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Application: Advocating for Strengths-Based Perspectives

Supporting the development and learning of every child is predicated on understanding and accepting that all children are children first, and that each child has strengths and challenges Some may require additional supports in early childhood settings and some may require additional supports and extensions at home. NAEYC’s Position Statement, ” Responding to Linguistic and Cultural Diversity,” advocates that, “for young children to develop and learn optimally, the early childhood educator must be prepared to meet their diverse developmental, cultural, linguistic, and education needs.”

You have been learning how essential it is that effective programs respond to the unique learning and development strengths and needs of every child and family and the ways in which the DEC/NAEYC joint position statement on inclusion defines individual variables within classroom communities. In addition to specified practices, attention to how we conceptualize and frame children’s unique characteristics is an essential component of effective practice.

The field of special education has long advocated adopting a strengths-based approach as foundational to developing effective practices and programs. This approach begins with valuing and celebrating individual qualities and characteristics that make each individual unique.

For this week’s Application Assignment, put yourself in the role of a professional who is working to advocate for adopting a strengths-based model for working with individual children in early childhood settings. Your overall goal is to engender positive attitudes towards children’s unique qualities. The focus of your advocacy is educating early childhood professionals about the strengths of cultural and linguistically diverse populations. To complete this Application Assignment, review the examples of strengths-based models provided in the Required Resources. In addition, review “Responding to Linguistic and Cultural Diversity.” Based on this information, develop your own definition of strengths-based as it applies to culturally and linguistically diverse populations and then create a visual presentation with PowerPoint to educate others about this perspective.

To complete this assignment:

• Develop your own definition of the term strengths-based approach/perspective with regard to culturally and linguistically diverse populations in early childhood settings.

• Describe at least six to eight factors that you perceive as strengths of culturally and linguistically diverse populations. (Note: Consider including quotes from the articles you read and/or people you know. Be sure to cite all sources.)

• Select images* that you feel visually convey your definition and selected factors.

• Create a PowerPoint presentation that includes your definition, factors, and visual imagery.

*Note: You may search online for free public domain photos and images that can be used for non-commercial purposes. Also, if you need help using the Microsoft Powerpoint program, you can use an online search engine and search the term “Powerpoint Tutorials” and find many resources. Alternately, the Powerpoint program offers tutorials through its Help menu.

Assignment length: approximately 8-10 PowerPoint slides