Being part of a caring, collaborative learning community

• Being part of a caring, collaborative learning community allows an individual to make a hypothesis, provide information to support it, and then receive questions and feedback to take their understanding further. 

• Being part of a caring, collaborative learning community can only happen when the group of learners uses the 3 Rs of communication – Respect, Reciprocation, and Responsiveness.

 

• Being part of a caring, collaborative learning community and counting on others to help to advance your work can be can be both challenging and rewarding.

 

With these three conclusions in mind, the goal I have for myself to enhance my collaborative efforts in advocacy, policy, and/or system development work on behalf of young children, families, and the early childhood community is to always be respectful of everyone’s perspectives, reciprocate with questions for understanding and feedback for development, and respond in a timely manner.

Thank you Dr. Todd, Vanessa, Jacqueline and Elnora for supporting my work in the last 8 weeks. 

I wish you the best in all your future advocacy efforts!

Hypothetical Family Situation

This week as part of our study of comprehensive early childhood systems my colleagues and myself have been asks to create a hypothetical family and to think about how they would benefit from a comprehensive early childhood system.

The framework for a comprehensive early childhood system "consists of four substantive components. These four components – health, mental health, and nutrition; early learning; family support; and special needs/early intervention – themselves include a number of different services and supports that young children and their families need to access and draw upon" (Bruner. C, n.d.).  To have a true comprehensive system these four components must work interconnectedly by communicating, coordinating, and collaborating with one another.

Below I am sharing the hypothetical family I have created as I move further into our assignment.  It is my hope my colleagues will take a minute to read and provide me with any feedback they have to offer.  Do I have enough detail?  Is my story clear?  Can I build the rest of my paper from this scenario?

The hypothetical family for this project is a European American middle class dual income working family.  As newly weds the couple moved across country and do not have any nearby family.  They have friends who are all working hard just as hard as they are to make ends meet. The mother in this family works in the local supermarket where she receives an hourly wage with health benefits. Because her husband does not have health benefits most of her paycheck is used to pay for the additional premium to cover her family. Although it is helpful to have the health benefits the deductible is $300 and the insurance only pays 80 % of the first $2500.00.  Often the family chooses not to seek medical treatment because they cannot afford the co-pay.   The father in the family works in construction and makes an hourly wage, which is used to cover the rest of the family’s monthly bills including childcare expenses for their three and five year old children.  The construction business where the family lives has been slow since the 2008 economic downturn and the father has been temporarily laid off several times.  To survive the lay-offs the family has used all their savings to keep up with their bills. 

Six months ago the family was surprised to find they were expecting another baby.  Because the mother is over 35 it was recommended to her that she have an amniocentesis for fetal chromosome testing.  Upon completion of the test it was discovered her fetus had Down syndrome.  The family was told, “all people with Down syndrome experience cognitive delays, but the effect is usually mild to moderate. People with Down syndrome also have an increased risk for certain medical conditions such as congenital heart defects, respiratory and hearing problems, Alzheimer's disease, childhood leukemia, and thyroid conditions” (National Downs Syndrome Society, 2012).

From the perspective of a comprehensive early childhood system this hypothetical family would benefit from all three components health, Early Learning and Development, and Family Leadership and Support.  Because the new baby will be at risk for increased medical conditions the family’s health care bills may increase significantly.  All three children need access to affordable health care. The new child will need a consistent physician who can help the family find the proper specialists and care as needed.  The new baby as well as the other two children will need access to affordable high quality early childhood care and education programs in which to safely play and learn while their parents are at work.  The new child will need affordable access to special early education programs and supports to make sure she reaches her full potential.  And finally the family will need access to programs to teach them strategies to help with their financial stress, the stress of raising a child with Downs Syndrome and the stress of supporting their other two children.         

References:

Bruner, C. (n.d.). A framework for state leadership and action in building the components of an early 

           childhood system. Retrieved August 1, 2011, from the Build Initiative website: 

          http://www.buildinitiative.org/files/resources/Bruner%20Four%20Ovals.pdf

National Downs Syndrome Society. (2012) Retrieved from: http://www.ndss.org/Down-

Syndrome/Down-Syndrome-Facts/

Advocates Are Connected

At the opening session of the NAEYC Annual Conference last November, the new Executive Director Rhian Evans Allvin asked everyone to take out their smart phones and tweet simultaneously the same early childhood public policy message.  As I looked around the room, it was obvious that the majority of those in attendance that knew how to tweet, were the professionals that were younger then I was.  Rhian Evans Allvin was reaching out to a new crop of early childhood advocates in the way they communicated regularly.  She was also daring the old guard to rise to the occasion. Now… I have been on Facebook for years, but not Twitter.  I realized that if I was going to be an affective early childhood advocate I must keep-up with the times.  I had to join Twitter.

Organizations such as the National Association for the Education for Young Children (NAEYC), The Children’s Defense Fund, and Zero to Three use social media to advance their public policy agendas.  They use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to disseminate positive updates, as well as alerts for early childhood advocates to help support time sensitive legislation. 

As I have spent the last 2 weeks investigating websites of organizations whose missions are to support the well-being of children, families and the professionals that work with them everyday for my course work, I have also connected to the organizations through social media.  I now follow many more organizations through my Facebook and Twitter accounts.  As soon as I receive an alert or update I can repost it or re-tweet it so not only my early childhood colleagues can see the information, but also the many people I connect with outside the field.  I believe this is a way to begin to engage and educate the general public to the importance of strong foundations for young children.  I have also begun to follow my elected officials via social media. I am convinced, to be an affective advocate in the 21^st Century a person or organization must use 21^st Century technology…. Even if it is mildly uncomfortable!