Week 4 Blog Assignment - 6161 - 7

 

Sharing Web Resources

 

Joanne Erina Lynch

 

Date: Saturday 30th March, 2013.

       

          The international website I am conducting research on is Early Childhood Australia: The Australian Early Childhood Advocacy Organization. The link is: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/early_childhood_

          Early childhood professionals' ethical behavior must navigate decision making all the time, since ethics is the science which affords us to appreciate humanity as it is, and as it could be. It further commands us about how to move from truth to the unsurpassable, hence, the reason why the specific section that is of distinct relevance to my current professional development is the Code of Ethics. This necessitates a set of affirmation about relevant and expected behavior of members in the early childhood profession, and mirrors its value.

             Furthermore, the Early Australia Code of Ethics was first developed in 1990 by a national working party with significant input from the early childhood field. This contributes an outline for demonstration about the moral responsibilities of early childhood professionals. The aim of the Code is for use by all early childhood professionals who work with or on behalf of children and families in the early childhood setting.

         The ideas of purchasing Early Childhood Australia product via the internet, where you have to give personal information in a variety of situations, and the idea of being dissatisfied with the response from Early Childhood Australia, and under the Federal Privacy Act (1988) Contract the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner, made me think about the issues in new ways. For these reasons: Paying for purchased products to a secured Commonwealth Bank website where you have to enter your credit card details, does not guarantee you that all credit card information will be held safely and secured. Too many credit card scams are prevalent in different parts of the world today. Concerning the other issues:  How efficient and effective will be the response from the office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner, when dissatisfied customers are seeking redress for a burning issue? This, no one can give a definite answer to.

          The evidence the website contains, that adds to my understanding of how politicians support the early childhood field, is from a joint media release on Monday 7th May, 2012, between two government ministers: - The Honorable Peter Garreth MP - Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, and Honorable Kate Ellis MP - Minister for Employment Participation, Early Childhood and Child Care. The release has posited that the Gillard Government will invest a further $55.7 million to make sure that Australia's most defenseless children are better prepared to start school by expanding the Home Interaction Program for Parents and Youngsters (HIPPY) to one hundred (100) communities across Australia. The program make available to parents and caregivers the skills and confidence they need to take an active role in their children's education.

          Other insights about issues and trends I have obtained from exploring the early childhood field website are:  The site is the voice of young children since 1938, as well as the apex early childhood advocacy organization, acting in the interest of young children, their families, and those in the early childhood field. It takes a holistic approach to working with young children and their families, and is proactive about sharing information worldwide, since information is the key. Also, it permits everyone to keep abreast of early childhood news and happenings.

Reference

Early Childhood Australia: The Australian early childhood advocacy organization Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/.

 

Week 3 Blog Assignment - EDUC - 6162 - 7

 

Getting To Know Your International Contacts - Part 1

 

Joanne E. Lynch

 

Date: Saturday 23rdrd March, 2013

 

            For the past weeks, I was trying to establish contacts with two early childhood professionals outside the United States of America, but it was futile. However, I went to the website of the Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Center's page (http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/), and chose the country of India to complete my assignment.

           India is only second to that of China when comes to comparison of population, and poverty is one of the biggest problems that plague the country of India. Almost one third of India's population which is more than 1.1 billion are still living below the line of poverty, especially people from the rural areas. There are many factors that have led to the endemic deprivation in these areas. For example: Over population, where the inhabitants cannot be fed properly, due to a scarcity of resources; low production of agriculture, because the country is not producing the amount of food to feed its people; there is no proper capital investment nor appropriate irrigation facilities in agriculture, because of the old fashion technique being used; underutilized resources where many of the land working Indians and well qualified ones are not getting the suitable jobs, therefore they migrate to foreign countries; the low rate    of economic development of Indians as compared to other nations; rise in the prices of goods which are the basic needs of human;  unemployment which is constantly on the increase, while job opportunities remain the same, thus resulting in poverty in India; shortage of capital and able entrepreneurship; social factors; high levels of illiteracy; inadequate health care; extremely limited access to social services  corruption; and political factors. All these circumstances limit the Indians' possibilities of benefiting from economic growth.

          Undoubtedly, the poorest areas in India that are on the poverty map are: Rajasthan, Madhya, Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jhackhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and West Bengal. Likewise, in the semiarid tropical regions of India, live a large number of the poorest people, where there are persistent droughts and shortages of water, which obstruct the transformation of agriculture. Also, in flood prove areas from eastern Uttar Pradesh to northern Bihar, there is a high incidence of poverty. Furthermore, poverty affects tribal people in forest areas, owing to the lost of ownership to resources, which made them even poorer.

           However, the percentage of the population below the line of poverty between 1973 and 2000 has reduced relentlessly from 56.4 percent to an approximation of 26 percent. There was a reported declined in rural poverty from 56.4 percent to 27.1 percent around the same time. During this time, the poverty reduction pace varied considerably; by the second half of the 1990s, there was a contentious reported 10 percent decline in poverty. On the other hand, around the same time (1990s), a substantial fluctuation occurred with a huge increase of 13 million, then later that time, an enormous decrease. On the contrary, the absolute numbers in poverty continued to be very high.

