One of the outside links offered is to Early Head Start
Resource Center. I like that this resource is directly linked to the Zero To Three
organization. It shows the collaboration between early childhood organizations
and professionals.
A new area that I explored this week was in the Family,
Friend, & Neighbor Care section under Care & Education. This area
provides a lot of information for caregivers providing early education care within
their home to family, friends, and neighbors. This section offers a tremendous
amount of support to enable caregivers to provide the best care within the
home. The reason I find this interesting is because I have often heard of
stay-at-home mothers opening their homes to other families for daily childcare.
This resource has great information on how to get things running, keep it
running, and to provide education and well-being to the children.
The Zero To Three website listed an article, “Expanding
Access to Early Head Start: State Initiatives for Infants and Toddlers at Risk”
which gave insight into ways to improve access to early childhood education. The
article discusses efforts to expand or enhance initiatives with the Early Head
Start (EHS) program. Building on the
Promise outlined diverse ways states enhanced or expanded EHS services
including four approaches:
• Extend the day/year of existing
EHS services
• Expand the capacity of EHS
programs to increase the number of children and pregnant women served
• Provide resources and
assistance to child care providers to help them deliver services meeting EHS
standards
• Support partnerships between
EHS and center-based and family child care providers to improve the quality of
child care
With these approaches being
utilized, states have made adjustments that fit the needs of their programs.
The article offers these findings for other states to utilize in efforts to
enhance or expand their own programs and provides funding information and recommendations
to improve access to EHS.
I was impressed as I read one of the recommendations that state
the importance of having champions for EHS initiatives. This simple
recommendation was all I need to motivate and spark my desire to advocate for
early childhood education.
People often forget about caregivers and the importance for them to have access to information about resources in the community. Therefore, websites such as Zero to Three is not only a great resource for professionals but caregivers as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree Terri it is important that these organizations collaborate because no one organization can advance the field of early childhood all alone.
ReplyDeleteTerri, Thank you for providing the Zero to Three website as a resource. The accessibility information goes along with what we have discussed this week.
ReplyDelete