Post at least three consequences of your experience being a part of a caring, collaborative learning community for your professional growth and development. Use any format you choose.

Post one goal for using this collegial experience to enhance your advocacy, policy, and/or system development worn mk on behalf of young children, families, and the early childhood community.

Some consequeces of my experience in being part of a caring collaborating learning community is

1. Provide high quality care
2. provide comfort to family and children I work with.
3. Use my knowledge of ECE education to help a child learn in a way that is best for them. 


My goal for advocacy is to always stand up for what I believe it. Even if I do not have a lot of support. Even if it is something small. If it will help someone then it is worth it.

 

My Hypothetical Family

 

I am a Mother of two, with one on the way.  I am married to my college sweet heart.  He is a teacher, and I  own a boutique in the small town where we live. Our children are two years old and 4 ½.  Both of my children are developing normal for their age.  I went through all of the normal testing that needs to be done when you are pregnant, and my results came back with an increased risk that my child would be born with Down syndrome. These results are not for sure positive and the only way to know more information is by getting an amniocentesis done. This is worrisome to me because it could jeopardize the health of the baby, and could possibly lead to a miscarriage.

 

his is just a little bit of insight into hypothetical family. I am currently doing more research on the topic and hope to add a lot more detail about down syndrome and the testing for it. I chose to do research this topic more because when I was pregnant with my son I chose to not have any testing done at all. I did not want to know if there was something wrong with my baby. I did have ultrasounds and that should normal development, but I would not go any further.  I knew that no matter what I wanted to have him, and I did not want to worry about what could be wrong with him. Luckily he is perfect.

Early Childhood Systems

Over the last five week I have learned a lot of information regarding public policy, and the policies that influence early childhood education.  I feel like it is important to know as much as possible about the policies that are influencing this field, not only throughout the U.S. but also in your own state. In New York, they are currently trying to introduce a new quality rating and improvement system called QualitystarsNY.   QualitystarsNY is a program that NYS daycares are eligible for if they follow their standards, and they will guide programs to achieve these standards.  Each childcare organization that wants to participate in this program will receive a Qualitystar rating. This rating will become a guideline to parents and other early childhood professionals about the quality of the program they are seeking.  The Qualitystar rating that the center receives will become public knowledge making it a great resource for parents searching for the best quality daycare in their area. As of last year they started implementing this program in a number of centers as “tests”.  They are proven to be successful and now early childcare facilities can apply to begin the process of the QualitystarsNY program.

What I like about this program is that it is raising the bar for high quality early childhood education. Making better standards to achieve, and if you achieve these standards your center will benefit.  This is a new program here in NY , and I really hope it takes off and more centers see the benefits in this program and chose to do it. It is similar to accreditation, but from what I researched it is goes above and beyond accreditation, and is actually a better rating system.

Here is the website on the QualitystarsNY program. http://qualitystarsny.org/standards.php

Does anyone know of another programs like this, either in your state or another?

 

Share one or more strategies you have discovered as you worked on the assignments in this course, and particularly this week, that are currently being used by advocates or organizations to influence the political will toward improving early childhood systems in order to foster the well-being of young children and their families.

 One strategy that I learned this week after doing this assignment is how vital research is in this field.  After reading many different articles this week on the effectiveness of play in early childhood education, I realized how important research can be. I am glad to see this because I feel that this is a big step in improving early childhood education.  I think it is best for the child to learn through play and experiences from birth to 5, and beyond.  This research will hopefully effect future decisions in regard to ECE.