Life for Head Start families may be more stressful now than ever, given the current economic and political climate -- including heightened animosity surrounding race/ethnicity, religion, and national origins. We now know the damage done to health and cognitive development by the chronic stress of poverty and trauma, absent any protective buffer. However, a child with sufficient resiliency is able to survive and even thrive in the face of such adversity. In this interactive workshop with a language educator and former Head Start parent, participants will learn how crucial to resiliency is a child’s strength in home language / culture, combined with positive learning of classmates’ or community language / culture. We will explore how this area of nurturing responsive practice contributes to successful outcomes in the Social-Emotional, Cognitive, and Approaches to Learning domains, and how programs can best engage with students, families, and community partners to that end. We will also consider how these language / culture activities can build children’s empathy skills -- necessary for fighting the rise of poverty and discrimination, and shaping their world to be one they want to live in.
At the end of this session the participant will be able to:
- Understand 1) how resiliency impacts a child’s cognitive and social-emotional health and development, and 2) how cultural and linguistic knowledge, identity, and relationships build resiliency.
- Develop programming to build children's resiliency and empathy via language / culture -- enabling the child to 1) survive harmful stress, 2) thrive under difficult life circumstances, and even 3) shape his/her world for the better.
Intended audience: PFCE, QTL, Health
