Assignment:
Action Plan 4: Supporting Families of Divorce

Application: Action Plan 4: Supporting Families of Divorce

Almost one out of two marriages in the United States ends in divorce (Berns, 2015, p. 93). This high rate of divorce potentially places many young children and their parents in need of support. In Week 2, you read about some of the changes and challenges that divorce can bring to families. This week, you will focus on the role of an early childhood professional in helping young children and families who are experiencing separation and divorce.

Action Plan Professional Scenario: Imagine that you are working in an early childhood setting and in the same year, three families are going through divorces. You are committed to supporting each family as much as possible and so decide to research the impact of this experience on infants, toddlers, and preschoolers in order to help all adults involved better understand what the children and families are going through. You also want to help each of the families—and others you will work with—diminish the negative emotional and behavioral effects on young children that divorce can bring. Your initial research underscores the complexity of divorce and family situations, noting that some children may do better following a separation and divorce than children in a household that is rife with conflict. You remind yourself to keep an open mind as you continue research and form your Action Plan.

As you put your Action Plan together, consider:

· What adults who work with young children need to know in order to understand the needs of children at different ages and stages who are experiencing separation and divorce

· What ideas and advice from experts can be useful in assisting young children and families dealing with divorce

· What an early childhood profession can do to help—both directly, by offering information and suggestions, and by referring the family to other community resources and professionals

Follow these steps to create your Action Plan:

1. What You Need to Know: Learning About Effects of Divorce on Children

Review the information on divorce on pages 93-97 of your text. Also click on the links below to read the following articles. As you read, take notes on information that you think is important to share with parents and other significant family adults, including what infants, toddlers, and preschoolers understand about divorce and how they may respond.

Web Article: Dealing With Divorce

Web Article: The Different Age Stages as They Relate to Divorce

https://www.divorcesource.com/ds/children/the-different-age-stages-as-they-relate-to-divorce-228.shtml

2. Ideas and Advice: Checking Resources

Based on what you have been learning, think concretely about how best to help the parents and family members of an infant, a toddler, and a preschooler. Check your notes from reading the articles above. As needed, skim the articles again, looking for ideas and resources to share with parents and other significant adults. Access the articles below as additional resources.

Divorce: A Parents’ Guide for Supporting Children (PDF)

Facts for Families: Children and Divorce (PDF)

Web Article: Ways Child Care Providers Can Help Children Deal with Grief and Loss

https://articles.extension.org/pages/59556/ways-child-care-providers-can-help-children-deal-with-grief-and-loss

For this article, adapt ideas as appropriate for an early childhood professional working with families in nonprovider roles as well.)

3. Taking Action: Supporting a Family Experiencing Separation and Divorce

With knowledge and ideas in hand, you’re ready to take action to support young children by talking with the significant adults in their lives. Use the information and advice from the articles to make your plan. Think of it as preparing a script for meeting with the parents or other significant family adults. Include the following in your plan:

Part I: Supporting an Infant

Explain in your own words:

• Developmental information      about what an infant may feel or understand about a      separation and divorce
• Possible ways that an infant      may respond
• Specific suggestions from      experts on how to help an infant through a separation and divorce

Part II: Supporting a Toddler

Explain in your own words:

• Developmental information      about what a toddler may understand about a separation      and divorce
• Possible ways that a toddler      may respond
• Specific suggestions from      experts on how to help a toddler through a separation and divorce

Part III: Supporting a Preschooler

Explain in your own words:

• Developmental information      about what a preschooler may understand about a family      separation and divorce
• Possible ways that a      preschooler may respond
• Three specific ideas or activities that the      family can do to help a preschooler through a divorce and separation

As you write your plan, remember:

· Your goal is to increase parents’ awareness of how a child at each age may respond to separation and divorce. Focus on information that you, as an early childhood professional, are qualified to give.

· Most likely the parents are struggling, too. Be considerate of their feelings in explaining children’s needs.

· Choose language that you would feel comfortable using—language that is respectful and sensitive—to create a model presentation for talking with adult family members.

One of the keys to a successful early learning environment is building a strong foundation with children and families. For your Final Project, you will have the opportunity to create an informational packet aimed at helping children and families make a smooth transition into your early learning environment.

To prepare for this assignment,

· Refer to the Week 5 Guidance for further tips and examples that will support your success on this assignment

· Review and download the Week 5 Exemplar Template

· Read the required and recommended resources for this week.

o Remember that any applicable resource used throughout this course can support the requirement for four scholarly resources for this assignment.

· If you did not begin the development of your ePortfolio in ECE 101, read Portfolium Student Guide to help you set up your ePortfolio.

· Choose from one of the following age ranges:

o Infancy: Birth – 12 months

o Toddler: 1 – 3 years

o Early childhood: 4 years – 8 years

Scenario: You are in the process of preparing your learning environment for a new set of children. To help families and children have a successful transition into your classroom, you have decided to put together a resource guide to give to families. This guide will serve as a resource that your families will use throughout the year to help them have a better understanding of who you are as a professional, how you will create a positive learning environment, the resources they have available to them, and why you believe a strong home-school connection is important.

Based on your chosen age range, include the following in your Family Resource Guide:

Section 1: Personal Introduction

· Complete a short personal bio that includes the following:

o Provide your name, location, and something about yourself that your families would find interesting

o Describe why you chose to become an early childhood professional and what you love about working with children in this age range (be sure you are specific about the age range).

o Explain what you believe are the most important indicators of professionalism that you possess.

