{"id":5190,"date":"2020-01-22T16:30:40","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T16:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/?p=5190"},"modified":"2021-06-15T16:37:28","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T15:37:28","slug":"sparking-national-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/sparking-national-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Sparking national conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton is sparking a national conversation today by launching a UK-wide survey to help improve early childhood. Senior Lecturer Mary Wood explains why studies like this are so important. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The five-question\nonline survey aims to \u201cspark national conversation\u201d and asks participants for\ntheir opinion on what influences development and what period of childhood is\nmost important for children\u2019s happiness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understanding early childhood development and early intervention is a fundamental component that underpins teaching and learning on BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies<\/a> programme at Canterbury Christ Church University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our students are\nthe practitioners of tomorrow, working in our schools, early years care and\neducation provisions, in health and social services, and early intervention\nservices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early\nintervention concerns every professional working in the early years, be this in\nhomes, institutions and the wider community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our aim is for students to become effective interventionists, the change-makers in the lives of children and their families by understanding and being able to utilise the science and theories of early childhood development and learning. This includes, for example, the importance of the prenatal environment and the impact that generational disadvantage and poverty has on the health and welfare of parents, the foetus, the infant and the first 1000 days of a child\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes\nappreciating the impact pervading disadvantage has on communities where\ncommunity wellbeing is essential to the welfare and development of children be\nthis the early years teacher, the family support worker, as well as physical\nplaces and spaces to play and grow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students study the nature of early intervention from a range of perspectives that include national and international social policy, community action, and research-informed practice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In particular,\nstudents connect early intervention with supporting families to discover and\nrecover their potential as parents, a potential that can be ground down by\npersistent adversity and disadvantage, this includes inherited disadvantage\nthat can be seen to be passed down through the generations. Rather than\nencouraging dependence, students consider what it means to intervene early\nthrough appropriate help and support that seeks to build human and social\ncapital as well as child and family wellbeing and resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A core theme to early intervention is advocacy for the child and for parents, bringing both to voice. Children are considered as human beings with agency, ideas and rights to be respected. A simple example of advocacy is challenging and changing the language we use about children and around children. For example does this outdated expression ‘the terrible twos’,  a label that can mislead our actions and our interventions. Instead, we talk about the wonder years of early childhood where children develop into the person they are meant to become. To work as advocates for children and their families, students learn what it is work in communities and with communities, how to represent the needs of individuals and groups, babies, young children and their families who are unable to express this for themselves. In practice, placements and through their research projects students experience how to work together with other early years professionals, parents and children to secure the life chances of the next generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is why the Duchess of Cambridge\u2019s initiative to \u201cspark a national conversation\u201d about the importance and wonder of early years is a truly welcome one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary Wood is Senior Lecturer in Faculty of Education. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton is sparking a national conversation today by launching a UK-wide survey to help improve early childhood. Senior Lecturer Mary Wood explains why studies like this are so important. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151654,"featured_media":5197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,3902],"tags":[3226,3221,1705,502,3214,3218,3222],"class_list":["post-5190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-research","tag-childhood-development","tag-duchess-of-cambridge","tag-early-childhood","tag-education","tag-intervention","tag-kate-middleton","tag-online-survey"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"Emma Grafton-Williams","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/437\/2020\/01\/Kate-Middleton.png","postExcerpt":"The Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton is sparking a national conversation today by launching a UK-wide survey to help improve early childhood. Senior Lecturer Mary Wood explains why studies like this are so important. ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5190"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7578,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions\/7578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}