Getting to Know Your International Contacts.

Welcome back fellow colleagues!! So last week’s Blog discussed an article of choice form a website or professional contact. Rather than continue to wait for responses from those contacts in which I reached out to, I realized there are so many websites and resources that offer important information on child poverty, education, and advocacy.

Last week’s Blog featured the website, http://www.nbcdi.org/ ( National Black Child Development Institute). This week, I decided to add the website; http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html (National Center for Children in Poverty).

The reason I chose NCCP was because this week’s class discussion focused a lot on poverty, and I was fortunate enough to find articles and information on how this foundation advocates for children and families.

NCCP has a vision that focuses on economic stability for children and families, helping children and families build and maintain healthy nurturing relationships, and overall healthy child development. On my journey through the website I ran across the media room and found a section, “For poor kids, recommendation to read aloud is even more critical”.  The article discussed how Pediatricians are encouraging families to read to their children as much as possible, this is imperative to children coming from disadvantage homes.

Research shows that “encouraging families to read aloud to the 16  million children below the poverty line form an early age, can improve the achievement gap between affluent children, and those that are disadvantaged” http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html.

There were so many projects that have been successfully achieved by NCCP such as; Improving the odds for adolescents, which focused on improving children’s health, Project thrive, focusing on improving child development, and providing funds for quality care through the Maternal and Child health Bureau. Social Inclusion and Respect for Diversity, which promotes diversity and inclusion in child development centers in the U.S. Strategies for early learning, providing children the proper education foundation to ensure success as they enter school. Youth, homelessness, and education, focuses on children 12-17 that have either run away from home, or have been homeless, by rebuilding their stability and initiative to become successful individuals and to continue their education paths.

This website is very informative of current issues and trends that extend even further than poverty, there are resources on housing programs, as well as how to help families regain their financial stability.

 Poverty is everyone's problem. It cuts across any line you can name: age, race, social, geographic or religious. Whether you are black or white; rich, middle-class or poor, we are ALL touched by poverty.
-- Kathleen Blanco

Resource:

 National Center for Children in Poverty. Retrieved from http://www.nccp.org/projects/show.php?id=41