Sharing Web Resources

The website that I chose to focus on is the National Black Child Development Institution, www.nbcdi.org. Most of the outside links are not updated. But I did find one link entitled Child Health Talk.  This article is from the spring/summer of 2015. This article was a news letter for the summer and the line up for National Black Child Development Week. There is information about language development and different books for different age groups. The president of the National Black Child Development Institution wrote a letter reminding parents how education and learning is still important during the summer. And things they could do to help there children learn throughout the summer.

http://www.nbcdi.org/sites/default/files/uploads/CHT%202015%20SpringSummer%20Edition.pdf#page=5&zoom=auto,-99,540

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

This week I decided to find out more information about The Alberta Family Wellness Initiative which is located in Canada. "The AFWI began with the Building Blocks for a Healthy Future conference in 2007, which brought policy makers together with leading experts in brain and child development to talk about the implications of this knowledge for negative health outcomes like addiction" (http://www.albertafamilywellness.org). This website gives the public information about brain development in the early years and why it is important to try and catch a problem with development before it is too late. From this website I learned that a doctor by the name of Dr. Briggs, “ found the easiest and least expensive way to determine what children needed family intervention services was to ask their parents the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) questions” (http://www.albertafamilywellness.org). This tool reminds me of the ASQ and ASQ-SE  that we perform on the children every 6 months.  This site has information for families, law makers, health professionals, and researchers. There are many videos about brain development and why it is important to make sure that children have positive experiences early on in life. I found myself watching videos and being very informed. I would recommend this site just as a resource to have. 

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/about/what-we-do/global-work/
 

 http://www.albertafamilywellness.org

Sharing Web Resources

The website that I chose to studies is The National Black Child Development Institute. On this website there is a section entitled "What We Do". In this section the organization discuss their policies and services that they offer. This section is relevant to the work that I do in my career. My orinaztion service low income families. We offer childcare, social service, and resources. I love the idea that the organization is catered to black families, as I stated before I have never known of an organization like this before. On the site there are two sections entitled News and Events, in these two sections you can find out about events and latest news that are going on within the organization, and pertaining to local and national news. The news section is where you found it information about politicians, economist, and neuroscienctist.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 1

Unfortunately I have not been able to get in connect with outside resources. I received an email from Madagascar:

            Dear Brittany,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

You will find enclosed our last published situation analysis report of children in Madagascar, for your easy reference. Hope this will be helpful to start with. Unfortunately, Madagascar is not well advanced in terms of ECD response thus far and we are currently reviving our work in this field as Madagascar is currently transitioning out from a prolonged period of crisis. Most of the other documents (e.g. early learning development standards) are only available in French I am afraid, so not sure to what extent this would be useful to you.

Best wishes

Matthias
 
The email that I received from UNICEF Australia gave me a link to connect their early childhood Australia. I am still waiting to hear back from them. If I can not get in contact with some one I will be doing the alternative option. 

Sharing Web Resources

We were asked to pick a website to focus on throughout the remainder of the course. The website that I took interest in is The National Black Child Development Institute, nbcdi.org. The reason I took interest in this website is because I never knew about any national all black institution for early childhood. This organization is focused on the education, care, and health of black children and their families. They "serve as a national resource agency providing programs, publications, advocacy and training's related to early childhood care and education; K-12 education; health and wellness; literacy; family engagement; and child welfare"(nbcdi.org).

One thing in the in the news section that caught my attention is The Voice of America media segment. In this media piece the NBCDI President and CEO Tobeka Green speaks about the  book vending machine project in Southeast Washington, D.C. This is a project where books are put in vending machines and the children can get them for free and they get to keep the books. The program is sponsored by Jetblue airlines. So far there are only three vending machines and they are located in the poor neighborhoods where the literacy levels are low.

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

This week we were to contact at least two Early Childhood professionals from a different country, to establish a relationship with them and expand on our resources.  When I first looked at the assignment, I thought I am going to go for alternative number 2, which was to do research on a website. But I decided to go on the UNICEF website and send emails to Australia, Madagascar, Fiji, and South America. I choose these countries because I am interested in visiting them and getting to know more about their early childhood programs. I am now waiting to hear back from these countries that I contacted. I look forward to meeting new people from other countries and learning about their programs.

My Support

There are two people in my life that support me and encourage me to be better on a daily bases, which are my mother and my child’s grandmother. Every day they call to check up on me and my baby. When I want to give up on this school situation, they encourage me to keep going. My mother understand what is like to be single mother working two jobs and in school. She pushes me and remind me that the outcome will be greater than the struggle. My child’s grandmother helps me with whatever I need her for, especially when it comes to the baby. She sends me daily words of encouragement and scriptures. They both want what is best for me and try their hardest to keep me from giving up. Their support benefit me, because when I think all odds are against me, I know that there are people rooting for me and believe in me. Without their support and love I do not think I would be here writing this post. I would have given up on school and just continue to work and care for my child the best way I could. If they were gone I do not know what I would do. Yes I have other support system, but there is nothing like a mother’s love.