Benefits of research on children and families

I recently attended a showing of the film "Paper Tigers" that shows how an alternative high school in Walla Walla, Washington developed a new school wide approach to dealing with students who were either absent habitually or displaying a variety of challenging behaviors.  The film tells the story of how the principle of the high school went to a conference on trauma informed care at which researchers were reporting on its effects on children and adults as a result of "Adverse Childhood Experiences  Study (ACES)".  The research documented the connection between childhood trauma and a change in the architecture of the brain.  Jim Sporleder, principal, explains in the film how that information was so crucial to him understanding why many of his students had these behaviors. It caused him to make wide spread changes: in how staff was trained; discipline policies were changed; new support services were offered on-site (medical, dental and mental health); and family and community outreach.  According to the film, this transition has had community wide effects.  This is a very riveting demonstration of how research can benefit children and families.

I encourage you to watch the trailer of the movie at the following link:
https://vimeo.com/110821029



Other resources
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6xRtNGjN3I

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/toxic-stress-derails-healthy-development/

Week 2 Literature Review

My chosen topic is the merits or benefits of reflective practice for early childhood teachers/providers.  I chose this topic because I have experienced the benefits of reflective practice in my own professional life.  As a family childcare provider in rural Iowa, I was pretty isolated (this was before social media was available) and had it not been for my experience reflecting on my own practices and working with a reflective partner to reflect on hers, I would not be the highly qualified professional I am today.  We would video tape our programs then watch the videos together and critic what we saw.  We discovered new ideas for helping other childcare providers, which led to us starting our own 501C3 non profit provider association.  Through this association, we were able to form a larger group of professionals who wanted to improve their own practices but also wanted to mentor others in improving theirs.  This experience taught me that even practitioners without a formal education can become good teachers when they discover the reflective process.  The IOM report, “Transforming the Workforce for children birth through age 8: A unifying foundation”  is recommending that only degreed early childhood teachers should be able to provide early care and education services to young children.  The cost of providing such qualified professionals would be astronomical; parents cannot afford to pay more; workers cannot work for less money; and childcare centers cannot add to their group sizes.  Either the federal government is going to have to step in and subsidize early care and education; or look for practices that will have more immediate affects on child outcomes.  Each day children around our country are being taught and cared for by practitioners who may be unintentionally harming our young children by perpetuating poor teaching practices.  There is no time to waste; reflective practice can begin impacting children immediately.

There is a movement right now in mental health organizations and large corporations to encourage supervisors and staff to work together in reflective practice and I think the same practices would benefit all educational practitioners. 

I was surprised to find several articles in the Walden database that addressed this topic, it is not a strictly early childhood issue. I know I will learn more about reflective practice as I prepare for the research simulation.  Research is an intimidating topic for me and breaking down each section is making it easier to understand.  Reading the two articles this week for the literature review helped me to understand the purpose of this section.  The literature review is the researchers way to set the stage for someone reading it to better understand why the topic was important, what the researcher had already discovered about the topic using other research, and to draw the reader in to become curious about the results of the research conducted. 

I am willing to help any of my fellow students with insights and resources that I have at my disposal, please feel free to contact me if you get stuck or want to brainstorm possible strategies.

References:

Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Research Council (NRC). 2015.

Transforming the workforce for children birth through age 8: A unifying foundation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

6163: Understanding Research

Hello to my classmates, we are in for a fun ride, I can tell.  I am hoping those of you who have had research courses before will give us some tips that will be helpful in finding our way through the muck.  I know we need research, but right now I am experiencing the fear of the unknown.  Help!