Tagged With "National Public Radio"
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COVID-19 and State Child Care Assistance Programs [clasp.org]
From CLASP, April 8, 2020 The bipartisan Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which was passed by Congress and enacted on March 27, 2020, includes resources specifically targeted to individuals and families with low incomes affected by the public health and economic crises. The package includes a number of provisions of particular importance to children and families and those who work with them, including policymakers and other stakeholders in child care and early...
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D.C.'s Universal Preschool Program has been Hugely Beneficial for Moms - and the Economy [psmag.com]
In 2008, the District of Columbia passed the Pre-K Enhancement and Expansion Act , which sought to make free, full-day, high-quality preschool available to all three- and four-year-olds in the district. The preschools run on roughly the same schedule as the city's elementary schools, and teachers are paid salaries on par with the city's elementary teachers. Today, approximately 90 percent of the district's four-year-olds and 70 percent of the district's three-year-olds attend public...
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DCYF Director Says N.H. More Focused on Keeping Families Together [nhpr.org]
By Rick Ganley and Mary McIntyre, New Hampshire Public Radio, October 17, 2019 Reports of child abuse and neglect reached a record high in New Hampshire during the last fiscal year. That's according to data released last week by the Division for Children, Youth and Families, the state's child welfare system. NHPR's Morning Edition Host Rick Ganley spoke with the DCYF director Joe Ribsam about what this data mean for measuring the agency's progress and how DCYF plans to do better. [ Please...
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Early-childhood development offers a brighter future to entire nations [The Seattle Times]
By Steve Davis and Peter Laugharn, July 29, 2019 The Seattle Times The World Health Organization just unveiled an initiative that could improve millions of children’s lives and boost the global economy by trillions of dollars. The initiative, known as the Nurturing Care Framework for Early Childhood Development , [ PDF attached ] seeks to change how we raise infants and toddlers. Children’s experiences during their first three years of life heavily influence their well-being as adults,...
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Early Childhood Education Is Not a Profession [PSMag.com]
Early childhood education makes a valuable contribution to society by advancing children’s learning and development, enhancing their path toward success in school and beyond. Because of this, and tied to the belief that tangible contributions, both immediate and long-term, will be forthcoming, public investments in early childhood education are rising at federal, state, and local levels. But these results won’t be achieved if we don’t also invest in the preparation of early childhood...
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Early Childhood Providers, Systems Leaders, Communities: Timely! Please Answer Early Relational Health Questionnaire
Early Relational Health (ERH) – is an emerging framework that elevates the primacy of relational experiences as foundational for life-long health, learning and social-emotional wellbeing and has relevance across the child and family-focused fields of pediatrics, public health, infant-child mental health, early learning, child welfare and early childhood community systems. Please take 10 minutes to answer this questionnaire, offered by the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP). CSSP's...
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Economist outlines reforms to improve access to affordable, high quality child care [medicalxpress.com]
For families in the U.S., the costs of high-quality child care are exorbitant, especially for those with children under age five. A new policy proposal, "Public Investments in Child Care," by Dartmouth Associate Professor of Economics Elizabeth Cascio, finds that current federal child care tax policies are not benefiting the families most burdened by child care costs. Therefore, Cascio outlines a new policy that could replace the current federal child care tax policies. The research examines...
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Experts Worry Active Shooter Drills in Schools Could be Traumatic for Students [npr.org]
By Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Sophia Alvarez-Boyd, and James Doubek, National Public Radio, November 10, 2019 A regular drumbeat of mass shootings in the U.S., both inside schools and out, has ramped up pressure on education and law enforcement officials to do all they can to prevent the next attack. Close to all public schools in the U.S. conducted some kind of lockdown drill in 2015-2016, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Last year, 57% of teens told researchers they...
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Family-Centered Pre-Kindergarten Provides A Strong Foundation For Children’s Mental Health And School Success [NewsWise.com]
A family-centered, school-based intervention in pre-kindergarten programs developed at NYU Langone Medical Center, known as ParentCorps, has a positive and lasting impact on mental health and academic performance, according to new research published online October 3 in JAMA Pediatrics. A study of close to 800 low-income black and Latino children enrolled in pre-k in New York City public schools found that children who attended programs with ParentCorps had fewer behavioral and emotional...