Review your Planning for the Future discussion post that you finished earlier this week post to help you complete this section.

Section 2: Importance of Early Learning

· Explain the important role that high quality care can have on a child’s overall growth and development.

· Identify two key theories of child development (e.g., Gardner, Vygotsky, Piaget, Skinner, Bronfenbrenner, etc.) that resonate with you as an early childhood professional.

o Describe each theory and its connection to Developmentally Appropriate Practice within the classroom.

Review your Developmental Theory: Your Toolbox discussion post from Week 2 to help you complete this section

· Discuss at least one way in which you differentiate learning experiences based on typical development, atypical development, and culture.

Review your Typical or Atypical Development? discussion post from Week 1 to help you complete this section.

Section 3: Environment

· Include a picture of the layout of your ideal classroom. Describe how your room design reflects the way you believe children learn best.

· Using the description from your Developmentally Apprpriate Practice: The Key discussion in Week 2, create a classroom layout using the Classroom Architect (Links to an external site.) or to the Gliffy (Links to an external site.)

·  (Links to an external site.)Explain how your learning environment (for your chosen age range) nurtures the development of every child in each of the domains listed below.

Cognitive

· Describe the specific classroom practices or strategies that reflect your philosophy of how to support young children’s cognitive development.

Social/emotional

· Describe at least one of the ways you support the development of children’s positive self-concept and growing social/emotional skills.

· Reflect on your philosophy of guiding young children’s positive behaviors. How do you constructively deal with young children’s challenging behaviors?

Language

· Describe ways to promote the communication/language development among all children including dual language learners.

Physical

· Describe your specific classroom practices or strategies that reflect your philosophy of how to support young children’s physical development.

Section 4: Families

· Describe the important role that families have on the overall growth and development of children and why you value them in your classroom.

o Review your Conversations With Families discussion post from Week 4, to help you complete this section

· Describe ways in which you ensure that families are kept aware of what’s happening in their child’s daily/weekly life in your classroom.

o Review your Family Interest discussion post from Week 4 to help you complete this section.

· Explain how you ensure that you are aware of what’s happening in each child’s home life. Tell how that awareness directs your teaching practices.

· Complete a resource page for families that includes the following resources in your local area:

o The name and contact information (phone number, web site, etc.) of a local agency that provides family counseling.

o The name and contact information (phone number, web site, etc.) of a translation service for families whose home language is other than English.

o The names, contact information, and brief descriptions of at least two agencies in the community that provide resources and services for children with disabilities.

o A list of three or more websites, and brief descriptions of each, that provides current information to help families understand how young children develop and learn.

· You can use readings or resources presented throughout this class, or new ones you feel are appropriate.

Assignment Submission Requirements

· This assignment will be submitted to Waypoint, as well as added to your ePortfolio. Refer to the instructions below to submit your assignment.

· Additionally, you will submit this Final Project to your ePortfolium.

o As you know, maintaining an ePortfolio can be beneficial when seeking employment. It is not uncommon for potential employers to want to see examples of your work and abilities. Additionally, for those of you who seek to continue on after Ashford and obtain your Child Development Associate (CDA), portions of this final assignment can be used to meet the Council for Professional Recognition’s portfolio requirements. To add this assignment to your ePortfolio, access Portfolium using the link along the left navigation menu, and add the document to your body of work.

For this assignment, you must submit

· A link to your electronic portfolio in Portfolium. To do this you will copy and paste the web address into the comments feature in Waypoint.

· A Word document including your completed assignment, as well as the link to your ePortfolio.

o Click on the Assignment Submission button. The Waypoint “Student Dashboard” will appear.

o Browse for your assignment.

o Click Upload.

o Confirm that your assignment was successfully submitted by viewing the appropriate week’s assignment tab in Waypoint, or clicking on Check Assignment Status within the Meet Your Instructor unit in the left navigation panel.

The Welcoming Children and Families: A Family Resource Guide project

· Must be six to eight double-spaced pages in length (not including title and reference pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in Ashford Writing Center (Links to an external site.)’s APA Style (Links to an external site.)

· Must include a separate title page with the following:

o Title of paper

o Student’s name

o Course name and number

o Instructor’s name

o Date submitted

· Must use at least four scholarly sources in addition to the course text.

o To assist you in completing the library research required for this assignment, view this Help! Need Article.  (Links to an external site.)tutorial, which can help you find a good starting place for your research.

o The Scholarly, Peer Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.

· Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.)

· Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.)resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.

Required Resource

Article

Wadlington, E., & Wadlington, P. (2012). Teacher dispositions: Implications for teacher education. Childhood Education, 87(5) p. 323-326. doi: 10.1080/00094056.2011.10523206

· The full-text version of this article is available through the ProQuest Central database in the Ashford University Library. In this article, the authors provide information about some of the important professional dispositions needed for those entering the education and early care fields, and will assist you in your Planning for the Future discussion this week.
Accessibility Statement does not exist.
Privacy Policy does not exist.

Recommended Resource

Article

Childcare Education Institute. (2008). Teacher roles and responsibilities (Links to an external site.). Teacher Enrichment Training Solutions, 3(8). Retrieved from https://www.cceionline.edu/newsletters/August_08.html

· In this article, the author provides information about the many roles and responsibilities early childhood educators have. This information may assist you in your Planning for the Future discussion this week.
Accessibility Statement is not available.
Privacy Policy is not available.