Sharing Web Resources #2

I know this week we are focusing on web resources, but I wanted to include what Maria, my international contact had emailed me this week about Sweden and the poverty there.  I'm learning to email her earlier, so that I am able to get my responses in time for blog posts.  I thought her response was so interesting, I just copy/pasted the whole thing to share with everyone.

Hello Amber!

Poverty, what a difficult subject. It’s hard to define what poverty is. For me it’s when you don’t have enough money to buy food every day, and don’t have money to pay the most important bills, like the rent on your apartment and electricity and worse if you don’t have an apartment at all. And if you don’t have enough money to buy clothes and shoes.

If you live in Sweden and have children you get money from the government, like a child support, every month. You get 150 $/month for the first child. And if you have more children you get a “large family support“.

We also have another system, Government Healthcare, were you can get social welfare. So a child in Sweden should not live in poverty. But in the report from Save the children 13% or 248 000 children grow up in low-income family or are dependent on income support like social welfare. And the number of children who grows up in poverty has grown from last year.

Save the children says that the most exposed group of children is the children to single parents, children of parents who doesn’t have any work and children to immigrant parents. According to CRC, Sweden is obliged to ensure that all children have a fair standard of living, and that no child is discriminated against because of their social origins. Save the Children believes that discrimination exists in Sweden today, since the children living in economically disadvantaged families are at risk of poorer health, less educated, and less opportunity for recreational activities.

In the preschool we must report to the social services if we are worried about a child. But I have never had to deal with it at my workplace. But sometimes my colleagues and I think that some kids have fewer clothes and also outgrown clothes. The preschool have some clothes that the children can borrow if they have to. I hope that you got the answer that you need.

Maria. :)


Now on to sharing web resources....
   The more and more that I look at the site that I first chose, naecte.org, the more I do not like it as much.  It seems very limiting in what it offers, unless I sign up to be a member and I have a hard time wanting to be a member when I'm not super impressed with the content that they have on their main page.   For this week, and possibly for the following weeks, I chose to look at www. zerotothree.org.  I already signed up for the newsletter because I really like what this site has to offer.
    I looked under the policies tab on the website and I was pleasantly surprised by all of the great information that I found on what the federal government, state and communities are doing to support children.  From the way Dr. Grace spoke in the video segment, I kind of took on her thinking that politicians are not doing much in the way of helping children except when it helps their own agenda.  I found this not to be true.  There is an amazing amount of programs and intiatives out there that the government is working on.  The website links to OESE, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, and there is a lot of information listed there as well.
   I decided to look up Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge because I have heard of it, but I was never sure what it really was.  The challenge is to increase the percentage of low-income children and disadvantaged children in each age group of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers enrolled in high quality programs, to design and implement high quality programs and have assessments that follow the National Research Councils.  The grant is awared to states that are creating these programs.  I didn't see the results though of who has been awarded these grants.
   The website also containted a lot of research-based information from neuroscientists and other scientists about brain development, challenging behavior and literacy to name a few.  I did not see anything on the page about economists becoming involved with the early childhood field though.
  Hopefully by the next blog post, I will have more opportunities to read newsletters on the zerotothree website and be able to share what these newsletters are discussing.   The website kept saying that the newsletters were not available at this time and to talk to the site administrator.  Hopefully they will be up and running soon.  It is a wonderful website and I probably should have chosen this from the start.


Resource
www.zerotothree.org