As of today there has been no contact between me and the international contact person that I emailed. I visited the Harvard Website. It was full of information that I had never heard of so it was hard to narrow my insights down to the minimum. I was really surprised to read that the information they learn from their studies in the United States is basically the foundation that they build their programs on.
The first piece of knowledge that I encountered was the Early Childhood Innovation Partnership (ECIP). Their mission is to bring change in state and early childhood policies based on scientific knowledge and other factors. That is something that we d0 in the United States. We have a new breed of children in today’s time. They are different from when we were children. Our policies need to fit the needs and issues and trends of them.
The Frontiers of Innovation (FOI) focuses on the early childhood program and how interventions can improve across all areas in the program. They also have different groups within them that work as partners to help develop the new interventions. This reminded of our policy council that consists of administrative staff and parents. They come together and help develop new policies that they feel will be more effective and beneficial in the next school.
What I found the most interesting was the four disorders that are the main reasons why children are clinical referred:
1. Anxiety
2. Depression
3. ADHD
4. Conduct
I have seen that more and more children are coming into early childhood programs with Autism. A lot of our teachers do not have the proper training to deal with a child that has this disorder. Our facility will assign a coach and at least one or two training for the staff. The rest of the learning is either information that is received from the parent, IEP or IFSP, and research that the staff does for themselves. There are support teams available, but they are limited because of their demand at other centers. That is when the staff comes together to help each other. We want to give these children the opportunity to be included and receive the best care. Teamwork is how we get it done.
Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (2010). Global children’s initiative. Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/global_initiatives/
Angela
arltaylor 