           Many children in India have a very hard life, since about half of them (about 62 million) are under the age of five are malnourished, while 34 percent of newborns are considerably overweight. An immense task persists in getting 33 million children from poor families into primary schools. The retention rate has been increased, so that more children can complete primary schools, because India has a large percentage of out of school children (20 percent). This is due to nearly one third of the children who are under the age of sixteen, and have already been working: - the largest number of children is working in the world.

         Communicable disease such as malnutrition, maternal and prenatal illness, continued to be very high, pre-dominantly among poor people. Also, there are growing rates of non-communicable diseases. Generally speaking, the most disadvantage people in the Indian Society are women, although their social and ethnic background varied considerably.

         Because of poverty, the central government in India has put programs in place, giving a bigger role to rural local government for the implementation and beneficiary selection and monitoring. Children in the age group of 0-6 years are targeted particularly in the largest programs for the Integrated Child Development Services Program (ICDS).

 

References

Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Center - Country overviews.

Retrieved from     http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/index.php?action=countryo.

Rural Poverty in India

Retrieved from     http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/country/home/tags/india.

 

Sharing Web Resources WK 2

Wk2 Blog Assignment EDUC - 6162-7

Sharing Web Resources

 

Joanne .E. Lynch

 

Saturday 16th March, 2013

 

          The international website that I have selected is Early Childhood Australia: The Australian Early Childhood Advocacy Organization. The link is: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/ (Newsletter: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au./contact_us/mailing_list.html).

          Early Childhood Australia (ECA) is an advocacy organization committed to ensuring quality, social justice and equity in all issues relating to the education and care of children from birth to eight years of age. Also, they are a peak national, non-profit, non-governmental organization with branches in each state and territory. Their members, through their network of local branches around Australia, are a voice for young children, and act to identify issues, and influence policies concerning their care and education. Early Childhood Australia found its advocacy programs on social justices and equity.

One current issue/trend from the website that caught my attention is the fact that it is promoting increased awareness and understanding of the needs of young children and their families. Moreover, after studying these resources, I realized that the Early Childhood Australia could not have achieved its objectives if it did not develop and advocate policies on early childhood education and care; promoting and reviewing the Early Childhood Australia Code of Ethics; supporting informed debate and good practice in the early childhood settings through its own specialist early childhood publication; supporting the development of an early childhood profession through building connections between people, developing practice standards and leadership capabilities; and maintaining a strong early childhood research base.

 

 

Reference

Early childhood Australia: The Australian early childhood advocacy organization.

http://www.earlychildhooaustralia.org.au/

(Newsletter: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au./contact_us/mailing_list.html)

Week1 Getting Ready!!!

Week 1 Blog Assignment

 

Getting Ready - Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources.

 

Joanne .E. Lynch

 

Saturday 9th March, 2013

 

 Part 1

          Broadening my networking and experience as an educator in the early childhood field, is of great importance to me. For this reason, the field and services are evolving and changing as we acquire more about the significance of the early years, and the contexts in which we can best support children's development.

          However, I took the opportunity to peruse at least all the early childhood related websites outside the United States. About five websites were chosen by me to submit emails, and two gave me failure notices, while I have not received responses from the others. Nonetheless, the two websites I am very much interesting in are:  Association for Children's Educations International

http://acei.org/

(Review also these online resources at: http://acei.org/knowledge/) and International Step by Step Associations

http://www.issa.nl/

(Review also the databases at: http://www.issa.nl/issadatabases.html.). Undoubtedly, these two websites have a sustained vision for the early childhood field, and specifically for the programs that will prepare professionals working in the field.

  

Part 2

          After scrutinizing the various early childhood organizations' website in the United States, I have decided to choose National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies.

htt://www.naccrra.org/

(Newsletter: http://capwiz.com/naccrra/mim/signup/). The reason for choosing this website is that it meets the requirements necessary for the early childhood field. Likewise, it ensures that families in every local community have access to quality, affordable childcare, and to accomplish their mission, and availability of childcare; offer comprehensive training to child care professionals; undertake ground breaking research; and advocate for childcare policies that improves the lives of children and families.

          The organization is a nonprofit one that helps parents to find the best information on locating quality childcare resources in their community. Moreover, it understands that all parents and families have a variety of needs and interests, and it has decided to supporting parents. In addition to that, for more information about the organization, one has to click on the home tabs, then on each dropdown tabs/links. The organization has a Newsletter: http://capwiz.com/naccrra/mim/signup/.

  

References

Association for Childhood Education International

http://ace/.org/

(Review also these online resources at: http:acei.org/knowledge/)

 

International Step by Step Association

http://www.issa.nl/

(Review also the database at: http:www.issa.nl/issadatabases.html)

 

National Association of Childcare Resources & Referral Agencies

http://www.naccra.org/

(Newsletter: http://capwiz.com/naccrra/mim/signup/)