Community Resources (Jingya Cai)

Methods

This observational study evaluating needs of inclusivity for special needs children was

conducted at a childcare centre. To obtain interest from the centre, we consulted with an early

childhood educator and supervisor to discuss the purpose of the study. Our study was a

mixed-method design. We interviewed staff and center directors to ask them about their

perceived shortcomings and suggestions and conducted online surveys. This information was

used to consider possible resources to best support the needs of the childcare centre. We took a

web-based approach to look for possible websites that meet their needs in addition to going to

other community centres.

Findings/Resources

According to our conversation with project personnel, most of the ECE in the center

come from Chinese and Indian descent. Consequently, they are less culturally familiar with the

culture of the Philippines and Vietnam. They are unable to fully introduce all children in the

class to the unique festivals and cultural backgrounds of these countries. Therefore, we suggest

that the director of the center can invite volunteers and staff from the Vietnam Cultural Center

and the Philippine Cultural Center to provide cultural training to employees. The childcare center

can also invite them to introduce themselves to all children during the holiday week. The

childcare center dresses up the classroom and spends the holiday with all staff and children.

Increase cultural confidence among Vietnamese and Filipino children. The official websites of

the Philippine Cultural Center and the Vietnamese Cultural Center in Toronto say that it is very

welcome to impart language and consult and disseminate cultural information to foreigners.
 In terms of strengths, ECE also provides a variety of books, dolls, and learning materials

that highlight people with different backgrounds, skin colours, and religion to support a wide

range of learning opportunities. During reading time, they guide children to read books that

exhibit differences such as Hair Love, What Happened to You, and This Beach is Loud. This

allows children to point out the similarities they see in themselves and their roles and teaches

them how to interact with people who may look or behave differently from them. As for

LGBTQ+ knowledge, the supervisor can invite employees of Scarborough Women's Center to

conduct training, telling them to create a sense of security for all LGBTQ+ families and to

respect them using proper words and behaviour, without offending them. Similarly, staff can

learn more about how to get along with LGBTQ+ families through the Early Childhood Learning

& Knowledge Center website.

Every child with special needs has different areas where they need additional assistance.

Therefore, the center supervisor should provide more training for staff so that they can learn

teaching methods and assistance that are more suitable for each child. At the same time,

on-the-job full-time and part-time ECE can apply for training subsidies through the ECE Grant

website. This project provides financial support to early childhood educators in Ontario to

improve their leadership skills and knowledge. Australia and Behavioral Science, and American

Sign Language are both in funded training. ECE users can choose the nearest college in Ontario,

and obtain a Travel Grant if they are farther away. Let all ECE who are unable to participate in

training due to financial pressure have no worries behind them.

To support continued learning, we found the resource, Coursera, which is a free online

learning website that works with multiple universities. ECE and parents can search for training

courses on autism, language retardation, ADSD, and more on this website. Teachers from child
psychologists, doctors, and nurses can easily help ECE and parents through ZOOM's online

learning. Parents can also use AIDE Canada, a website funded by the Canadian Public Health

Agency. They are able to browse more than 3000 books on autism for free to help parents better

understand autism and implement interventions in the family. This website also has a

location-based service that allows parents to quickly find programs and services related to autism

in their area. They can sort filters by province, region, or search field to discover communities.

There is also the most special peer suggestion video, which shows that parents of autistic

children will have greater pressure to choose the questions they need in the filter, which will

jump out of the answers of people with practical experience. Parents of children with autism can

give them more confidence.

According to policy analysis, the center's information on bullying policies is relatively

brief and many key points are missing. A study on children's violent experiences shows that

20.4% of children aged 2-5 have experienced physical bullying in their lifetime, and 14.6% of

children have been teased, including verbal bullying (Snow, 2014). Therefore, early childhood

educators need to pay more attention to the implementation of an anti-bullying curriculum.

To address this issue, empathy is a basic skill that children develop. When children are

able to see things from another person's perspective, they become more receptive to differences

and more emotionally attuned. To support this development, educators can hold some acting

activities in the class. They can ask children to describe how they felt when they saw someone

being bullied, when they have bullied themselves, and when they bullied someone. By

understanding and caring for the thoughts and feelings of others, children are less likely to harm

others but to lend a helping hand. Moreover, educators can encourage children to say things they

don't like being done to them by others. For example, “I don't like people pulling my hair, so I
won't pull the hair of other classmates either.” We should strive to help children understand the

meaning of "do to others as you would want them to do to you.".

Educators can prepare anti-bullying books on bookshelves and read them aloud to

children during reading time. Picture books can teach children intangible values such as empathy

and kindness. You, Me and Empathy by Jayneen Sanders, The Recess Queen by Alexis O’Neill, I

Walk with Vanessa by Kerasco ë t, The Juice Box Bully by Bob Sornson and Maria Dismondy,

Tear Monster by Julia Cook are all suitable for young children to read.

We also recommend that educators use Kid's Against Bullying, which is a website that

provides two tests to determine whether children have been bullied and become bullies.

Educators can invite all children to complete tests in schools. After completing the test, we tell

children that if they encounter bullying on campus, it is not their fault; moreover, they should be

comfortable telling parents and teachers. We should instill values about bullying as being an

unkind act and should not be pursued. Please put them in their shoes and think about what they

would think if they were bullied. The educator privately asked the children who had more

options in the two tests to ask them if they have been bullied or bullied by others. We also

recommend that educators use the Education World website. In this website, Educators can enter

keywords through the website's search engine to find keyword-related lesson plans, classroom

activities, and games. This resource can better support finding relevant activities that young

children can participate in.