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Few programs prepared to help traumatized infants and toddlers, report finds [EdSource.org]
Few early education programs are prepared to help children recover from traumatic experiences, such as abuse and neglect, that can have long-term effects, according to a recent report . The National Center for Children in Poverty , a national public policy organization that advocates for children in poverty and low-income families, released the report titled, “Helping Young Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: Policies and Strategies for Early Care and Education.” It describes the impact of...
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Five Strategies for Engaging Family Partners [nichq.org]
Families have an unmatched impact on their child’s health, especially during the early years of life when children’s rapidly developing brains are laying the groundwork for their future health and wellbeing. To be the best advocates for their children, families need the right supports, whether they be access to public assistance programs like Medicaid and housing, opportunities to build a strong relationship with their child’s health provider, or resources that empower them to support their...
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From Trauma to Teaching: Survivor of Child Sex Trafficking Shares Story in Hopes of Educating the Public [nny360.com]
By Rachel Burt, NNY360, November 9, 2019 During the summer of 1992, while hanging out with her friends at a local mall, the same one she had been visiting with her family for years, Holly Austin Gibbs first made contact with one of the men who would turn her world upside down. Weeks later, the 14-year-old would find herself miles away from her hometown of Tuckerton, N.J., and thrust into the dark world of child sex trafficking. Now, 27 years later, Mrs. Gibbs is an advocate working to...
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Gov. Newsom's early childhood advisor describes 'whole-child, whole-family, whole-community' strategy [edsource.org]
For the first time, a California governor has created a position in his office focused on early education. Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Giannina Pérez as his Senior Policy Advisor for Early Childhood. Peréz previously worked for Early Edge California and Children Now, both well-known children’s advocacy organizations. As an advocate, she worked to expand training for preschool teachers and child care providers to better support children who speak languages other than English at home. She also...
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Great parenting resource for Strengthening Families 5 Protective Factors
Here is a great website from the Five for Families public awareness campaign that explains the Strengthening Families 5 Protective Factors to parents. It has parent-friendly language, videos, questions to consider, and parenting ideas. https://fiveforfamilies.org/
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Group of educators, policymakers aims to tackle preschool suspensions [EdSource.org]
California preschools are mirroring an alarming national trend, suspending or expelling children from preschools far too frequently. This is the judgment of a group of state educators, policymakers and representatives of public agencies, including the California Department of Education, who are working on a proposal that will offer solutions. The group is an unofficial committee that grew out of a project involving the Department of Defense and the WestEd Center for Child and Family Studies...
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Harvard and RWJF report on child care scarcity and its consequences for parents
One of the most stressful questions a new parent confronts is, "Who's going to take care of my baby when I go back to work?" Figuring out the answer to that question is often not easy. When NPR, along with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, surveyed more than 1,000 parents nationwide about their child care experiences, a third reported difficulty finding care. For the full story, read Child Care Scarcity Has Very Real Consequences For...
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Head Start Prevents Foster Care? To Be Decided [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
The jury is decidedly out on the academic track record of Head Start, the education-oriented pre-school program for low-income families invented in the 1960s and federally proliferated in the early 1980s. Critics will point to large impact studies that show early academic gains fade by third grade. Proponents will say that those gains would stick if the students ended up in better public schools. But Youth Services Insider had never seen Head Start mentioned as a possible preventer of foster...
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Hiding From Bullets Today, Kids Grow Vulnerable to Health Problems Tomorrow [news.stlpublicradio.org]
By Cara Anthony, St. Louis Public Radio, March 6, 2020 Champale Greene-Anderson keeps the volume up on her television whenever her 5-year-old granddaughter Amor Robinson comes over after school. “So we won’t hear the gunshots,” Greene-Anderson said. “I have little bitty grandbabies, and I don’t want them to be afraid to be here.” As a preschooler, Amor already knows and fears the sounds that occur with regularity in their neighborhood. [ Please click here to read more .]
