My International Contact

About My Contact:

I'd like to introduce to you my international contact for this particular class, and as an ongoing professional contact within the field of early childhood.  Her name is Trish and she is the director of Karana Early Education Centre in Brisbane, Queensland.  Her centre serves approximately 60 children ages 15 months to 5 years.  Trish is highly involved in the Early Childhood Community, including partnerships with peak early childhood bodies, government health departments, training organizations, and a number of forums.  In her initial acceptance of my partnership, she explained that there are massive changes in the early childhood field currently taking place in Australia, which are leading towards a nationalized set of standards and practices.  Trish's goals for her centre are currently focused on attaining a status of "excellent", which from my understanding can be compared with our national accreditation process through NAEYC and other accrediting organizations.  On a personal note, Trish is also studying towards a degree in Child and Family Studies.  Her statement to me in her last email was of particular importance as it truly reflects the heart of a passionate early childhood professional.  She said, "Most of all, our service is about relationships - between Staff, Families, Children, and the community - and about creating a special place where people feel "at home" and that they belong.

On the Subject of Poverty:
Trish gave me a very thorough overview of poverty and how it relates to her work, centre, and community.  The first thing that she pointed out was that she has worked at two distinct centres.  Her current center is in a high socio-economic area and they do not deal directly with children who come from poverty situations.  However, her previous centre was situated in a low socio-economic area and they dealt with poverty on a daily basis.  Most of the children that attended live in government supported housing units.  She explained that in this centre she had constant contact with the Department of Child Services, which is the government body charged with the care and safety of children.  They worked together to identify needs in each family and planned what they could do to help the families in need.  Their main support for these families was in the form of clothing drives, connecting them with local food banks, and providing a safe, loving environment for the children in hopes of providing the emotional support that the children needed.  Trish also emphasised the problem of drugs and alcohol on the families of children in her care.  She said that when parents would come to pick up their children, she had to greet and decide if they were of sound mind before letting the children go with them.  This statement broke my heart for those children.  One major impact that Trish had on the previous centre was the development of a food program that provided nutritious meals for the children at the centre.  This was a major improvement over the lunches that the children were bringing from home.

Despite the differences in lifestyles between the two centers, Trish made sure that the children were aware of the diversity of others and the poverty that exists in places other than their community.  Both centers have children in other poor countries that they support financial, and they also do collections of various items that are given to families and children in need.  The goal in this activity is to bring about awareness to the children that there are others in need and the focus becomes providing for others and accepting diversity.