Event: The Social and Political Cost of Inaction on Adolescence

Save the date!  The Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard presents a conversation on “The Social and Political Cost of Inaction on Adolescence” with Anthony Lake (UNICEF) and Amartya Sen (Harvard), on Thursday, December 8 at 4pm, at the Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge.

Please RSVP to crc@hsph.harvard.edu.  More information is available here.

Holiday Happy Hour! Friday, 12/2 at 5pm

Please join us for the Bright Beginnings Early Childhood Forum’s Holiday Happy Hour!
When: Fri, Dec 2, 5-7pm
Where: John Harvard’s Brew House (33 Dunster St.)

FREE drinks and appetizers!

Come meet and network with other Harvard graduate students interested in early childhood development, education, health, and policy! Learn about the events the group is planning for the spring semester and sign-up early.

event cancellation

We are sorry to announce that our event with Jack Shonkoff scheduled for Wednesday, 10/12 has been CANCELED. We apologize for this inconvenience and hope to reschedule this event. We’ll keep you posted.

A Shadow Population: Immigration Enforcement, Child Development, and America’s Future

WHAT:

Society for Interdisciplinary Studies in Immigration and Education (SISIE) presents a film screening of abUSed: The Postville Raid along with an interdisciplinary panel discussion, A Shadow Population: Immigration Enforcement, Child Development, and America’s Future, Wednesday, September 28, 5:30-8:00 p.m., in Larsen Hall, Harvard Graduate School of Education (14 Appian Way).

Luis Argueta’s multivoiced documentary film, abUSed, follows the aftermath of the May 12, 2008 U.S. Immigration raid of a kosher meat-packing plant—one of America’s most brutal, most expensive, and grand-scale immigration enforcement raids—and presents the human face of the issue of immigration reform by interweaving powerfully moving stories told by the children and their arrested parents, teachers, community and business leaders, U.S. District Court Judge and attorneys.

Immediately following the screening, an interdisciplinary panel of experts from arts, policy, and research will discuss the complexities of growing up in the shadows, currents efforts towards the comprehensive immigration reform and pathways to citizenships, and broad-ranging implications for education policy, research, and practice.

WHEN:

Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 5:30-8:00 p.m. (Light dinner will be served.)

5:30-5:40     Welcoming Remarks & Framing the Context

5:40-7:00     Film Screening

7:00-7:07     Break—Pizzas and drinks will be served!

7:07-7:40     Panel Discussion

7:40-8:00     Q&A Session

WHERE:

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Larsen Hall Room G-08 (in the ground floor)

14 Appian Way Cambridge, MA 02138 (between Brattle St. and Garden St.)

MODERATOR:

Soojin S. Oh, President of the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies in Immigration and Education (SISIE); Special Issue Co-Chair of the Immigration, Youth, and Education (Harvard Educational Review, Fall 2011)

PANELISTS:

LUIS ARGUETA, Director and producer of the documentary film, abUSed: The Postville Raid; Founder of the Maya Media Corp.; Oscar qualifying director for the 1994 film, El Silencio de Neto (The Silence of Neto)

HIRO YOSHIKAWA, Ph.D., Academic Dean and Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education; Author of Immigrants Raising Citizens: Undocumented parents and Their Children (Russell Sage, 2011); Member of the Board on Children, Youth and Families of the National Academy of Sciences; Chair on the Committee on the Science of Family Research at the National Academy of Science

AJAY CHAUDRY, Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute; Former Director of the Center on Labor, Human Services and Population; Author of policy briefs, “Young Children of Immigrants: The Leading Edge of America’s Future,” and “Facing Our Future: Children in the Aftermath of Immigration Enforcement”

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BACKGROUND:

Understanding issues of immigration is critical to understanding the future of education and democracy in the United States. Yet, recent legislation and political events surrounding U.S. immigration often portray immigrants and their children as a national economic crisis and a burgeoning threat to national security. Sweeping legislation similar to Arizona’s SB 1070 has now passed in Georgia, Utah, South Carolina, and Alabama, criminalizing the presence of undocumented immigrants in schools and communities.

Unauthorized immigrants, accounting for one-fourth of all immigrants in the United States, are disproportionally young and their children make up a large share of both the American newborn (8%) and school-age (7%) populations (Passel & Taylor, 2010). Among the estimated 5.5 million children growing up with unauthorized parents, 1 million are themselves unauthorized and the remaining 4.5 million are citizens, having been born in the United States (Passel & Cohn, 2010).

The broader anti-immigration climate has further politicized the field of education, as seen in recent efforts to ban the teaching of ethnic or Latino studies in Arizona and elsewhere as well as requiring K-12 public school teachers to verify their students’ legal status in Alabama.

Contrary to dominant discourse and public debates surrounding these pressing issues of our time, the SISIE will share immigrant stories left untold by those predominantly affected and generally the most powerless—immigrant women and their young children in mixed-status households—with aims to raise public awareness and build collective understanding that must precede further policy measures, action, and evaluation.