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Re: Early Childhood Education Is Not a Profession [PSMag.com]
Sure I am preaching to the choir here, but we really do need to pay these teachers as professionals so they will stay and take more interest in furthering their skills via higher education! I feel very blessed to have been able to stay in the field of working with children ages 0-5 years and their big people, thanks to having a second income in the family. It will be a sad day when in spite of a bachelor's degree and 42 years of experience in the field , CA's new minimum wage of $15 an hour,...
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2019 Beyond Paper Tigers Conference Series - Why Take Course One and Course Two?
Community Resilience Initiative is officially launching a new series of blog posts, building to our 2019 Beyond Paper Tigers conference on June 25th - 27th. We’ll cover a range of topics relevant to conference material, events, and inspirations. In addition to the regular conference, CRI is offering two training add-on options on Tuesday June 25, 2019 prior to the conference: Resilience-Based Trainings, Course One and Two . https://criresilient.org/beyon...re-conference-event/ “A group of...
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5 Ways Trauma-Informed Care Supports Children's Development
Happy Friday! Below is an excerpt from an article by Child Trends about how trauma-informed care supports children's development. I think it's a nice overview for the trauma-informed work that you're doing - why it's so important, and how it connects to the broader initiative. To see the full article click here . TIC helps service providers, parents, and systems recognize and respond to the needs of children who experience trauma. Each child reacts to trauma differently, but experiencing...
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8th Annual Water Cooler Conference - Stronger Together: Transforming Opportunity for Every Child
On February 22-23, 2016, our friends at Advancement Project will be hosting the 8th Annual Water Cooler Conference at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel. Don't miss out on this chance to hear keynote speakers Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed: Grit Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character ; David B. Grusky, the Director of Stanfords Center on Poverty and Inequity; and Dr. Patricia K. Kuhl, the Co-Director of the UW Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. Panelists...
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A Guide to Creating “Safe Space” Policies for Early Childhood Programs [CLASP]
From the Center for Law and Social Policy Early childhood programs play an important role in the lives of young children and their families. But in our current immigration policy climate, families across the country are questioning whether it’s safe to attend or enroll. Providers can take steps to protect families’ safety and privacy by implementing policies that designate their facilities as a safe space from immigration enforcement. This guide explains federal agency guidance related to...
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A Landmark Lawsuit Aimed to Fix Special Ed for California's Black Students. It Didn't. [kqed.org]
By Lee Romney, KQED, October 18, 2019 Darryl Lester was at his mom’s place in Tacoma, Washington, when a letter he’d been waiting for arrived in the mail. At 40, he was destitute, in pain and out of work. The letter delivered good news: Lester would be getting disability benefits after blowing out his back in a sheet metal accident. But he crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. Why? Because he couldn’t read it. From first through seventh grades, Lester had attended three public schools in...
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A Wakeup Call About Children's Sleep and What To Do About It [psychologytoday.com]
By Robyn Koslowitz, Psychology Today, November 3, 2019 Only half of children in the United States routinely get enough sleep each night, and this has significant effects on their academic performance and social, and emotional well-being. A comprehensive study analyzed responses from parents or caregivers of 49,050 children, 6 to 17 years old, who were part of the 2016-2017 cohort of the National Survey of Children’s Health. They were queried about how many nights of sleep a randomly selected...
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ACES Aware Webinar: Dec 13th, 12-1pm PT - Public Comments about soon-to-be-released Request for Proposal
The Department of Health Care Services and the California Office of the Surgeon General are hosting a webinar of the Trauma-Informed Care Implementation Advisory Committee’s Provider Education and Engagement Subcommittee. Subcommittee members will discuss a draft Request for Proposal (RFP) released for public comment as part of the ACEs Aware initiative. The draft RFP invites external organizations to apply for grants to support provider training activities, provider engagement activities...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Eulanda Thorne Applies ACEs Science Awareness at School and at Home
Eulanda Thorne and her children (L to R) Sarah, Joshua, Leah, Emmanuel When school counselor Eulanda Thorne discovered the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in 2018, she felt as if she were on fire. “I felt that I had missed a vital part of my education. Anyone who is in college for social work or teaching, a class on ACEs and trauma should be a required course.” Without an understanding of ACEs, she says, “I would think the students who are sent to me are being defiant or...
