News
Portland State Faculty Partner with Hands to Hearts International
Since early summer of 2007, Portland State University faculty Christine Chaille, the chair of Curriculum and Instruction in the Graduate School of Education, and Frank Mahler, a lead infant/toddler teacher at the Helen Gordon Child Development Center, have been working with locally headquartered nonprofit Hands to Hearts International (HHI) to help redesign the organization's curriculum for childcare-givers in India.
This new curriculum guide, developed with HHI, will provide training that improves childcare-giver education, thus improving care for vulnerable infants and children and supporting the long-term livelihood of the community at large. According to UNICEF data, millions of children are orphaned each year and need the kind of care and attention that will give them the necessary skills to thrive.
"Christine and Frank's partnership with Hands to Hearts International will ultimately affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in developing countries," says Laura Peterson, founder and executive director of HHI. "International aid organizations are already contacting us to discuss how they can use our curriculum to train caregivers in their own early child health programs and envision using our training model and materials in orphanages, refugee camps, resettlement communities, conflict zones, with HIV- and AIDS-affected children, and in severely impoverished communities."
After drafting the curriculum, Chaille and Mahler traveled to India where they spent two weeks teaching and testing the curriculum with caregivers in orphanages. The curriculum focuses on quality care for not just children, but the people who care for them. The caregivers are honored and empowered to interact with the children in new ways. "They see that what they do matters," says Chaille. "Each caregiver that we train has the power to impact countless children's lives, not just by providing better care themselves, but by training future caregivers." Upon receiving the training, many of the women are seen as experts in the community, and approached by others for assistance and information.
The curriculum guide created by Chaille and Mahler is a universally applicable training tool focused on early childhood development. Other early childhood development tools often focus on listing developmental milestones, but Chaille and Mahler's model empowers parents and caregivers by teaching them to change the way they nurture, care for and interact with their children on a day-to-day basis. The curriculum is also designed to be culturally adaptable: the language, activities and examples it uses are all carefully chosen to be applicable anywhere in the world and infused with local games, songs, dances and stories.
Members of the media interested in speaking with Christine Chaille or Frank Mahler should contact Haili J. Graff at 503-725-8789. To learn more about HHI, please contact Laura Peterson at 503-936-5574 or laura@handstohearts.org.
Hands to Hearts International
Since launching ground operations in Chennai, India, in February of 2006, Hands to Hearts International has provided trainings to women who are directly bettering the care they provide to more than 7,985 orphaned or otherwise vulnerable children. Partnering agencies report that after HHI trainings, infants and children are healthier, recover more quickly from sickness, show increased weight gain and are easier to soothe. The caregivers are seen to be more nurturing and responsive to the infants and children, and hygiene and general childcare facility conditions improve. Caregivers also gain marketable skills while enhancing their own parenting skills. For more information, visit www.handstohearts.org.
This new curriculum guide, developed with HHI, will provide training that improves childcare-giver education, thus improving care for vulnerable infants and children and supporting the long-term livelihood of the community at large. According to UNICEF data, millions of children are orphaned each year and need the kind of care and attention that will give them the necessary skills to thrive.
"Christine and Frank's partnership with Hands to Hearts International will ultimately affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in developing countries," says Laura Peterson, founder and executive director of HHI. "International aid organizations are already contacting us to discuss how they can use our curriculum to train caregivers in their own early child health programs and envision using our training model and materials in orphanages, refugee camps, resettlement communities, conflict zones, with HIV- and AIDS-affected children, and in severely impoverished communities."
After drafting the curriculum, Chaille and Mahler traveled to India where they spent two weeks teaching and testing the curriculum with caregivers in orphanages. The curriculum focuses on quality care for not just children, but the people who care for them. The caregivers are honored and empowered to interact with the children in new ways. "They see that what they do matters," says Chaille. "Each caregiver that we train has the power to impact countless children's lives, not just by providing better care themselves, but by training future caregivers." Upon receiving the training, many of the women are seen as experts in the community, and approached by others for assistance and information.
The curriculum guide created by Chaille and Mahler is a universally applicable training tool focused on early childhood development. Other early childhood development tools often focus on listing developmental milestones, but Chaille and Mahler's model empowers parents and caregivers by teaching them to change the way they nurture, care for and interact with their children on a day-to-day basis. The curriculum is also designed to be culturally adaptable: the language, activities and examples it uses are all carefully chosen to be applicable anywhere in the world and infused with local games, songs, dances and stories.
Members of the media interested in speaking with Christine Chaille or Frank Mahler should contact Haili J. Graff at 503-725-8789. To learn more about HHI, please contact Laura Peterson at 503-936-5574 or laura@handstohearts.org.
Hands to Hearts International
Since launching ground operations in Chennai, India, in February of 2006, Hands to Hearts International has provided trainings to women who are directly bettering the care they provide to more than 7,985 orphaned or otherwise vulnerable children. Partnering agencies report that after HHI trainings, infants and children are healthier, recover more quickly from sickness, show increased weight gain and are easier to soothe. The caregivers are seen to be more nurturing and responsive to the infants and children, and hygiene and general childcare facility conditions improve. Caregivers also gain marketable skills while enhancing their own parenting skills. For more information, visit www.handstohearts.org.
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