Getting to Know Your International Contacts

Stephanie Olmore

Director of Quality Enhancement Initiatives at NAEYC

I can honestly say that I have definitely enjoyed the blog assignments so far in which we are given the opportunity to get to know professionals within our fields and learn about different organizations and resource that can be used in our future careers.  However, getting to know other professionals has been a great experience so far.  I became discouraged in the beginning because no one had responded to any of my emails, however, the director of NAEYC, Rhian Evans responded and forwarded my email to the appropriate individual.  The individual who I have been communicating with and would like to introduce to everyone is Stephanie Olmore, Director of Quality Enhancement Initiatives at National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).  Stephanie has a very extensive background in which she has basically been working in the early childhood field since her college years in which she served as an assistant for a child care program on campus.  She received her Bachelors at the University of Colorado at Boulder in which her major was Sociology.  She also received her Master’s degrees from the University of Colorado at Denver in which her major was Early Childhood Education.  She has worked for many companies throughout the years which include working for the Step by Step Association, Governor of Colorado, University of Colorado at Denver, and now at the NAEYC.  She is very dedicated to the early childhood field and an advocate for the well-being of children all over the world.         

The reason why Rhian Evans thought that this would be the perfect person to communicate with is because Stephanie is responsible for overseeing of all international efforts of NAEYC.  The international efforts of NAEYC have just begun in which the organization is seeking and encouraging other early childhood programs from the world to become accredited through the NAEYC.  The organization is in the process of implementing Global Connections which serves as a resource to support high-quality early care and education for all children all over the world.  The organization believes that the best way to address some of the issues that exist with children and families is with the providing of high quality early care and making sure that every child has the opportunity to receive that type of care.  The countries that have developed a partnership and joined Global Alliances include the following countries:

• Africa
• Asia
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Europe
• North America
• South America

According to NAEYC (2013), “The Global Alliance for the Education of Young Children provides an opportunity for early childhood associations from countries throughout the world to distribute materials and share information about programs and services, so that members of the participating organizations will have access to a greater range of early childhood resources” (para. 2).  This will allow the countries to use the resources and services in order to address issues such as poverty in order to aid people in their countries to provide better lives for their families.

When she shared this information I thought to myself that this just may work.  When it comes to issues of poverty a lot of families are not able to afford high quality child care for their children.  However, if all children are given the opportunity to receive this type of care, regardless of their income level, then there is a possibility that this early education will prepare the children for regular school.  This in return will allow the students to continue to excel and eventually receive good jobs in the future so their families will not have to struggle and live in poverty.  Education is the key to success and if we are going to fight to end poverty, educating children is where we need to start.     

References

NAEYC.  (2013).  Global alliance.  Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/resources/partnership/globalalliance.