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An Early Childhood Development Expert Explains How Trauma and Stress Can Derail a Kid’s Life [sarasotamagazine.com]
By Cooper Levey-Baker, Sarasota, December 19, 2019 Mimi Graham has spent her life fighting for kids. She began her career in the late 1970s as a Head Start administrator before moving into the world of academia to study child development and advocate for public policies that improve the health of mothers and children. Today, she’s the director of Florida State University’s Center for Prevention & Early Intervention Policy, a position in which she advises government agencies and...
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BABY ACES: When we consider the traumas that qualify as ACEs, babies need their own list.
Babies are obviously very different from older children developmentally, including their ability to understand and process trauma. Indeed, a baby may be completely unaware of an actual ACE— say, the incarceration of their father— which a middle schooler would be painfully aware of. Yet at the same time, the baby could be much-more-acutely impacted by the secondary effect of this same ACE: a sad, stressed, and distracted mother. Similarly, if a parent dies in a car accident when a child is in...
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Bill de Blasio's Pre-K Crusade [CityLab.com]
On a sunny afternoon in April, I sat on a bench at New York’s City Hall, waiting to interview Mayor Bill de Blasio. He breezed by in shirtsleeves, surrounded by grim-looking advisers. The mayor, too, was frowning. That morning’s papers carried the news that de Blasio’s fundraising activities were being investigated by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, the Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, and a state commission on public ethics. The mayor’s new initiative to combat homelessness was being...
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California Child Welfare Policy and Progress, Winter Issue
The California Child Welfare Co-Investment Partnership Report This issue of in sights provides an overview of the latest legislative developments in California, including data and perspectives on the policy and practice transformation taking place with the Continuum of Care Reform (CCR). Beyond a comprehensive summary of child welfare state legislation, this issue also includes a discussion on the key provisions of the Family First Prevention Services Act. The issue concludes with...
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California Plans to End 'Lunch Shaming' That Guarantees Meals for All Students [usatoday.com]
By Joshua Bote, USA Today, October 14, 2019 A bill signed Saturday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to cut the recent trend in schools of "lunch shaming." SB 265, which was originally introduced by California state Sen. Robert Hertzberg, will require that all public school students have a "state reimbursable" meal provided by the school "even if their parent or guardian has unpaid meal fees." It amends the Child Hunger Prevention and Fair Treatment Act of 2017, which previously stated...
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Casey’s Trauma Trainings for Foster Parents Hailed as Promising [aecf]
POSTED APRIL 2, 2018, BY THE ANNIE E. CASEY FOUNDATION The families of foster parents and kinship caregivers who participated in trainings from the Annie E. Casey Foundation about managing childhood trauma experienced greater placement stability, according to two recent evaluations by Child Trends , a nonprofit research center. The two training programs assessed — Trauma Systems Therapy for Foster Care (TST-FC) and ARC Reflections — are “promising approaches for i ntegrating trauma-informed...
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Re: Helping Kids Find the Wisdom in Overwhelm
This is really wonderful - thanks for sharing! < https://www.firstthingsfirst.org/ > *Kate Dobler* Navajo/Apache Regional Director *O** 928-532-5041* | *M* 602-320-1648 To ensure compliance with the Arizona Open Meeting Law, recipients of this message should not forward it to other members of the public body. Members of the public body may reply to the sender of the message, but they should not send a copy of the reply to other members. On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 1:27 PM ACEsConnection...
