Week 4 Sharing Web Resources

I have been studying the zero to three website. Based on our discussions this week I decided to take a closer look at the public policy tab on this website. Zero to Three is a research based resource for federal and state policy makers (Zero to Three, 2014).  The policy center is there to promote “good health, strong families, and positive early learning experiences for all infants and toddlers” (Zero to Three, 2014). In the fiscal year of 2014 there is a grant availbale to EHS programs to expand partnerships with child care centers in the community (Zero to Three, 2014). This is an example of efforts policy makers are making to expand quality early childhood programs in communities.  

When I browsed the website this week I found a section on discipline. One of the recommendations for parents was to comfort their babies whenever they cry. I feel this can be a controversial topic, because the way one comforts their child or how long they let their child cry for varies by culture. I believe that what the website is offering is simply recommendations, but some cultures may disagree with the suggestions for discipline. I found that many topics on the website such as this can be considered controversial based on culture. Each culture has a different perspective on child rearing and the website is promoting child rearing techniques for child care centers rather than individual cultures.

References

Zero to Three. (2014). Public Policy. Retrieved from Zero to Three: http://www.zerotothree.org/public-policy/

Poverty in Vanuatu

For this week’s assignment I have gathered my information from the UNICEF website. I have chosen to take a closer look at child poverty in Vanuatu which consists of 65 inhabited islands (UNICEF, 2012). By using the basic needs poverty line, seventeen percent of children are living in poverty in Vanuatu (UNICEF, 2012). The number of people living in a home and the amount of education the adults had in the home impacted whether or not a child was living in poverty (UNICEF, 2012). Due to the poverty level in Vanuatu I was surprised to learn that they also needed to look at deprivation (UNICEF, 2012). Deprivation is similar to poverty in the matter that it looks at the child’s shelter, sanitation, drinking water supply, health, food, education, and information (ex. telephone) (UNICEF, 2012). During a study in 2007 deprivation appeared to be more of a problem than poverty (UNICEF, 2012). There are broad policies in Vanuatu that are in place to promote child well-being, but due to the island location it is difficult to provide adequate resources to those who need it (UNICEF, 2012).

By studying poverty in Vanuatu this week I have learned that poverty will look different in each part of the world. This is because each location has different struggles. As you can see the biggest struggle with improving poverty in Vanuatu is the island location, because they are surrounded by 700,000 square kilometers of ocean (UNICEF, 2012).  I am interested to see what these challenges are for other locations around the world.

References

UNICEF. (2012). Global study on child poverty and disparities. Suva, Figi Islands: United Nations Children's Fund Pacific.

Sharing Web Resources

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I chose to study the zero to three website. This is the link to the website:

http://www.zerotothree.org/

I will not receive my first newsletter until the first of the month. For this assignment I will be gathering my information specifically form the zero to three website. As I looked closely at the website I found the issue of money. Often times in the society today a parent is looking to provide a better life for their child than what they might have had. On the zero to three website there is a chart titled “Juggling Jobs and Babies-the Challenges of Young Working Families” (National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, 2012). Below is the chart from the website. The chart shows the issue of families losing the quality time spent with their child (National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, 2012). The issue here is that families are unable to make enough money to provide for their family (National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, 2012). Work sites according to this chart do not appear to provide a high percentage of paid time off to new parents (National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, 2012). Finally, the chart shows the percentage that is taken out of a parent’s income to pay for child care (National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, 2012). I believe this issue can stem into other issues. For instance a parent who is struggling to pay for child care and making ends meet is most likely a stressed out parent. My question is what is the effect of this stress the parent has on the child?

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(National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, 2012).

References

National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families. (2012). Working Families Infographic. Retrieved from Zero to Three: http://www.zerotothree.org/public-policy/working-families-infographic.html

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

Part 1:

This week I have e-mailed many early childhood professionals around the world to try and touch base with someone to begin communicating about the project for this class. I am disappointed to say I have not received any responses to my e-mails. I e-mailed all of them explaining that I am a graduate school student looking to expand my professional contacts and I explained to them the assignment for this course.  Some of the e-mails I sent were sent back to me as they were no longer valid e-mail addresses. For this assignment I believe I will need to use the alternative resources, unless I receive a response during this week.

Part 2:

I have chosen to study the zero to three website. There are two newsletters for this site, but I was only able to access the “Baby to Big Kid” newsletter. I will try and access the other newsletter again this week, because it looked as if it was temporarily inactive. The zero to three website is broken up into six sections; home page, behavior and development, maltreatment, care and education, public policy, and about us. Each section is broken down more specifically and contains a lot of information about each topic. I am excited to gain knowledge from this website and use it as a resource for the future weeks in this course.