantage than the minority or people living in poverty. Think about the poor neighborhood, poverty seems to always link to violence, as people were not educated or do not know how to release their angry through language.  We should think about how could early childhood education supports children and families in poverty to overcome these situations. I always think that early childhood educators do not only teach children but also support families. Parents are the children’s priority supporter, if they were not able to provide children sufficient supports, it is challenging for other providers to support children. Therefore, supporting parents in the needs are essentials. Finding job-training resources for parents to such as English classes, office skills class to support the parent to obtain a job in the mainstream labor market. According to Rendon’s finding from the Latino’s family, if the parent were able to find a decent job, it may also motivate children to seek for better life in the future.

Sharing Web Resources

                Zero to Three is “a national nonprofit organization that provides parents, professionals and policymakers the knowledge and the know-how to nurture early development (Zero to Three:  National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, 2012). Zero to Three also is one of the leading organizations in the infant-family field.  Web Site : http://www.zerotothree.org/

                 As the name of the organization states its services to support children from zero to three, yet they also provide supports to families and professional development to early childhood educators. They also publish numerous professional journals every year. In the Zero to Three web site, it divided into four main focus: Behavior & development, maltreatment, care & education and public policy. In the Behavior & Development session, it develops into fourteen small information sessions not limited to brain development, challenging behavior, early childhood mental health, early literacy, school readiness, sleep, grandparents etc. Inside each small session, they have resources and recent publication related to the respective topic. They also have podcast audio sessions by early childhood specialist to discuss current issues and trends in the early childhood field or parenting questions.  Some of the resources are available in Spanish as well.

               

The “challenging behavior” issue caught my attention, as it is also the current issue of the families in my center. My teachers also went to promote social emotional training by similar agency that provides training to infant to toddler field.  However, I like the resource in Zero to Three provided bullet points of tips on the issue that makes it is easier for families to read. They also have a “Q & A” session for family or educator to post up their questions and a professional will be answering them.  

                I really love this web site as it is user friendly and resourceful for parents and educators. I would definitely share this web site to parents and my staffs. 

Reference

Zero to Three:  National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families (2012). Retrieved from: http://www.zerotothree.org/

 

Getting Ready—Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

For part 1 of this week’s assignment, I have tried to contact early childhood professionals around the world through the NAEYC Global Alliance, and the World Forum Foundation, but still awaiting respond from them. I contacted the representative in Ghana, Africa, also Armenia, Asia by email to explain who I am and my interest in learning their professional experience and share mine in United States with them. I also sent out similar email to contact the group of Working Project for Multi-Site organization, Men in Early Childhood Education, Curriculum Initiative and Teacher Educator Network. I understand it may takes a while for them to respond. Therefore, I contacted my colleagues and connected to two early childhood professionals in Hong Kong, China. Through finding these contacts, I found it fascinate to see how much network around the world are trying to support children, families and professionals in different ways. For example, the World Forum Foundation has more than 15 working groups projects “focused on specific global early childhood issues”. Participants are around the professionals around the world who a passionate and desire to share and address the particular issues of their designated group. 

For part 2 of this week’s assignment, there are a lot of association I want to study more on and I finally chose Zero to Three Journal because birth to three year old development stage a new area to me. Zero to Three is a national center for infants, toddlers and families. They provide training and resources for parents and professionals on childcare such as how to prepare toddler for preschool, tips on choosing a quality childcare and etc. I like how the session of the “behavior and development” with articles and podcast series in different topics such as child development, brain development, how to develop self-control in the first three years etc. The podcast also translated in Spanish with written transcript. I think this is a very resourceful web site for both parents and professionals and I am planning to share this to my teachers and families. 

References:

NAEYC Global Alliance: http://www.naeyc.org/resources/partnership/globalalliance#africa

World Forum Foundation: http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/

Zero to Three: http://www.zerotothree.org/about-us/funded-projects/parenting-resources/podcast/