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Coronavirus child care crisis tops concerns as nation pushes to reopen. Parents ask: Who will watch our children? (usatoday.com)
Lack of child care is quickly emerging as one of the biggest barriers to the economy bouncing back, says Patricia Cole, senior director of federal policy for Zero to Three, a nonprofit focused on early childhood development. “Child care is foundational to our nation’s ability to recover from this crisis,” Cole said during a news briefing put on by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. COVID-19 has plunged the child care industry, 90% of which is privately run, into a crisis the likes of which...
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Kitchen Conversations: How to Talk with Young Children About COVID-19 (cdc.gov)
Kids are observant. They soak in what’s around them and take their cues from the adults in their lives. In these situations, adults can lead by example in the ways we cope with stress and talk with others about COVID-19. Parents, family members, and other trusted adults can play an important role to help children make sense of what they see and hear about COVID-19 in a way that is honest, accurate, and minimizes anxiety or fear. Let the kitchen table —either real or virtual— be a safe space...
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OCAP Strategic 5 year plan 2020-2025
Please see the attached report - The Office of Child Abuse Prevention (OCAP) is a bureau within the California Department of Social Services (CDSS). CDSS is the administrative structure that provides oversight to the California Child Welfare System . The system continually works to improve engagement and service provision that support the safety , permanence and well-being of children and their families. Though historically the child welfare system has focused on tertiary prevention efforts...
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America's child care problem is an economic problem [vox.com]
By Anna North, Vox, July 16, 2020 The nation’s largest school district, New York City, said last week that students will be physically in classrooms only part time at the most in the fall. The nation’s second-largest, Los Angeles, announced Monday that it will be remote only. Meanwhile, day care centers around the country are closing their doors, unable to balance the higher operating costs and reduced enrollment that came with the coronavirus pandemic. Experts have been warning for months...
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Play Therapy Can Help Kids Speak the Unspeakable (NYT)
By Dani McClain, July 21, 2020, NYT. Dee Ray doesn’t learn how children feel by listening to their words. Ray, a researcher and counselor in Texas, learns by watching them play. She directs the Center for Play Therapy at the University of North Texas and often works in schools, where she sections off a 10 feet by 10 feet area in a classroom and fills the space with toys — a child sized kitchenette, puppets, a bop bag that a child who needs to work out some aggression can punch. [ Please...
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Offset trauma for students by promoting positive experiences [exclusive.multibriefs.com]
By Sheilamary Koch, Multibriefs: Exclusive, July 27, 2020 When Christina Bethell was little, she lived in a low-income housing complex in Los Angeles where her neighbor, a quiet lady the kids called Mrs. Raccoon, always had her door open for the neighborhood kids. Every Saturday she threw a little tea party with candy to celebrate any child with a birthday that week. Bethell fondly remembers the woman’s kindness as source of comfort during her challenging childhood. Dr. Bethell, now a...
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Why the dean of early childhood experts wants to get beyond the brain [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
By Ryan White, Center for Health Journalism, July 23, 2020 Harvard’s Jack Shonkoff, a luminary in the field of early childhood, has spent years showing that events in the earliest years of life have profound implications for how budding brains develop, and in turn, shape a child’s later potential at school and work. Now, Shonkoff says it’s time to connect the brain to the rest of the body. “The message now is to say that there is a revolution going on in molecular biology and genomics and in...
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Day Care, Grandparent, Pod Or Nanny? How To Manage The Risks Of Pandemic Child Care [npr.org]
By Katherine Harmon Courage, National Public Radio, August 21, 2020 Pre-pandemic, about half of U.S. families reported having trouble finding care for a young child. That number jumped to nearly two-thirds this spring as day cares closed and other caretakers, such as grandparents and nannies, were told to stay home. And with many schools operating remotely, in a hybrid model or abruptly changing course this fall, many more parents, including those with kids in elementary school and beyond ,...
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Adversity in Early Childhood [americanprogress.org]
By Cristina Novoa and Taryn Morrissey, Center for American Progress, August 27, 2020 Since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020, the United States has seen a proliferation of cases, record-breaking unemployment, and economic instability. Meanwhile, many public health measures that severely restrict social interactions—including stay-at-home orders and school and child care closures, among others—have been prematurely lifted, with...