Day 143: Get Caught Reading Month

Get Caught Reading is a nationwide public service campaign launched by the Association of American Publishers to remind people of all ages how much fun it is to read. May is officially Get Caught Reading Month, but the celebration lasts throughout the year.

Research shows that the development of literacy skills through early experiences with books and stories is critically linked to a child's success in learning to read and overall success in school, yet fewer than half of young children in the U.S. are read to daily. Research shows that children who aren't fluent readers by the end of third grade may never catch up to their peers. Early reading experiences are recognized as being of such importance that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends pediatricians prescribe reading activities along with other instructions given to parents at well-child visits.

Get Caught Reading Month is a terrific opportunity to give thought to the role of books and literacy in your child's life.

Room to Read believes that world change starts with educated children. They envision a world in which all children can pursue a quality education that enables them to reach their full potential and contribute to their community and the world.

Room to Read seeks to transform the lives of millions of children in developing countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. Working in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments, Room to Read develops literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children. They also support girls to complete secondary school with the relevant life skills to succeed in school and beyond.

To increase the likelihood for success and long-term sustainability, Room to Read enlists community involvement and co-investment through their Challenge Grant model. Villages often raise a significant portion of the overall expenditure in the form of dedicated space, labor, materials and/or small amounts of cash. These challenge grants act as catalysts for community building while also maximizing the local participation and expertise brought to their programs.

Room to Read hires local staff, who are personally vested in their nation's educational progress and they empower them to make key programmatic decisions within their country. They are already familiar with the language, conditions, customs and governments and understand the specific needs of the educational system.

Donation $5

To support Room to Read, please visit:   http://www.roomtoread.org/

Day 142: National Youth Traffic Safety Month

NOTE: For some reason BLOGGER removed yesterday's post, and wouldn't allow me to post anything this morning. So here is yesterday's post:

Each May, youth across the country unite during National Youth Traffic Safety Month to focus on the leading cause of death for them and their peers; traffic related crashes.  National Youth Traffic Safety Month empowers youth to develop and lead traffic safety education projects and support law enforcement and effect legislation to protect teen drivers. 

As the school year winds down, young people across America are looking forward to the summer.  But as teens prepare for proms, graduations, vacations, and road trips, it's important to keep safety in mind.

The sad fact is, traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for teenagers in America.  And new analysis from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) reveals that the deadliest days of the year for teens aged 15 to 19 are in the summer months of May, June, July, and August.  During these four months, nearly twice as many teens died on the roads each day when compared to the rest of the year. These are sobering statistics.  And they serve as a critical reminder to young people: safe driving doesn't take the summer off.  That's why National Youth Traffic Safety Month is so important.

MADD was incorporated on September 5, 1980. The mission or purposes of MADD as stated in its Articles of Incorporation were “To aid the victims of crimes performed by individuals driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, to aid the families of such victims and to increase public awareness of the problem of drinking and drugged driving."

 

In 1984, MADD changed its name from Mothers Against Drunk Drivers to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. This carefully considered change was made because MADD is opposed to the criminal act of drunk driving, not individuals. MADD also updated its mission statement to “Mothers Against Drunk Driving provides grassroots leadership to create major social change in the attitude and behavior of Americans toward drunk driving."

In 1985, MADD’s mission statement was again updated. The mission read, “Mothers Against Drunk Driving mobilizes victims and their allies to establish the public conviction that impaired driving is unacceptable and criminal, in order to promote corresponding public policies, programs and personal responsibility."

In 1992, MADD adopted a more simplified mission statement, which was “The mission of Mothers Against Drunk Driving is to stop drunk driving and support the victims of this violent crime.

By 1999, MADD had greatly expanded its work on preventing underage drinking and emerging research underscored our efforts to prevent youth alcohol use.

Donation #5

To support MADD, please visit:  http://www.madd.org/

Day 141: National School Nurse Day

What profession combines being the school health expert, working across a broad spectrum of demographics, working with children and families and coordinating the health and wellness of the entire school community? If you guessed school nurse, you’re correct!
 
School nurses share a unique passion to promote health and provide high quality care to students and their families. They are innovative and resilient, despite hard economic times and less than desirable staffing scenarios, and always have the best interest of children first. Today, the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) honors our school nurse heroes on the frontlines who provide a non-negotiable value for our nation’s children, keeping them healthy, in school and ready to learn. NASN believes every teacher deserves a school nurse so they can focus on teaching success, and every parent deserves to be able to send their child to a school with a nurse, knowing their child will be safe.
 
National School Nurse Day provides an opportunity for school nurses to articulate what they do to eliminate or minimize health-related barriers to student success.  We are school nurses; we support student success! 
 
