Child maltreatment calls for a broad range of preventative policies and practices, but limited governmental funding and leadership has been devoted to the problem. Effective strategies to prevent maltreatment exist, but they have had limited uptake in the child welfare system. In this article, we trace how government responsibility for the prevention of child maltreatment became centered within the nation’s child protection response. Further, we discuss developments in prevention science, review the existing literature on the effectiveness of a range of prevention strategies, and present a public health approach to prevention. The article concludes with a set of recommendations to inform future efforts to prevent child maltreatment through approaches that seek to expand capacity for the implementation of evidence-based prevention programs, while addressing the adverse community experiences that exacerbate risk for child maltreatment.
Background. The importance of parental beliefs and practices related to children's school readiness skills is widely documented, but few studies explicitly focus on immigrant families. Further, no known studies have examined immigrant parents' beliefs about what skills children need to be successful in kindergarten.Objectives. The overarching aim of this mixed-methods study was to investigate the school readiness beliefs of parents who are identified as immigrants in the United States. We examined the skills they prioritized as well as parents' reasoning about their prioritization.Methods. Sixty-three immigrant parents from three different countries of origin-China, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador-completed a Q-sort and subsequent interview about their school readiness beliefs as well as a measure of acculturation.Results. Results indicated two school readiness belief profiles. Parents in the first profile primarily emphasized academic skills; parents in the second profile primarily emphasized learning-related skills. Parents' country of origin predicted their profile membership. Six themes emerged to explain parents' school readiness beliefs. Although parents in the two profiles prioritized different skills, parents' reasoning about the importance of select skills showed many similarities.Conclusions. Study findings provide a nuanced view of immigrant parents' school readiness beliefs, which is particularly useful for early childhood educators to consider as they develop culturally responsive family-school partnerships.
To be successful in school, children must pay attention, ignore distractions, persist on tasks, be organized, and plan their work. However, these processes are not typically taught in school, and research has not yet examined whether children understand them. Given that children's understanding (metacognitive knowledge) of learning processes is associated with their performance, we investigated whether 1st-through 6th-grade children could explain what it meant to execute these 5 processes. We evaluated how many specific process components children mentioned in their definitions and whether the number of components they mentioned predicted scores on a picture memory task. Although almost all children were able to provide valid definitions of the learning processes, they mentioned only some of the components for each process. Children most frequently mentioned process components that were observable. For example, when asked to define organization, most mentioned organizing papers and other materials, but few mentioned managing time, thoughts, or actions. This indicates that children may be unaware of the actions needed to execute critical learning processes. We found that older children were more aware of the components of organization and planning than were younger children. In addition, the number of components children mentioned when defining organization and their combined knowledge of all processes predicted their performance on a picture memory task. Given children's limited metacognitive knowledge of these learning processes and the association of such knowledge with task performance, explicit instruction on these learning processes and related strategies may be beneficial. What is the significance of this article for the general public?This study showed that (a) children may not be aware of the components of important learning processes such as paying attention, ignoring distractions, persisting on tasks, being organized, and planning, and (b) the extent of children's knowledge of some processes is associated with their performance on learning tasks. Parents and educators should explain the steps involved in executing learning processes, when appropriate, to reinforce children's understanding. More schools should integrate metacognitive knowledge and strategy instruction into their curriculum at all grade levels.
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