The challenge that I
have selected for my course project is:
Challenge: I would
like to research how providing early childhood education services to homeless
families can help the development of their children.
Sub-Topic: Providing
these services to immigrant and minority families.
I have selected this
topic because recently one of the families that I work with lost their home due
to a fire that started in the apartment below them. They lost everything and the
mom is also pregnant. They were staying with extended family members but the
living situation was not comfortable for them or their children. They were told
they had to find somewhere else to go. The mom came to me as the site
supervisor and asked for help and I really did not know what to do to help her
but send her to our agencies family source center.
Learning what was
going on with this family explained the sudden withdrawal of their child, not
from the program, but in her interaction with staff and peers. It gave us a
better understanding of why she seemed afraid to let her mom go and other
changes that had happen. It made me want to learn more about how being homeless
can affect the education of young children.
My initial values and
beliefs about the development of homeless children is that they need more high quality
childcare services than a regular childcare center can offer. They need one
that can provide the support that not only the children need but also their
whole family and special trained teachers that understand how hard it is for
these children.
One question that I
have is does being homeless really harm the development of young children?
Another question is, how can we as teachers help these young children
development in a positive manner?