National School Nurse Day is a time to celebrate the nursing profession and the specialty of school nursing.  This year’s theme Vision, Voice, Visibility: Sail Toward Healthy Horizons is reflective of the overall positive impact school nurses have on priority one--the health and well-being of students.

Nurse-Family Partnership helps transform the lives of vulnerable first-time moms and their babies. Through ongoing home visits from registered nurses, low-income, first-time moms receive the care and support they need to have a healthy pregnancy, provide responsible and competent care for their children, and become more economically self-sufficient. From pregnancy until the child turns two years old, Nurse-Family Partnership Nurse Home Visitors form a much-needed, trusting relationship with the first-time moms, instilling confidence and empowering them to achieve a better life for their children – and themselves.

An evidence-based community health program, Nurse-Family Partnership's outcomes include long-term family improvements in health, education, and economic self-sufficiency. By helping to break the cycle of poverty, they play an important role in helping to improve the lives of society's most vulnerable members, build stronger communities, and leave a positive impact on this and future generations.

Donation $5

To support Nurse-Family Partnership, please visit: http://www.nursefamilypartnership.org/

Day 140: National Stuttering Awareness Week

This week is National Stuttering Awareness Week in the United States, specifically from May 10 – May 16, 2010. President Ronald Reagan proclaimed it, as such in 1988. 

Stuttering can make it difficult to communicate with other people, and often affects a person’s quality of life. Roughly three million Americans stutter. Researchers around the world are exploring ways to improve the early identification and treatment of stuttering and to identify its causes.

Nearly 5 percent of all children go through some period of stuttering. Children ages 2–5 are affected the most. There are four factors most likely to contribute to the development of stuttering in children:

• Genetics (approximately 60% of those who stutter have a family member who does also)
• Child development (children developmental delays are more likely to stutter)
• Neurophysiology (differences in brain development)
• Family dynamics (high expectations and stress or pressure to talk can contribute to stuttering).

If a child has any of these risk factors and is showing some or all of the warning signs, a parent should be more concerned and seek a screening or evaluation from a speech-language pathologist who works with children or specializes in stuttering. The speech-language pathologist will decide whether the child is stuttering, and then determine whether to wait a bit longer or begin treatment right away.

The Parish School is the only school in Houston, public or private, which offers a multi-age, language-based, developmental curriculum for children 18 months through fifth grade. Children served have communication and learning differences, but average to above average learning potential. These differences may include problems with speech/language, learning to read, focusing attention, visual motor areas, social skills, and auditory processing.

The Parish School utilizes a classroom based therapy program implemented by certified teachers and speech/language pathologists. Classroom ratios are low and treatment/education plans are individualized to maximize the success of each child. The state-of-the-art facilities include parent/therapist-viewing areas, built in assisted listening devices, play and picnic areas, gardens and large, bright classrooms. The creative and visual arts play a large role in the academic program and incorporate the focus on expressive, receptive and pragmatic language skills while giving children a creative outlet in which to express themselves.

Individual therapies and testing including speech, occupational therapy, social skills groups and family therapy are available through their on site clinic, the Carruth Center.

Donation $5

To support The Parish School, please visit: http://www.parishschool.org/

Day 139: National Smile Month

The importance of brushing, good nutrition and regular dental visits is the focus of National Smile Month, the largest independent international dental campaign aimed at consumers of all ages. National Smile Month brings creative messages about oral and overall health to the public and profession, through significant media outreach, a public opinion survey, and the distribution of a National Smile Month Handbook to thousands of dental practices throughout the country, inviting care providers to share campaign messages with their patients. 

National Smile Month is encouraging Americans to make the connection in between a nutritious mouth and a healthful body. Recently executed medical study has demonstrated that bacteria or infections in the mouth impact total wellness. The research has also proven that systemic ailments impact the gums and teeth.

New research is showing that smiling actually has physical health benefits. We actually produce healing loving hormones when we smile at others. We already know it has positive psychological affects on others who see us smile. Do a smile experiment today. When you get on the elevator, go through the checkout line at the grocery or go into a meeting, smile and see what happens. A smile is infectious. When someone greets you with a smile you can’t help it, you smile back. So begin your spiritual practice today, smile!

Operation Smile is a charity organization healing children's smiles, making the world a better place. As a children’s charity, they measure themselves by the joy they see on all of the faces they help. At Operation Smile, they're more than a charity organization. They're a mobilized force of medical professionals and caring hearts who provide safe, effective reconstructive surgery for children born with facial deformities such as cleft lip and cleft palate.

More than 200,000 children are born with a severe cleft condition each year — often unable to eat, speak, socialize or smile. In some places these children are shunned and rejected. And in too many cases, their parents can't afford to give them the surgeries they need to live a normal life.

