Final Blog Assignment
Three consequences of learning about the international early childhood field
Consequence 1: COVID-19 awareness in early childhood education
COVID-19. After almost one year since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the impact of the virus on the world’s children and young people is becoming clearer – and increasingly alarming. Children face a trifecta of threats: direct consequences of the disease itself, interruption in essential services, and increasing poverty and inequality.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may be stressful for children. Fear and anxiety about a new disease and what could happen can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions in adults and children. Public health actions, such as social distancing, can make people feel isolated and lonely and can increase stress and anxiety. Through social isolation, this is the child's inability to access external support networks, such as school, tutoring services, friendly environments, and play activities. It is thus evident that social isolation should be evaluated as a contributing factor for environments inappropriate to children's mental health. Disruptions to essential services such as education, health care, nutrition, and child protection interventions are harming children. A severe global economic recession is impoverishing children and compounding deep pre-existing inequalities and exclusion.
Consequence 2: Excellence and equity in the early childhood field
The early years of a child’s life are critical for brain development, with more than one million new neural pathways formed every second during a child’s first 1,000 days. The adversity children face during this critical window in childhood – including poverty, poor health and nutrition, maltreatment, and insufficient opportunity to play and learn – disrupts this normal brain development, causing setbacks that last into adulthood. The enormity of this issue is clear: one in three children are falling behind on basic skills like learning to pay attention, playing well with others and learning the basics to be ready for school. In turn, this affects these children’s education, intelligence and income. Failure to nurture children and protect them from these risks erodes the right of millions of children to develop to their full potential. At scale, this translates into massive economic losses and reinforces cycles of poverty and adversity.
For example, Novel SMS-Based Technology for Early Brain Development Support and Monitoring in Brazil
The lack of information flow from care providers to parents and vice versa in Brazil remains a systemic problem in the management of early childhood development. There is still a huge gap in parental knowledge of best practices; information is not targeted for recipient populations and feedback to care providers is missing. These communication issues prevent parents from having the tools to ensure the best brain development for their children, while care providers struggle with the timely identification of developmental challenges.
This innovation answers the need for a scalable communication solution. Tá.Na.Hora Digital Health has developed an SMS message approach that allows for highly-customized, interactive engagement on early child development. These programs would initially provide valuable information to new mothers, send reminders, track development milestones of the child, and help manage the development of at-risk children. This financially sustainable approach taps into the high cell phone permeation in Brazil and the ubiquitous nature of SMS communication.
Consequence 3: International Resources
There are several resources that my peers have been sharing throughout this course to expand my knowledge in early childhood education at International Level. And I will continue researching and deepened my knowledge to support children in my community.
As an early childhood professional, my main goal has not been changed: becoming a Navy CYP trainer who trains other caregivers to be psychologically and mentally ready to provide high-quality care for children. I will bring all the knowledge that I have gained through this master's program to them with in-depth knowledge and tips to border caregivers' practices, support children's development, and enhance the early childhood program (CYP). My personal and professional experience and practices have been grown and deepened a lot since the course began. From the course discussions that my classmates share their thoughts and understanding of early childhood, the professor, Dr. Russell, gave valuable advice about my colleagues' blogs that inspire and exchange knowledge. I feel very confident to become a Navy CYP trainer. I have gained expertise and practices to support early childhood educators, young children, and families of young children mentally and physically by providing knowledge, techniques, and child development resources.
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