NOTE:

Admission will be free to the general public. There will be a sale of Luis Argueta’s films and the newly released special issue of the Harvard Educational Review, Immigration, Youth, and Education, before and after the event.

This event is sponsored by the The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) at Harvard University, Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) Office of Student Affairs, and HGSE Dean’s Advisory Committee on Equity and Diversity (DACED).

For more information, contact Soojin Oh at soojin_oh@mail.harvard.edu

abUSed Flyer

Orientation Meeting 2011

Interested in early childhood development?

 

 Come join Bright Beginnings Early Childhood Forum, a university-wide, interdisciplinary student organization, at our first meeting of the 2011-2012 academic year.

You’ll have the chance to learn more about Bright Beginnings, what we’re up to this year, and how you can get involved.

When:                  5 – 6:30pm on Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Where:                The Center on the Developing Child

50 Church St, Cambridge (Harvard Square)

Questions:          BrightBeginningsECF@gmail.com

BBECF @ HSPH Panel Event on Children with Disabilities April 28th 5:30pm

“Children with Disabilities: What’s Right, What’s Wrong, What’s Next”

Thursday April 28th at 5:30pm
Harvard School of Public Health, Kresge G3
Dinner will be served

A panel discussion on the road for educational, legal, and healthcare rights
and access for children with cognitive, social/emotional, and physical disabilities

Panelists:

Charles Homer, MD, MPH
Harvard School of Public Health, Department of Society, Human Development & Behavior

Dr. Charles Homer is an associate professor at Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School. He co-founded the National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality in 1999 and currently serves as the President and CEO. He is also technical advisor to the Patient Centered Medical Home Initiative of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Thomas Hehir, Ph.D.
Harvard Graduate School of Education

Dr. Tom Hehir is Professor of Practice at Harvard Graduate School of Education and served as director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs from 1993 to 1999. He was responsible for federal leadership in implementing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Hehir played a leading role in developing the Clinton administration’s proposal for the 1997 reauthorization of the IDEA.

Martha Field, JD
Harvard Law School
Martha Field is the Langdell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School with research interests in disability law, children and the law, and mental retardation the law. Her publications include Equal Treatment for People with Mental Retardation.

Jaishree Capoor, MD
Blythedale Children’s Hospital
Dr. Jaishree Capoor is Chief of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at Blythedale Children’s Hospital. She  is board-certified in Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine and Spinal Cord Injury Medicine and has focused her career on advancing the care and care coordination of children with special health care needs.

Moderator:
Katie McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Harvard Medical School, Health Care Policy

Dr. Katie McLaughlin is a faculty member at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School with general interests in the relationship between childhood trauma and adversity, socioeconomic disadvantage, and psychopathology and in the development of sustainable interventions to prevent the onset of psychiatric disorders.

This event is sponsored by the Harvard School of Public Health Office of Student Affairs, Office of Diversity, and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School

Questions? Email:   BrightBeginningsECF@gmail.com

Investing In Early Childhood

Investing In Early Childhood
Through the Lens of Research, Policy, and Practice

April 11th @ 5pm
Gutman Conference Center, Area 3

Join us for a discussion about the importance of investing in early childhood development from a research, policy, and practice perspective!

Invited Speakers:

Margaret Blood is the Founder and President of Strategies for Children, Inc., where she oversees the Early Education for All Campaign and related public policy and consulting projects. The goal of the statewide Early Education for All Campaign is to make high-quality early childhood education available to all young children in Massachusetts. She is particularly passionate about Guatemala where she serves as a volunteer teacher at a school for child workers. In 2007, she founded Mil Milagros, Inc. to help address the pressing health, nutrition and education issues facing children in the Guatemalan Highlands.

Dr. Martha Vibbert is Executive Director of the SPARK Center at Boston Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. SPARK has evolved into a national model of comprehensive early childhood care and education for children with complex health, developmental, and behavioral needs. She participates on an Early Child Development Quality Standards Taskforce for CARE USA and Save the Children, and she co-chairs the World Forum Foundation HIV and ECD Work Group.

Nate Hilger is a PhD Candidate in the Harvard Economics Department.  His current research focuses on the long-term effects of early childhood education, long-term effects of family resources, efficiency costs of taxation, effects of job security on worker output, and market failure under asymmetric information.

Closing Comments:

Dr. Sherri Killins is the Commissioner of Early Education and Care for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Dr. Killins has worked as an advocate for children and families in a variety of ways for more than 20 years, both as a provider of direct care and in leadership roles on issues relating to children and families.

Moderator:

Jessica Malkin is Senior Project Manager for the Global Children’s Initiative at the Center on the Developing Child. She manages the design and implementation of the Center’s global programs and has a wide range of global child development experience in research, policy, and practice initiatives across Latin America and the Caribbean, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, and North America.