That's where Operation Smile come in as an international charity providing much needed surgical services. Since 1982, Operation Smile, through the help of dedicated medical volunteers, has provided free surgeries to children around the world. As one of the most prominent children’s charities in the world and with a presence in over 60 countries, they are able to heal children’s smiles and bring hope for a better future.

Thanks to the generosity and spirit of volunteerism shown by their supporters, they heal thousands of children per year and, today, more than 160,000 girls and boys have a new chance at a new life because of their work. With your help, how many lives can they change tomorrow?

Donation $5

To support Operation Smile, please visit: http://www.operationsmile.org/

Day 138: Mother’s Day

The United States celebrates Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. Julia Ward Howe first issued her Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870 as a call for women to join in support of disarmament. In the 1880s and 1890s there were several further attempts to establish an American Mother's Day, but these didn't succeed beyond the local level. The current holiday was created by Anna Jarvis in Grafton, West Virginia, in 1908 as a day to honor one's mother. Jarvis wanted to accomplish her mother's dream of making a celebration for all mothers, although the idea didn't take off until she enlisted the services of wealthy Philadelphia merchant John Wanamaker. She kept promoting the holiday until President Woodrow Wilson made it an official national holiday in 1914. The holiday eventually became so highly commercialized that many, including its founder, Anna Jarvis, considered it a "Hallmark Holiday", i.e. one with an overwhelming commercial purpose. Jarvis eventually ended up opposing the holiday she had helped to create. She died in 1948, regretting what had become of her holiday. In the United States, Mother's Day remains one of the biggest days for sales of flowers, greeting cards, and the like; it is also the biggest holiday for long-distance telephone calls.

St. Ann's programs recognize and enhance human dignity and worth by providing residential care and services to abused and neglected children and to single pregnant and parenting adolescents in crisis, as well as quality day care to the children of working families.

Human life is inherently valuable and worthy of respect, support, and nurturance. These words encompass St. Ann's  philosophy. They are rooted in our Judeo-Christian heritage and are the foundation on which St. Ann's tradition of caring has been built. Staff and volunteers strive to live this belief by reaching out to the women and children in their community who are particularly vulnerable.

St. Ann's is administered by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, a religious community of women who have dedicated their lives to serving the needy. The Sisters are assisted by a qualified and committed staff of approximately 150 full and part time employees, as well as consultants. This includes child care workers and maternity program staff, which account for a majority of the positions, as well as physicians, nurses, psychologists, and social workers; teachers, child care specialists, and therapists; maintenance, housekeeping and food services staff; and accounting and administrative personnel.

From its very beginnings, St. Ann’s opened its doors to the poor of all races and faiths, a commitment that continues to this day. The program offers residential care for pregnant adolescents and young mothers and their babies. Extensive services include an accredited high school, medical care, parenting classes, life skills training, day care, individual and family counseling, and social and cultural activities. The program generally serves between 50-60 young mothers and their children each year.

Donation $10

To support St. Ann’s, please visit:  http://www.stanns.org/

Day 137: National Foster Care Month

Each May, National Foster Care Month provides an opportunity to shine a light on the experiences of the more than 400,000 children and youth in the foster care system. The campaign raises awareness about the urgent needs of these young people and encourages citizens from every walk of life to get involved – as foster or adoptive parents, volunteers, mentors, employers or in other ways.

 

With the help of dedicated people, many formerly abused or neglected children and teens will either reunite safely with their parents, be cared for by relatives or be adopted by loving families. Many children would not have to enter foster care at all if more states provided support and services to help families cope with crises early on.

Thanks to the many advocates, child welfare professionals, elected officials and support groups around the country, the total number of children in foster care has decreased over recent years.  But more help is needed.

Kidsave

Children growing up in foster care and orphanages – government run and private ones -- are at great risk. These are the forgotten children. These are the children Kidsave serves.

Without individual care, attention and stimulation, children do not develop normally. They develop learning disabilities, they have growth delays and they struggle with the psychological trauma of losing their parents – and the neglect or abuse that led to that horrible end.

Kids cannot raise themselves. Without help, the odds are against them growing into productive citizens – and the loss to society is devastating. Many children without parents don’t finish high school, they end up homeless and in our prisons. They are prime candidates for trafficking, prostitution, terrorists and becoming child soldiers. The loss of human potential is incalculable.

With support, most of these children are can learn and succeed. They have tremendous ability to be contributing members of society. This is the work of Kidsave -- to create change – so forgotten orphanage and foster kids are found -- and connected to families and caring adults.

Donation $5

To support Kidsave, please visit:  http://www.fostercaremonth.org/