Enlisting and Providing Support

Questions you have with which your colleagues may be able to provide help and support.

I plan to present my final advocacy plan with a power point presentation.  Can I insert the presentation in a work document so that the instructor can open it as a power point presentation?  I use the computer a lot but am not familiar with inserting presentations into papers.

Resources and information you are seeking.

I have several sources for social/emotional development but does anyone have any other resources that they have found useful in the past?  Currently, I am pulling information from Conscious Discipline, this book helps teachers teach the child through a whole curriculum and by using the positive discipline techniques in this book will build their social emotional skills needed to address the issues of today’s world. Creative Curriculum for Infants and Preschool, help teachers to build a high-quality program for their students by utilizing the standards of the profession.  These standards use indicators that can help identify an early childhood program of high quality.  CSEFEL, the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning provides information on the social emotional development and school readiness of young children.  NAYEC, National Association for the Education of Young Children, provides information for young children from infancy through school readiness.

Resources and/or information you have found helpful and insightful.

Pulling information from CSEFEL, NAYEC, Conscious Discipline, and Creative Curriculum for Infants and Preschool has given me a lot of very useful information.  Using these three together helped me pull together a great research paper and hopefully a good Advocacy Plan.  Social/Emotion development must be nourished from infancy and continued throughout a child’s development according to Dr. Becky Bailey, Conscious Discipline.  These four resources stress the importance of using developmentally appropriate practices with children in order to build their self-confidence and social emotional development. 

Personal Advocacy Journal-Social/Emotional Development

“Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.”

― Bill Drayton, Leading Social Entrepreneurs Changing the World

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/advocacy

What inspires and excites you most about your advocacy plan and being an advocate?

My advocacy plan is on the importance of social/emotional development in young children.  It excites me to know that by intentionally building relationships with children from infancy a provider can make a big difference in how that child is able to handle their social development, such as making friends or being social, and also their emotional development, such as knowing how to control their emotions or handling how to share.  The relationship between the caregiver, parent, and the child is one of the most important relationships that the child has during the first five years of their life and I want to revolutionize social/emotional development at least at my center.

What challenges and/or anxieties do you feel related to engaging in the advocacy efforts you have targeted?

My biggest anxiety is that others will not understand the importance of social/emotional development.  I do plan to implement my plan in my community.  I am sure that others are going to get tired of me talking about the importance of social/emotional development but I believe strongly that this is such an important issue for young children that I am not going to give up.  I do not have any control over what the other centers and their employees do about implementing social/emotional development but I intend to make sure that my employees know what it is and how to properly implement it.  I want the children that are entrusted to my center get the best care in all aspects of their development.

What do you believe will be most effective in helping your overcome any challenging emotions you may be feeling with regard to presenting and implementing your Advocacy Action Plan?

Presenting the plan is going to be pretty nerve racking because I am not sure how the people I am presenting to feel about social-emotional development.  I also do not know some of the people that I will be presenting very well, even though I have worked with them over the past couple of semesters I still believe that they look at me as just someone in childcare and not really knowing what is going on in the educational world.

How can you encourage others in their advocacy efforts, and how can others encourage you?

I believe that the best way to encourage others is by giving them positive feedback concerning their advocacy efforts.  I believe that positive feedback motivates a person to perform more effectively and do more in their advocacy efforts. 

Others can encourage me by providing positive and helpful feedback concerning my advocacy efforts.  I do not want everyone to agree with what I plan to present but tell me where I might need improvement.  I would much rather hear about improvement from my classmates than from co-workers.