Child Protection & Social Welfare

The Innovative Pedagogical Approaches in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE): A Resource Pack includes case studies from nine countries. Each is an example of an innovative pedagogy developed according to a specific context and with concern for sustainable learning.This resource pack discounts the idea that ECCE should solely rely on a “universalized ‘one size fits all’ model" and emphasizes the need for ‘real-life’ approaches that connect children with their communities. Innovations in ECCE in the Asia-Pacific region are often intended to improve not only the lives of children but also those of the entire community. These examples of transformational pedagogy are inspirational reads for practitioners, researchers, and policymakers.

For a child welfare agency to achieve its mission, it must attract, develop, and retain a skilled and ready workforce. Yet, child welfare agencies across the country are struggling to recruit, hire, train, support, and retain committed and high-performing staff. To hear key stakeholder concerns about the child welfare workforce, the Children’s Bureau and the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute invited 28 state and county agency leaders and 7 university partners, Children’s Bureau staff and national consultants to participate in a Workforce Workgroup on March 4-5, 2013. This report is a compilation of the most pressing child welfare workforce issues they face and recommended strategies for developing the child welfare workforce of the future.

The appendices from the Critical Competencies for Infant-Toddler Educators Related Professional Criteria, provide clear and concise guidance on essential knowledge and skills for infant-toddler educators.

Illustrating how criteria from various partners can be used together to support the preparation and professional development of infant-toddler educators, this document includes related professional criteria, tools and child development benchmarks.

Ultimately, high-quality ECEC services must not only be accessible, affordable, and available, but also desirable and relevant to all families and responsive to changing demographics and evolving needs in order to be successful.

The recommendations that follow are intended to provide a comprehensive set of guiding principles for policymaking at the local, national, and federal levels, as well as for funders and other stakeholders, and are based on the knowledge generated from the Transatlantic Forum on Inclusive Early Years’ (TFIEY) convenings. While these recommendations are focused on issues in ECEC that may particularly impact children in a low-income or migrant context, they are considerations that can benefit all young children and families in ECEC systems across the EU and US regardless of their background. Investing in inclusive, high-quality ECEC is a win-win situation: for all children and their families and for society.

Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress.

Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the family—which includes all primary caregivers—are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment.

Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

The goal of the integrated programme guide for ECD in emergencies is to guide the humanitarian community in designing a response that takes into account the needs of young children. This programme guide can be used in times of emergency preparedness, response, and early recovery, and for building resilience. It is designed for use by UNICEF Programme Officers as well as for representatives from other UN agencies, NGOs and government divisions responsible for designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating ECD interventions.

Children need good care. Their survival through childhood depends on adults who notice when they are hungry or sick, and are able to meet their needs.

Good care also means keeping children safe from harm, and giving them love, attention, and many opportunities to learn. From birth, children build ties to special adults and look to them to learn important skills. What children learn from these relationships helps to prepare them for life.

This course on Counsel the Family on Care for Child Development supports the efforts of families and others in your community who are trying to raise healthy, happy children. They may live in poverty and face many other challenges. The children they raise may be their own. Or they may have accepted the task of raising other children in their family or community. You can help them be better able to care for their children, even under difficult conditions.

Course Objectives

At the end of the course on Counsel the Family on Care for Development, you will be able to:

• Identify the interaction between a child and a parent or other person – the primary caregiver – who most directly takes care of the child.
• Counsel the family on activities to strengthen the relationship between the child and the caregiver.
• Advise the family on appropriate play and communication activities to stimulate the child’s growth and healthy development.

As you learn these tasks, you will focus on observing caregivers with their children. Using good communication skills, you will counsel the family.

This report focuses on strengthening systems that support professional development as a critical task for the early childhood development field. The report advocates for an integrated professional development system that:

• Fully incorporates infant-toddler workforce preparation and ongoing professional development based on widely accepted, evidence-based competencies;
• Is aligned with and articulates into college degree programs;
• Includes alterative pathways to credentials;
• Connects the various service delivery program types;
• Provides appropriate compensation.

The report defines an early childhood professional development system that includes the infant-toddler workforce, highlights the six essential policy areas that need to be addressed and shares policy recommendations in context.

Zero to Three

2012