Saturday, April 11, 2015

Sharing Web Resources

The childhood organization that I selected, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, does not seem to have any outside links. The “outside” links that they have lead to other offspring of their own efforts under the tab called Activities. In their website, their Activities tab includes a portfolio that includes initiatives, activities, and projects. All the links are to their internal Resources such as reports/working papers, briefs, multimedia, tools & guides, and articles & books.

There is a working paper #7 that somewhat addresses this week’s topic of equity in early care and education. The paper asks the following question: what kind of work supports matter most for improving child well-being? Frequently, some of the anti-poverty policies have unintended and negative consequences, so they suggested that we need to understand how our effort to improve adult workforce participation can have positive and negative outcomes for children.

There are two kinds of policies for families: make work pay by increasing both work and total family income and simply mandate work. The former has more positive outcomes for the children’s school achievements.

The mandate to work will cause families to have reduced income from other sources whereas the “make work pay” will actually increase the family’s income. Typically, a family can increase their income by $1500-$2000. That’s a lot of money for families living in poverty.

How do children generally improve as a result of their families’ “make work pay policy? Not only do their school performances improve, but their social behaviors.

Again, child care supports is an effective factor in children’s early school success. The make pay work policy would enable more families to afford center-based care which we know has more high-quality standards.


References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011). Issues and trends in the early childhood field: Excellence and equity of care and education for children and families—Part 2. Baltimore, MD: Author.

National Forum on Early Childhood Program Evaluation. (2008). Workforce development, welfare reform, and child well-being: Working paper #7. Retrieved April 2015from: http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/resources/reports_and_working_papers/working_papers/forum_wp1/

6 comments:

  1. Marla,
    Getting families to work not only increases their income but also their self-esteem. As you rightly stated, the make work pay program will help families have more money afford quality childcare and bring up confident children. I will look up the Working paper #7 it sounds interesting. Thanks.

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  2. Marla,
    It's amazing how interconnected a parents earning potential has become so connected to a child's learning capability.
    Jeannie

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  3. The ability of a family to earn a sufficient income to live a comfortable life in the context of their environment creates a huge impact on the family dynamic and the child's ability to develop healthy physical, cognitive, social and emotional behavior.

    Thank you for recommending this paper, while reviewing this piece I found it interesting to read that the programs that encouraged active participation and job training primarily by mothers created the biggest benefits. "Education programs for both children and adults succeed only when instructional time is substantial or when parents express high levels of motivation to pursue their own education. In the case of the training programs, it appeared that the more time mothers spent in their job training classrooms, the more their children benefited." When mothers, and females in general, are skilled and empowered - not only to families benefit, but the entire community as we breakdown inequities within levels of education, gender roles, and biases of society.

    There were a ton of links to great reports similar to this when I visited this resource, I look forward to reading more as a follow up to this, "Maternal Depression Can Undermine the Development of Young Children"

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  4. Thank you for sharing this piece, it was interesting to read how a parent's active participation and engagement in skilled training programs benefited the child's healthy development, especially with mothers. "Education programs for both children and adults succeed only when instructional time is substantial or when parents express high levels of motivation to pursue their own education. In the case of the training programs, it appeared that the more time mothers spent in their job training classrooms, the more their children benefited."

    This resource had a ton of great links to papers including"Maternal Depression Can Undermine the Development of Young Children" and I look forward to reading more as a follow up.

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  5. Thank you for sharing this piece, it was interesting to read how a parent's active participation and engagement in skilled training programs benefited the child's healthy development, especially with mothers. "Education programs for both children and adults succeed only when instructional time is substantial or when parents express high levels of motivation to pursue their own education. In the case of the training programs, it appeared that the more time mothers spent in their job training classrooms, the more their children benefited."

    This resource had a ton of great links to papers including"Maternal Depression Can Undermine the Development of Young Children" and I look forward to reading more as a follow up.

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  6. That is so interesting about the make work pay programs. It is incredible what we can actually do to improve the outcomes for people living in poverty if we focus on the issue!

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